In case you didn’t catch the news in any of my previous posts, I’m going out of town for a few days. I don’t know if I’ll be making any posts or not while away, but most likely not … unless the urge becomes overwhelming or I remember I can make audio posts and Tweets (and the urge becomes overwhelming).

So enjoy your break from my babbling, and I’ll try to enjoy my break as well. I should be back early next week sometime to begin babbling anew. I know you can’t wait!

And now, I am running incredibly late, so I must dash to the truck and hit the road before my mom’s head explodes.

Could the Russian comment spammers please die now? Seriously. The last few days have been insane with Russian comment spam. None of it gets through to the web site, of course, because it’s spam and my web site knows spam when it sees it. But still … I have to deal with it and delete it, and when it stacks up I have to look at them all to make sure there weren’t any real comments that got caught in the net.

So annoying.

And yes, that’s all I really have to say at the moment.

It rained all day. I’m in a mood.

I wrote a long-winded and extremely boring post containing a lot of whining about needing to upgrade my Wordpress installation and the usual “what to do about the archives” problem. It was so long-winded and boring I deleted it. All you need to know is the newest version of Wordpress is awesome, and as soon as I get my template/theme updated to work with widgets (and a few other background duties), I will be doing a backup of my database, wiping the current installation, and starting out all fresh and clean with a new installation and no archives at Just Orb. It’s time. I haven’t dumped the archives in four years!

And … there might even be a new site design too. I haven’t decided about that yet, but it’s been four years since I have done anything more with the paint on the walls at Just Orb other than add new kitties to the banner as we got new kitties. It’s probably time for some upgrading and updating on that as well.

Yes, Orb is finally ready to enter the world of 21st century blogging.

About time, yes?

I am having some sort of strange crossposting breakdown in my blogging empire. Just three hours ago, my amazing words of wisdom were zipping here and there informing the world I had something to say, and now it’s not going everywhere it should.

Even more horrifying is the fact I can’t seem to actually delete posts off my blog without going into the database to do it. What the hell?

UPDATE: No idea what the not deleting but actually deleting and not really removing the post situation is with my blog, but I think the other problem is a Twitter issue. I’m going to try one more thing, and then I am leaving it all be until later. Maybe it’ll work itself out on its own.

Today was the 8th anniversary of Just Orb. I’ve been babbling about nonsense on at least a weekly basis on the internet for 14 years. It was that anniversary, and I forgot about it. I thought about it last week, meant to do something special on the web site, and then just plain old forgot about it.

Just thought I should make note of the passing of the date.

Damn, that’s a long time

Ummmm … in my world, it’s a bad sign when a web hosts own web site doesn’t load, especially after a major security breach and hacker attack. I think the forums are finally loading, but it’s slow as hell. My site is loading slowly too. Maybe I can find out what’s going on, if the forums ever finish making their way to my browser window.

Let’s just say, I feel I should remind you about my Livejournal, where I can always be found when I can’t be found anywhere else. You might want to bookmark it, if you haven’t already. I was going to sit tight at A Small Orange until the time I just paid for ran out, to give myself some time to find a good place to move my site to instead of doing it spur of the moment (and wasting money), but I have been through the implosion of web hosts before, and difficulty in getting to their own web site and forums to load is never, ever a good sign. Makes me jumpy.

So, if you stop by Just Orb, and it’s not where you expect it to be, go to the Livejournal to find out what’s up, what I’ll be doing about it, and any associated angry ranting. I’d be starting the angry ranting now, because the server status page just mostly loaded, and it looks like there are servers down all over the place, but I want to try to get this post posted first. The forums refuse to load. I don’t even know if this is going to post or not. Probably not. I’ll just keep trying until it does.

Looks like I’ll be moving Just Orb more hastily than I planned.

For the record, A Small Orange has now officially moved into the category of Web Hosts That Suck. I don’t know what’s going on, and I really don’t give a damn. Whatever is going on (and has been going on for a couple of weeks now), it’s a complete hosting failure, as far as I am concerned.

In case you aren’t in the habit of visiting my web site late at night or early in the morning, you may not have noticed that my web host was hacked late last night. Not my web site. Not even just the server my web site is hosted on. No, I mean the HOST, and multiples of servers were wiped clean and serving up a page offering a malware download that contained who knows what (for hours and hours — very disturbing). All of this mayhem was due to an employee signing in from a home computer that was compromised and his password to his A Small Orange employee account being grabbed … and used, because there were no security measures in place to make sure something like that couldn’t happen. Color me unimpressed with the security measures in place.

