Category Archives: Site Issue

Plugin Fail

Site Issue

My apologies to anyone who happened to wander to my site this morning and afternoon, only to discover it was unreachable. My webhost, MacHighway, had a server issue today.

It looks like everything’s finally up and running now.

It appears the cause was an exploit in a WordPress plugin that hadn’t been updated by another user on the shared server. There is a plugin that’s used by many WordPress themes and other plugins called “timthumb”. Older versions are very vulnerable to being exploited.

There is a plugin called “Timthumb Vulnerability Scanner“. If you use WordPress at all, I recommend you install, activate, and run the plugin, then take action if it finds any issues.

Until next time...
Erik

I’ve Moved!

Site Issue

Well, the digital me has at least. If you can see this, then my move from my old web host to the new web host went well.

Back in October, I discovered my current web host was going out of business. I asked for recommendations, which many of you offered. Based on J.P.’s recommendation, I ended up choosing MacHighway. While I’m not a Mac guy in any way, I do like the fact that the servers are wind powered.

I first moved a couple of my “static” business websites over to them to see how that went. After not seeing any real issues, I decided I’d take the big leap and move this site over to them as well.

Which was a little more challenging.

MacHighway has excellent documentation on moving from one host to another, and all the things you need to do to make it work. I ended up having issues with both methods they document for moving WordPress sites, so I ended up doing it my own way. Which worked. 😉

As I write this post, I see a few minor things I need to figure out what’s going on with. But for the most part everything looks like it survived the move.

Until next time...
Erik

I’m looking for a new web host

Site Issue

My web host bitServe, who I’ve always loved, recommended countless times, and have never had any problems with at all, posted this on their front page:

bitServe has ceased operations. Paid subscribers will be provided hosting service through December 31, 2011 in lieu of a refund.

I don’t know when they posted this, but I was taken by surprise, especially considering I don’t recall receiving any email about that from them.

Which means my hunt begins for a new web host which to move all the domains I own over to, including my blog. /joy

It’s been a long time since I had to go hunting for a web host.

My basic requirements are PHP 5 support, Perl support, MySQL database support, FTP and telnet access, and some sort of admin control panel.

Do any of my readers have any recommendations? Who do you use, or who do you know that I should avoid?

Until next time...
Erik

Title Weirdness

Site Issue

I didn’t really notice until today, but the title of my blog had changed from “gambrinous with griffonage” to “erik rubright”. That probably happened when I changed from my original handcrafted creation to this theme that I heavily bastardized. Who knows. Actually, I might have noticed at some point but it didn’t really “click” until today. So I corrected that. Hopefully I didn’t confuse anyone. At least any more than normal.

I don’t have anything against using my name as my blog title, but it doesn’t sound as confusing as “gambrinous with griffonage”. And I like to be confused.

Until next time...
Erik

Pardon My Dust…

Site Issue

Something went horrifically wrong with the custom theme I have been using on my site since I first created my blog back in the long ago.

As a result, I’m using the default WordPress theme until I can get it fixed.

Which probably won’t be for a few weeks.

UPDATE, around 1 AM: Well lookey there… I found a backup! Yeah, I’m back to my old self now. Although I do need to update this blasted thing.

Until next time...
Erik