A wasted weekend

[Kickaha]

Late on Saturday found my websites had been hacked.  Assumed it was because I use Joomla and hadn't done some bit of security loophole closing.  Felt stupid but life is a learning experience.

So I spent more hours than I wanted to changing passwords, reloading databases, reloading files, removing components I didn't trust.

A while later discovered that the hacking was a kernel exploit on the server my website was hosted.  There was nothing I could have done to prevent it.  That was a relief.

The upside of all this is to keep a focus on security.  I'm inclined now to make my local copy of the websites the master.  Since they are personal websites I alone edit that's feasible.

[ad7venture]

This hacking etc, has really gotten bad.  I know my Web supplier upped their security lately and told me I had to have a more secure password and did some other things.  I haven't done anything on my site for a while.  If I get another game out, I'll probably get more interested in it.  I've been weighing if it's worth keeping or not.  I'm not a Facebook type person, so I may keep it.  Starlite's news about the number of downloads for 8 Squares in the Garden kind of encouraged me a little.
I think it's probably safer to keep a master copy locally. 

[Kickaha]

Yes that must have been heartening about the number of downloads of "8 Squares"!

[StarLite]

Hi guys, sorry to hear about your site Kickaha, these spammers are a pain in the lower extremities. Remind me again why we can't track them down and cut their fingers off. Hope you get everything back working again

Yes 8 Squares did really well. I thought I was doing good with 545 downloads. I like the way my hubby talks about the download. Try to imagine that many people in a room or in ad7's case a ballroom, that's how many people have played your game. Amazing.

Well it's lunch time here, so I'm off for now. Take care all and take care of those spammers

[NigeC]

Sorry to hear about the hassle with ur site, a thing I know all about 
Reading this I thought I better check on my site, I haven't looked in awhile.. and the bloody thing aint working!!
congrats on all the downloads AD7

[Kickaha]

Sorry you've had problems too NigeC!  Internet security is a hard battle, attackers only need one loophole to get in.

[StarLite]

I just had someone join my site called DesignerHandbags. They left a couple of messages with a link to a handbag shop. I took the link off and if I don't see the person back for a couple of weeks I'm deleting them as well.

I get so sick of these spammers and hackers, people work hard to keep their sites running. I wish you could get something written into a program so that when they try to spam or hack you, they get zapped with some kind of electrical current that wipes their hard drives. That would be alright

[Imari]

Sorry, Kickaha.   Hackers... what a waste of space.   

Nige, I went to your site (on reflex  ) and that's a pretty cool steampunk R2-D2 thingy that you've got there.  Nice.

[NigeC]

yeah it was a temp glitch.. luckily
Little R2 was modeled in Sketchup

[ad7venture]

I was looking at the R2D2 on your site also, Nige.  Very nice. 

[Kickaha]

That's a fun piece of work NigeC!  Must check out the article on getting Vista to recognise AIR as that may be relevant to me soon.

[NigeC]

I was a beta tester for What makes you tick.. Stitch in Time, and I couldn't get Vista to recognise AIR, even the Adobe site had nothing about how to fix it, most of the google searches pointed back to Adobe lol.
So your going back to the darkside? Right now I could do with an Imac, I'm also beta testing Thea and we only have one Mac tester and he's never around
R2 was great fun to do, I'm having a whale of a time messing with Sketchup, thanks

[Kickaha]

I'm thinking of making what I'm doing in Flex into an AIR app, though I'm on a Mac I would get questions if AIR doesn't work well on Vista.

How much Mac testing is needed?

[StarLite]

Vista, we have it on our laptop. Actually it was my brother-in-law's laptop and he gave it to me when he couldn't use it anymore. My hubby swears by Window's 7. I'm still using the old XP. I have so much stuff on my computer I don't want to get another computer because I don't want to have to put it all back on again. But this old thing isn't going to last forever.