Adding your email address to your web site the safe way i.e. without getting SPAM !

Adding email to your web site can be a great way for your users to get in touch with you with issues they have which you can help them with. The problem is, as soon as you do that, it is likely your email address will attract a lot of spam bots obtaining your address to advertise things you really don't want to hear about.

So how do you get around this problem?

I recently discovered TinyMailto.com !

This is fantastic I will probably use it on my web sites in the future.

What does it do?

"TinyMailto.com lets you convert your e-mail address into a URL that is protected from spammers by a captcha test.

You can use a tinymailto URL to put it in public places like web pages, forum/e-mail signatures, etc. If someone wants to get your e-mail address, the person must pass a Captcha test in order to view and use your e-mail address.
This way, you can protect your e-mail address from spammers and web robots (web-bots).

A Captcha test is an image that can be interpreted only by a human being.

TinyMailto.com will work for you if you already put your e-mail address on the web sites."

Learn more by visiting the web site at http://tinymailto.com/

How to ping a specific port / How to test a connection between two computers on a WAN

With Windows XP it was possible to use the DirectX Diagnostic Tool, specifically Test DirectPlay to test a connection between two computers. It was mainly used as a gaming tool to establish which computer was blocking a connection.

However the best way to test specific ports is to use the telnet feature as you cannot "ping" a specific port. What telnet does is open a TCP connection on the port that you specify (if you don't specify one it defaults to 25). To do this is simple.

Firstly though if you are on Windows Vista / Windows 7 you need to enable the telnet feature (Windows XP users can skip this step). To do this; Click on Control Panel, click Programs, and then click Turn Windows features on or off. Scroll down to Telnet Client and tick the box. It will take several minutes to install.

Now open command prompt  (Win XP click on Run in start menu and type in "cmd" and press enter / Win Vista and; 7 users simply type "cmd" into your start menu's search box and press enter). Now use the telnet command in the same way as the ping command.

For example computer 1 has an IP of 127.5.45.55, and computer 2 (ip of 225.36.52.2) is trying to connect to port 6667 in order to play Generals but they cannot connect. Computer 1 would type into command prompt "telnet 225.36.52.2 6667". Computer 2 would type in "telnet 127.5.45.55 6667". As you can see it is extremely similar to the ping command. The results will be relayed back to the user.