WordPress E-mail notifications not working

I installed WordPress with my own domain on a self hosted server on Mediatemple (dv), and sadly none of my e-mail notifications, or e-mail using plug-ins worked - No notifications on new comments, no notification whenever someone uses Contact From 7, WP DB Backups not being sent, nothing. I searched all WordPress forums for hours (and spilled some of my own blood during the process), but finally I managed to find what was my problem and what's the solution. Here it is:

The Problem

My domain was maintained on GoDaddy. I had my e-mail with my domain (e.g. myname@mydomain.com) pointing to Google Apps instead of using my hosting company's mail server. However, when you create a new domain with Plesk, it automatically enables your e-mail address on your hosting company. So that caused e-mails being sent from my WordPress PHP Mail to fail.

The Solution

Disable your local mail for your domain. Media Temple KB has this article on how to do it, though it should be similar on any Plesk environment.

Credits
The post which finally directed me to the right answer (after hours of searching) can be found here: http://picketstudio.com/post/10230298607/media-temple-mail-quirks

Did this solution for problems with WordPress E-mail notifications work for you? Let me know in the comment section.

Yahoo Mail Beta Cannot Load - LaunchTAE14 (Google Chrome)

When trying to login to my Yahoo Mail Beta account, I encountered the following error on my system (Windows 7, Chrome):

"Yahoo Mail Beta Cannot Load. Error code LaunchTAE14."

This happened only on Google Chrome 11. It worked fine on Internet Explorer 8.0 and FireFox.

I tried basically everything suggested on the web, nothing helped.

Finally I found a solution for this problem:
I uninstalled the Skype Toolbar. This appears to have solved the problem.

How to uninstall Skype Toolbar (on Windows 7):

• Close all open browser windows.
• Press the WINDOWS (Start) button
• Type Uninstall on the search bar. 
• From the results, choose "Uninstall a program"
• Search for the Skype Toolbar
• Click Uninstall.

That's it.

Let me know if this worked for you.

Another Illustrated Wedding Invitation

A couple that saw this wedding invitation that I drew asked me to draw them a similar invitation. So I did.

Drawn using a Wacom tablet, in Photoshop CS5.


If you like this caricature and want your own caricature from a photo, I'll draw one for you.

Rome Total War - Vengeance Video

I've been playing Rome Total War (RTW) on and off for several years now. RTW is a turn based strategy game taking place in the early days of the Roman Republic. The game also includes real time strategy battles, allowing a player control armies from Rome, Greece, Egypt, and other empires of the ancient world.
Recently, I ran into this hilarious video record of a Rome Total War online battle. One player was challenged by one of the most experience RTW online players out there, and virtually kicks his butt. The video is accompanied by his cynical commentary, it's pure comedy! :-)

The Google Toilet - by SuperNews

From the same guys who brought you "Twoulbe with Twitters" comes this hilarious video.

Hilarious at first sight, scary on second sight. Oh wait, scheisse, this film is hosted by Google's YouTube... and I'm using Google's Blogger to write this... Nice Google.... Niiiiiice Google...

Birthday Party Invitation

A birthday party invitation I drew for a friend.

ImageShack Hacked

I discovered today that several of the images I store in ImageShack were hacked. The images were replaced with a new image, bearing the following message:


Imageshack

Proudly presents...

Anti-Sec. We're a movement dedicated to the eradication of full-disclosure. We wanted to give everyone an image of what we're all about.

Full-disclosure is the disclosure of exploits publicly - anywhere. The security industry uses full-disclosure to profit and develop scare-tactics to convince people into buying their firewalls, anti-virus software, and auditing services.

Meanwhile, script kiddies copy and paste these exploits and compile them, ready to strike any and all vulnerable servers they can get a hold of. If whitehats were truly about security this stuff would not be published, not even exploits with silly edits to make them slightly unusable.

As an added bonus, if publication wasn't enough, these exploits are mirrored and distributed widely across the Internet with a nice little advertisement embedded in them for the crew or website which first exposed the vulnerability to the public.

It's about money. While the world is difficult to change, and money will certainly continue to be very important in the eyes of many, our battle is that of the removal of full-disclosure for the purpose of making it harder for the security industry to exploit its consequences.

It is our goal that, through mayhem and the destruction of all exploitative and detrimental communities, companies, and individuals, full-disclosure will be abandoned and the security industry will be forced to reform.

How do we plan to achieve this? Through the unrelenting, unmerciful elimination if all supporters of full-disclosure and the security industry in its present form. If you own a security blog, and exploit publication website or distribute any exploits... "you are a target and you will be rm'd. Only a matter of time."

This isn't like before. This time everyone and everything is getting owned.

Signed: The Anti-Sec Movement

No images were harmed in the making of this... image.


Here's a screenshot I took of the Imageshack Hack Message.


It's still unclear who did this and why. There have been more and more reports of this across the web in the past several hours, but still no official statement from ImageShack. I'm also still not sure whether the images hacked are recoverable (in case ImageShack backs up their servers) or are they lost forever...

Did you happen to come across this issue? If so, post a comment.