Tutorial/How-To, Useful Tools »

A few days ago I was sending an email from my Simply-Basic administrative email account and it got sent back with the following cryptic error message:

host mx4.hotmail.com [65.54.244.104]: 550 SC-001 Mail rejected by Windows Live Hotmail for policy reasons. Reasons for rejection may be related to content with spam-like characteristics or IP/domain reputation problems. If you are not an email/network admin please contact your E-mail/Internet Service Provider for help. Email/network admins, please visit http://postmaster.live.com for email delivery information and support.

Apparently Windows Live (aka Hotmail) blocked my entire mail server permanently as spam. I contacted by web hosting company and they said that since I’m on a shared server it only takes a few people sending…

Tutorial/How-To »

I hate solitaire. I kicks my butt every time. My wife can beat it in under two minutes and it takes me ten to finally realize I’ve lost. So imagine my joy when I found out there’s a way to beat solitaire everytime. I beat it in seventeen seconds! Don’t believe me? Look at the screenshot below, check out the time by the arrow.

Are you impressed? Ok, ok, I’ll tell you how I did it. To win at solitaire at will, simply press the following combo while playing: Alt+Shift+2. That’s right. you’ll win everytime.

Tutorial/How-To, WordPress »

Those writing plugins for WordPress 2.5 may be wondering how to update their plugin’s options menu to reflect the new style sheet. While writing my recently-released Smart Ads WordPress plugin I discovered a few new CSS class names that will help your plugin integrate into the options menu seamlessly. Here’s how to do it.

Styling the Options Page

The CSS styling names for the options menu has changed slightly since WordPress 2.3 and earlier. A lot of plugins have an options menu in the “Settings” area of the admin console (this occurs when the admin_menu action hook is used). The following code reflects the current CSS names.

Code:

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Tutorial/How-To »

Earlier today I was writing a paper in Microsoft’s Word (part of the Office 2007 suite) and I needed to insert a horizontal line that spanned left margin to right margin. While trying to figure this out I came across this simple trick. To add a basic horizontal line simply type three consecutive dashes followed immediately by the return key. Word interprets this as a horizontal line. There are several other combinations that work, as you can see in the image below. In each case it is three symbols then press return! Nice and easy.

Tutorial/How-To »

Few things are more frustrating to a website owner then server downtime that he or she has no control over. Downtime represents lost traffic, frustrated visitors, and possibly lost revenue. How frustrating is it? Just ask me. My former host was less then reliable for some time, yet I was reluctant to move. Why? Fear of the unknown. I had never switched hosts before, and I wasn’t very sure of what I was doing. I doubt I’m the only one who’s had these reservations.

But aside from poor quality hosts, you can also outgrow your host. Whatever the case maybe, switching web hosts can be a daunting thought. Hopefully my experiences can make it a…

Tutorial/How-To, Useful Tools »

While thinking about the article I wrote yesterday (Content Theft: Die Splog Die), I came across an interesting article about how to deter image theft, or hotlinking. Hotlinking is when a website links directly to the images stored on your server. Not only is this stealing your image, but it is stealing bandwidth that you are paying for.

Spam websites that are stealing your content are usually also stealing your images. So in addition to the copyright notice that I’ve placed in the RSS and email feeds, I’ve decided to deter image hotlinking as well. This is done by editing your site’s .htaccess file to only load images when referred from your website (or other websites…