MRN Web Designs Blog - NJ Web Designer

Message failed! Check your settings and check with your hosting provider Could not instantiate mail function.

smjeska — Fri, 04 May 2012 21:13:01 +0000

I have a client who has the Subscriber2 plugin that automatically notifies subscribers when posts are made, as well as having the ability to email out to all the subscribers. One day it was working fine, then she all of a sudden receives the message, “Message failed! Check your settings and check with your hosting provider Could not instantiate mail function.” when she tries to email out a password protected posting. In addition, after she created a new post, an email was not sent to her subsribers.

After thinking it was a plugin issue or maybe a WordPress issue, I finally got help from a colleague (Jeff Scotti of Scotti Designs) who recommended I contact the hosting company because one of the reasons it might not be working is because: Restrictions on the number of messages sent. In order to combat spam many hosts are now implementing time based limitations. This means you are only allowed to send a certain number of messages per unit time, 500 per hour for example.

Sure enough, my hosting plan only allowed 150 message per hour. The rep increased the messages to 2000 and it now works! Thanks Jeff!

Slowing down speed of scrolling marquee

smjeska — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:30:23 +0000

To slow down the speed of a scrolling marquee, add the attribute, “scrolldelay= ” . The higher the number the slower the scroll and vice versa.

HTML code for horizontal line

smjeska — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 14:24:23 +0000

If you want to put a horizontal line to separate items on your page it is simply the

attribute.
Here are some options you can add to your line:

Inserts a horizontal line.
Attributes:

size=”..” ; the thickness of the line.
color=”..” ; line color, Internet Explorer only.
width=”..” ; the length of the line.
align=”..” ; alignment of line: RIGHT, LEFT, or CENTER.
noshade ; make a solid line.

Scrolling Marquee for testimonials

smjeska — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 14:20:25 +0000

I am working on a new site and wanted to have a section with scrolling testimonials. I found a great tip online at: http://www.web-source.net/web_design_tips/html_marquee_scrolling_text.htm
If you are familiar with HTML code you can easily edit it.

Printing Powerpoint Handouts 4 to a page larger

smjeska — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:18:08 +0000

When I would print 4 slides to a page in PowerPoint, the slides would sometimes come out too small to read. To print the 4 slides bigger on a page, go to your printer properties dialog box, then the “features” tab, and under “Pages per Sheet”, choose 4 pages per sheet. This will stretch the slides to the sides of the page, versus just choosing 4 slides to a page in the main printing dialog box.

Print queue won’t clear or delete

smjeska — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:14:16 +0000

My printer had a pending document that wouldn’t delete. I googled how I could fix it and came up with a great answer that worked, so I’ll share it with anyone who also might have the same problem.

go to your start menu, open the RUN window. (In Windows 7 its the “search programs and files” box at bottom of start menu)
type : services.msc and hit “enter”
Scroll down the list of services to the Print Spooler. The status will probably read “STARTED”
Right click on Print Spooler and select STOP. The status should change to blank.
Right click on it again and select START.
Close the services window.
Check your print queue again, it should be empty now.

Thanks to Ian A on Yahoo!Answers

To Limit the number of posts on a page in Word Press

smjeska — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 11:50:35 +0000

To Limit the number of posts on a page in Word Press, go to to the Dashboard, then Settings, then Reading and here you can specify the number of posts displayed.

Putting in a contact form in Dreamweaver CS5

smjeska — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 12:07:31 +0000

To put a contact form in Dreamweaver, visit the following links:

http://www.thesitewizard.com/dreamweaver/dreamweaver-cs5-tutorial-8.shtml

http://www.thesitewizard.com/wizards/feedbackform.shtml

I just put one on a clients site and it works just great! Thank you site wizard.

How to eliminate a program starting up in Windows XP

smjeska — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 12:23:31 +0000

Find it in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Start Menu\Programs\Startup, where username is your Windows logon name. Delete the shortcuts of any programs you don’t want to run on start-up. As with any shortcuts, when you delete them, you’re deleting only the shortcut, … Continue reading →

Making a jpg image transparent

smjeska — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 11:53:58 +0000

If you have a jpg file that has a white background, such as a logo with a tagline, the following steps can make the background of the picture transparent:
1. Open the file in Illustrator.
2. Copy the artwork
3. After copying the art in Illustrator, go to Photo Shop.
4. In Photo Shop go to File>New> Preset: Clipboard. Background Contents: Transparent