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!

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!

Have I really only made one post today? Eh, it was a rainy Monday, and Lin was home all day. Sort of both busy and lazy … and not much time spent at the computer.

Someone emailed me to say that his virus checker said my site was infected with something. I found an odd bit of code, and there was some weirdness with Twitter recently which may have crossed over (or who knows what the hell happened), so let me know if anyone else has a problem or if it continues! I’m about to upgrade and redesign the whole site anyway. I may just bump that project up a bit … like start on it ASAP.

But not tonight. I’m tired. Too much rain and laziness. A whole lot of nothing to say. Maybe I’ve got some pictures to post on the camera. I’ve taken quite a few the last few days.

I rescind my earlier comment about the new server my site was moved to being zippy. Oh yes, it was completely zippy, right up until it stopped doing anything at all, and they had to reboot it. It had previously been rebooted a mere day before. This does not bode well for my continued business dealings with A Small Orange, and while I have had some good (even great) years with them, I do have to rescind my recommendation of them for hosting any web site you expect to be online reliably. And by reliably, I don’t even mean 99.99% of the time. I mean it’s there when you visit it more often than not.

Aaron server has been up for a whole 16 minutes now. Let’s see if it makes it through the rest of the day. Meanwhile, I’m going to back up all my files, learn how to point my domains at my Livejournal account, and start looking for a new host. I want to be able to move everything at the drop of a hat … or the failing of a server. If my site goes down again in the next 24 hours, I am gone. It’s as simple as that. I was merely aggravated. Now, I am fully pissed off about it all.

I don’t know when exactly it’s going to happen, and there may be a bit of time for the DNS to catch up to my site, but I’m about to tell them to go ahead and move my web site whenever they are ready to do so. Don’t worry! I’ll be back eventually! :lol:

In the meantime, any babbling I feel the need to do will be found over at my Livejournal. See you on the other side!