Lowlyspy

First off, i'm completely new to making servers so don't bite my head off if I ask stupid questions, i'm still learning this stuff. I got my server working this morning and was able to connect to it fine. When my friend tried to connect it wouldn't let him, it said the server timed out but I hadn't seen anything odd on my end. I'm fairly certain I gave him the correct seed and theoretically he should have been able to connect with no trouble, neither of us were having wifi issues so I have no clue what the deal is. Also for some reason I can't use any of the chat commands, to include granting anyone op status, including myself. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.