To say I am, at the least, distraught and pissed off would be a grand understatement. Their backup was recent enough that I didn’t lose anything but the last photo I uploaded (so far as I can tell at the moment), but when I discovered what was going on as I was headed to bed last night, every last one of my files was gone. Use your imagination as to my reaction, or go to my Livejournal and read the ranting I did over there as this hell unfolded.

As soon as I get done with all the real life, offline stuff I have to get done today, I will be sitting down to explore my hosting options. I have the feeling continuing to use A Small Orange is not currently on the table. I’ve not been all that unhappy with them as a host over the years, but I have had web hosts I would describe as being the very worst web hosts on the planet, and never once did anything of this scale happen. A whole bushel basket of “Kudos” can be wiped away quite quickly by one “Oh Shit” of this magnitude.

Anyway, I have to get going with my day. Everything should be fine with my web site, no viruses or anything. It seems the hackers just deleted everything and set up their crappy little download page and file on the servers they got into (many of them). I’m sure I’ll be ranting more on this later.

And as if this weren’t enough, our Time Warner cable box is having fits this morning and keeps rebooting on its own. My very last consumer nerve was worked over thoroughly when my host experienced it’s security failure last night, so TW better not push my buttons today. In fact, everywhere I have to go better give me good customer service, because this has been a consumer’s week from hell for me. I have run into too much stupidity and failure this week, and my meter is pegged and my limit has been reached. The next FAIL I encounter will not go well for whoever is responsible.

The list of complaint emails I have to write grows longer each day. Ugh.

I am never going to get caught up on my email and blog/journal comments. OK, I will eventually get caught up, but it’s going to take some time. If you emailed me or commented somewhere to something I said, I’ll respond (hopefully before Monday). I was already behind when I left for Mom’s and now I am really, really behind!

Just thought I’d let everyone know I heard you, and I’m not ignoring you. I swear I got more email in the last five days than I do when I am at home checking it every day!

The post I made a mere few hours ago looked odd when I checked that the new post I just wrote had posted to my blog and formatted correctly. I went into the editor, thinking I had perhaps been not quite awake and made an awful typo without noticing (it happens sometimes, when I haven’t had my coffee yet). No, a spammy link had been injected into the post … the post I just posted this morning. I simply cannot find how this happens or how to stop it. There appear to just be inherent weaknesses in this version of Wordpress that have been terribly exploited.

I swear I am going to update my Wordpress and fix this problem once and for all (hopefully). I was hoping to widgetize my current theme and get used to the new back-end before I switched, but I can’t have this crap going on at Just Orb (and beyond, since it cross-posts all over the place). I promise to get this done ASAP, which means sometime before Monday. Since all my archives have been cross posted to Livejournal since the last time I will likely be dumping the archives over here and starting out fresh. Nuking the whole thing from orbit is the only way to be sure.

But I do have to make certain a few of my crucial plugins work with the new version or that suitable replacements can be found before I go all crazy on my web site. If something I use a lot doesn’t work with the new version, I will just have to live with it, but I at least want to test stuff first so there are no ugly surprises.

So I apologize now for any spamminess or weirdness you may encounter on my web site and elsewhere my stuff gets posted. I’m working on fixing it. I’ve put off upgrading long enough out of a reluctance to switch to a new way of doing things. I do tend to fall in love with a particular version of software and not want to change. Sorry. I also apologize in advance for any weirdness that may come in the next few days as I get everything updated and repaired. It’s always a little rough, but it always eventually has to be done. The time has come to move forward, no matter whether I want to or not.

Looks like it’s going to be another wet and nasty day today. The garden may be loving it, but I’m not. I’d really like to take my bright and nifty cushion and go lounge in my lounge chair while sipping a cold beer one of these days.

But, since it’s already been a wet and nasty morning, I updated my sandbox to the latest version of Wordpress. They seem to have fixed the things that drove me crazy with the last latest version, so once I am accustomed to where everything is on the back-end, have either switched my current site design to the new version or created a new design, and made certain my completely essential plugins work with the new version, I guess I’ll be upgrading the main site (or wiping it all and starting fresh). If the weather stays icky, may get done this week. If I drink enough coffee, may even get done today. Don’t hold your breath though. I don’t enjoy working on my web site as much as I used to enjoy it, so I am easily distracted by cats, art supplies, books, or sitting and staring at walls mindlessly.

For example, I am now feeling a strong urge to hover over my garden, even though it’s drizzling out there, and so I think I shall. With all this rain, things have really been growing … including the weeds!