Almost all mail client program send e-mail using port 25, which is also the port used by mail servers to talk to each other. But port 25 is widely abused by malware to spread worms and spam. As a result, many ISPs are restricting its use.

Hang on – it will make sense in a second:

Most people having a setup where they are on an Internet Service Provider (ISP) like ATT and have an email address like “MyEmail@ATT.net”  You connect to the internet using ATT and send mail through the ATT server – no problem.

But if you have your own domain email address or an email address from another ISP you may hit a snag. In these cases you are connecting to the internet through your ISP (like Comcast, SpeakEasy, ATT, etc) and trying to send email through your third party host like “MyEmail@SuperCoolWebsite.com”

Your ISP says “Hey! There is someone on my network trying to send email through someone elses address! This might be spam or malware!” You can receive mail, but you can’t send mail.

Recently ATT and Verizon both made changes that affected outgoing mail. Here’s the fix:

If you cannot SEND MAIL

1. Open OUTLOOK
2. Select TOOLS
3. Select ACCOUNT SETTINGS
4. Highlight the account in question and select CHANGE
5. Select MORE SETTINGS
6. Select ADVANCED
7. Change from PORT 25 to PORT 587
8. Save everything and restart Outlook

Other email programs will have similar settings. Look for PROPERTIES or PREFERENCES and find the outgoing mail server option.

One other option to check is that you are authenticating before sending. In other words. logging in with your username and password to both check and send email.

In Outlook the options window looks like this:

This tells Outlook to send your username and password before trying to send mail. If you have problems try enabling or disabling this setting.

The screen shots used in this how-to are my actual settings and they work just fine with SpeakEasy and ATT.

When upgrading WordPress you may receive the dreaded Error 500 – Internal Server Error:

Don’t Panic. This usually means that the files you uploaded did not completely replace their predecessors.

Check your FTP settings and tell your FTP program to OVERWRITE existing files on the server. Some thing like this:

I usually have my Uploads option set to “Overwrite if Source Newer” but I have seen this cause problems when uploading WordPress revisions like WordPress 2.7.1 so I change it to “Overwrite” when upgrading the files.

Re-upload the files, refresh your admin panel and breathe a sigh of relief.

In the posting “Insert a Drop Down Calendar Menu In Excel – Choose a Date!” one of the steps requires that you select the Microsoft Date & Time Picker Control 6.0 (SP4).

Looking for it? Trying to figure out where to download it from? If it is not installed on your system you can download it here.

To unzip a CAB file simply follow the directions in the posting “A Free Alternative to Winzip or WinRar: 7-Zip”

Once the file is unzipped simply run the MSCOMCT2.BAT batch file!

I just updated the site to version 2.7 and received the error Cannot redeclare is_sticky()

This is caused by the Lester Chan plug-in Wp-Sticky

If you get the error, simply FTP into your WordPress installation and go to wp-content/plugins/ and delete wp-sticky

In order to use Sticky posts in WordPress 2.7, look under the PUBLISH section:

You need to select the EDIT option next to VISIBILITY and the Sticky Post option will appear like so:

This will place the post at the top of the front page for posts and keep it there after new posts are made.