Sometimes when things do not work, you tend to blame on the stupid idiot box. This is especially true with programming for example… I am sure it’s very common for programmers, you are rushing to meet the deadline and your code somehow just doesn’t work!

Guess what you do next? Throw the stupid computer out of the window!

I wanted to do the same when my AdSense doesn’t generate US$50 a day and my Alexa drop out of the 100K mark.

Yesterday we had installed the Telnet client on our Windows Vista. Today, let’s try to send an email using nothing but the Telnet client. This is a very good way to troubleshoot problems in sending emails in your email client such as Microsoft Outlook, and while at the same time you can learn the protocols which actually happen in the background when you press the “send” button in your email client.

What I listed below is the general commands that will work on most mail servers. If yours do not work, you will need to check what’s the mail server you are currently running and change the commands slightly.

1. Go to a DOS prompt
2. Type “telnet”, hit Enter.
3. Type “open mail.YourDomain.com 25″ (replace YourDomain.com with your domain name. And replace the default port 25 if necessary), hit Enter.
4. Type “HELO”, hit Enter.
5. Type “AUTH LOGIN”, hit Enter.

Your telnet window should look like the following now.

Now, you now need to enter your full email address and then your password encoded in BASE64. To convert your full email address and your password to BASE64, you can use this handy BASE64 encoding tool. Enter your email, click on “Encode”, copy that encoded value in the telnet session and press Enter. After that do the same for your password.

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I know people might have forgotten what’s Telnet already because this ancient old program is not secure and people have more favor for secure Telnet and SSH clients such as Putty. Telnet is not even installed in standard Windows Vista installation.

Nevertheless, Telnet is still useful if you just want to use it to troubleshoot some simple functions quickly, such as on your web server or email server. To install Telnet client on Windows Vista, you simply need to follow the following steps.

1. Go to “Control Panel”
2. Select “Programs and Features”
3. In the left column, click on “Turn Windows features on or off”.
4. Check the box next to “Telnet client” and click on OK.

That’s it. The Telnet client will be installed in a short while. Sometimes it will take a couple of moments while Vista performs checks and etc I guess.

In a future post, I might show you how to use Telnet to send a quick email. Yupe, without using Outlook Express.

You read me right, and you do not need to shake your monitor or kick it… it’s true that All IT Hypermarket which is located at the 3rd floor of Digital Mall Petaling Jaya is having a IT products price crash. Let’s check out what gadgets we can grab at absolutely unbelievable prices.

RM1 for each of the following!

• Imation Thematic CDR (10 pieces)
• Digiboy PS2 Mouse
• 100 Plus (6 cans)

RM5 for each of the following!

• BenQ printable 16X DVD+R (10 pieces)
• SonicGear headset with mic
• Avec CD rack (30 CDs)

Oh my goodness, can you believe that?! Even if you are not so much into IT or gadgets stuff, I think you will definitely want to stock up tonnes of 100 Plus for the coming Chinese New Year!

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I think something must be wrong with me. It has been iPhone, iPhone and more iPhone. I see iPhone in everything. Now, even a new WordPress theme based on Apple iPhone! Maybe I am infected with the iPhone disease and cracking a WordPress theme is the temporary cure until iPhone’s price drop to an affordable level for me.

Anyway, I hope this new theme is suitable for this blog and make it easier for you to navigate and read, and stay a split second longer here.

Oh, before I forgot. I have to thank Design Disease who designed the great Dilectio Theme which this theme is based on. Basically, I did a complete makeover, changing almost all the images and graphics and some of the style sheets. The original theme was released under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License which means as long as I keep the credit, I can modify it.

What do you think? The AdSenses’ placement good or not? Can this theme join the elite AdSense optimized WordPress themes category?

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