Gentlemen, we can rebuild him
This Thanksgiving, prior to gorging myself on delicious food and tasty wine, I spent a few frustrating hours trying to figure out how to reclaim my blog after a douchebag hacker took it over. Luckily for me, although I am 50% luddite (the rest is German and Sicilian), I have lots of tech savvy friends to be thankful for.
The first is Vahid, who initially alerted me to the hackage of my site. Next came Dave2, offering his assistance even though he was in the midst of air-travel hell. Then was my friend kris, who calmed me down and walked me through taking my site offline. And finally, the support team at my host, Laughing Squid, worked on the holiday to have my site back up and running in just hours. Thanks, gang – you are the BEST blog-pals a gal could hope for!
Seriously – if any of you are looking to switch hosting services, I HIGHLY recommend you check out Laughing Squid. Kris initially recommended them to me after her 10 years of success with them. I switched to them about three years ago and have been nothing but pleased. They’re simply awesome to work with.
And now that this incident has reminded me how sorely inept I am at managing my own site, I’ve been inspired to learn more and make this blog better* than it was before. Better, stronger, faster. We have the technology!
* Author reserves the right to get distracted from web design by other things like cheese-making, bee-keeping, playing Nintendo DS and/or drinking wine. But she will really try this time, she swears!
Filed under: General on December 1st, 2008
December 1st, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I reckon I need to bookmark this page. My blog needs a serious overhaul!
December 1st, 2008 at 6:35 pm
That sucks about the hackage, but I’m glad you had help to sort it out.
December 1st, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Thank GOD for friends who know how to fix things. I’d die without my Jenny fix!
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:14 am
And hey, if you ever want me to add back in the missing javascript to your site so that “Remember Me?” actually remembers me… I’m happy to help there too.
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:58 am
I didn’t see anything obviously hack-like, so it must’ve been subtle and behind-the-scenes flavored. Still, geeks certainly are handy (I can say that because I have my own Badge of Geekery).
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:57 am
I will never understand hackers. Are they really that lame that they have to waste their time messing with someone’s blog? If I had those kind of skills, I’d be using them to download all the free music and movies I wanted without getting caught. That’s the kind of lame I am.
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:24 pm
derfina: well, i’m not sure you want to look to me as any sort of model – assuming i find the time to learn how to update my site, it will likely be riddled with bugs and glitches until my smart friends point them out and teach me how to fix them…
claire: always surround yourself with people who are smarter and more talented than you are, that’s what i always say!
hilly: wow. knowing that your life depends on my blog makes me think twice about being so lax in updating it. don’t walk toward the light, whatever you do!
dave2: oh believe me – that will be the #1 thing i fix, since it has almost pushed shari to the brink of insanity. (and really – i’ve tried all the fixes i found online – they don’t work, i swear! but i would welcome the assistance – as would shari…)
sir: well, if you had come here wed night or thursday morning, you would’ve seen nothing but a black page that said “HACKED!” again – thanks to the quick actions of my friends and the laughing squid rockstars, it was up and running pretty quickly.
churlita: yeah, i never understood that either. i think you’d make a really good hacker. at least stealing movies makes more sense than denying innocent blog readers the opportunity to see what amazing new youtube video i just posted.
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:12 pm
thank goodness i didn’t know you had been hacked until after i got home for the holiday, and the problem was solved. already being at my patience threshold i might have just died of peevishness. whew.
people are always trying to reset the password to my gmail account which gives me new outbreaks of peevishness and a crippling sense of vulnerability. after all, without my google identity, who am i? no blog, no blog reader, no google chat…
*shudder*
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I saw the hacked-ness, and panicked. I even co-miserated with Vahid on Twitter. But, unlike Vahid, I couldn’t do anything to help because I’m actually 80% luddite, with the remaining 20% simpleton. So I contented myself with holding my breath until you came back online. Lucky for me, you were quick.
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
You know, if you read the paragraph that starts “And now” while making the “nu nu nu nu …” sound in your head you get a bit of a bionic chill.
December 4th, 2008 at 7:42 am
asia: if you lose your google identity, who are you, really? nobody, that’s who.
shari: if you’re on twitter, you’re definitely not 80% luddite. or else that means that i’m actually 85% luddite.
delmer: exactly! i’m changing the name of my blog to run steve austin run.