Recently, TM Net has implemented a series of measures to mitigate the amount of spam on its networks, specifically its ADSL service, Streamyx. One of these measures is stricter filtering, and in some cases blocking of port 25 for all Streamyx accounts with dynamic IP addresses.

What this means is that if you have subscribed to a Personal Streamyx account, or a Business Broadband (SOHO Package), you may experience problems with sending out emails with the default settings of port 25, especially if you are sending out emails using your own domain name. If your customers frequently complain of not receiving your emails, this could be a tell tale sign. Users who are using their Streamyx email accounts may not be affected (example@streamyx.com) by this, since it involves emails on hosted domains (eg info@hosteddomain.com).

Personally, I experienced problems with sending out emails from my locally hosted and foreign hosted domains on port 25 and that is when I discovered this countermeasure by TM Net. In my case, my host Webserver has provided an alternative port, 587 for SMTP and this works much more reliably compared to port 25 (since TM Net is performing heavy filtering on this port). Therefore, it is advisable to contact your web host to find out if they have any alternative ports you can use for SMTP, especially if you experience slowness in sending emails.

If your web host does not have an alternative port, you can try TM Net’s suggested solution, which is to use smtp-proxy.tm.net.my as the SMTP server in place of your hosted domain name (eg mail.hosteddomain.com). For more information on how to set this up for your email clients, refer to this website : http://webmail.tm.net.my/info/proxy.html

If you have a fresh installation of Windows XP, you will realize that it won’t play DVD videos, or a host of other audio/video formats on the Internet, including MPEG4 videos encoded with codecs such as DivX, Xvid, H.264 and the like. Even if you do not need to be able to watch these newer MPEG4 video formats, you will at some time need to be able to at least watch a DVD Video.

However, if you were to pop in a DVD into your computer expecting Windows Media Player to play it, you will be in for a surprise, as it will not play your DVD Video if you have not installed a DVD decoder software. This is most likely to happen if you installed the DVD drive into your computer yourself, or if you have newly formatted your computer (since any DVD decoding software which may have originally come with your computer would have been erased).

If you were to perform a search on Google to solve this issue, you may come across several different websites which will point you in different directions for a solution. Most of them lead to commercial software which then allow your computer to play the DVD content. One example is this excerpt from a blog post entitled DVD Playback in Windows XP, hosted on Microsoft’s servers:

If you are unable to find an installed DVD decoder, you can purchase one from the same vendors from which PC manufacturers license theirs. Ravisent, InterVideo, and CyberLink all have DVD Decoder Packs available for purchase and download over the Internet. Windows Media Technologies also lists third-party software vendors who have DVD Decoder Packs available. The cost from each vendor runs about $14.95, unless you want to pay a little more and get a combo-pack which also includes MP3 encoding. I tried products from the three vendors mentioned above, and they all worked great. Their decoder packs installed quickly and easily, and as soon as installation was complete, Windows Media Player immediately started to play the movie after I inserted a DVD.

While some of the software mentioned above are good, the good news is that there is no real need to fork out your hard earned money just to be able to playback your multimedia content. Windows Media Player is an excellent video player and you do not really need to pay for another video player on your computer. All you really need is a proper set of codecs which will help Windows Media Player (or any other video player on your computer for that mattter) understand the format in which your multimedia content was created in.

Personally, I would recommend the XP Codec Pack, or the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack depending on your needs. Essentially, both of these are a set of codecs which have been carefully put together to enable the playback of most audio/video formats. If alll you want to watch is DVD Video or AVIs encoded with DivX or Xvid, then XP Codec Pack would suffice. If you want to be sure of being able to watch practically any audio/video content available today, regardless of what codec it was encoded with, you will want to go for the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack.

Both of these codec packs also include Windows Player Classic, which allows you to access the various functions included with the codecs, allowing finer control over how the audio and video content is decoded, thereby tremendously improving your viewing experience. So if you find that you are unable to play a certain format of video or audio on your computer, be it DVD content, or a movie you downloaded from the Internet, be sure to install one of the codec packs mentioned above, and you should be well on your way to enjoying your multimedia content.

Worth1000.com is undoubtedly one of the best image editing contest websites on the Internet today. It attracts a large pool of extremely talented image editing professionals, a majority of whom use Adobe Photoshop to create their masterpieces. This is the reason why such contests are often known as Photoshop contests.

At any given time, there are several contests running in parallel, and anyone with the right skill and passion is able to participate and showcase their talents. The contests themsevles are based on very creative themes which makes it interesting for both contestants and viewers, besides making the entries easier to judge since they are evaluated on common criteria, as illustrated in the Photoshopped image of the Petronas Twin Towers on the left.

To maintain the quality of the website, entries of substandard quality are removed by the moderators, as are clichéd entries containing over-used content.

Registered users of Worth1000.com can vote for entries on a scale of 1-10. To prevent abuse and to reward members who take time to vote fairly, a weighted average system called Karma is used. According to the Karma voting system, the more frequently and fairly a member rates entries in contests, the more their vote counts. For example, if a member has a Karma score of 100, and rates an image 8, it is counted as if 100 members rated the image an 8/10. A new user starts with a Karma score of 1, and can go all the way up to a score of 175. Jurors have a Karma score of 500, which is how they can have a significant impact on the outcome of each contest.

To be fair to beginners, certain contests are run separately for Beginners and Advanced members. This helps level the playing field as well as encourage new talent on the website itself. Some of the popular contests are also run several times, especially if they attract very creative and well-received entries. For example the UFO Sightings contest was run for the 10th time on the 21st of January 2008.

Some of the more seasoned pros on Worth1000.com often engage in Head to Head contests which involve a closed group of members ranging from 2 to 8 participating in a particular contest. The stakes of winning a Head to Head contest can range from public acknowledgement in the Worth1000.com forums, or changing the signature of the loser to something embarassing for a specified period of time.

To witness the very best in image editing skills and ability, head over to www.worth1000.com.