Tag Archives: did you back up lately?

Microsoft: Big Security Hole in All IE Versions

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It’s the end of the year, and you probably have a day or two off coming to you. If your family and friends haven’t already booked you solid (not that there’s anything wrong with that), you might want to consider doing yourself a few favors to make sure that next year is a good year:

1. Back up your stuff. I’ve said it again and again, because I’ve been burned myself — have a backup of your most critical stuff, or two backups, preferably with one of them off-site. Hoping and praying with not save your hard drive.

2. Make sure you’re running up-to-date virus protection. It won’t save you in all cases (like this
Big Security Hole in All IE Versions, which most virus apps aren’t even picking up) but it’ll definitely help. If you are using Internet Explorer, consider downloading Firefox or Safari and giving them a whirl instead.

3. Triple-check your statements for credit cards, banks, etc. to make sure that only the stuff you bought for Christmas is on there. Any problems or threats you’re experiencing are easier to fix the sooner you find them. If you’re checking them online, also make sure your chosen companies have accurate email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses so that if something odd does happen, they can actually reach you.

OK, soapbox trip over — for now ;)

Blip

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So, uh, we were without a database for a little while this evening, but it’s back now.

…

I, uh, think I’m gonna go run some backups, just to ease my nerves.

Which reminds me: if you’re in NaNoWriMo, or you’ve done anything else of note in the past few weeks that you don’t want to lose by freak accident, this is a good time to back up. Yes, right now, while you’re thinking about it.

Go on. I’ll wait.

On miracles and mental breakdowns.

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Yeah, so last night at about 11:30, I was working on some code for a little side-project while watching the Phillies game and generally trying to spin down from a crazy day. I got about 2/3 of what I needed done, and I tried to push a new stylesheet up to the system, when suddenly everything choked. Dreamweaver, which is prone to the occasional odd error message, informed me that it couldn’t upload the file in question because, well, the file didn’t exist, or maybe I didn’t have permission to use it.

And, well, that’s bunk, because I’m the ONLY one with permission to use these files, and this particular one had been uploaded mere minutes before. So I logged on to my web host and decided to manually upload the file instead…. only to discover that Dreamweaver wasn’t lying; the directory I was working in was empty. So were most of the others. Most of the pages here woudn’t load, and a good chunk of my other work was just plain gone.

Panic ensued.

I sent a note to the support team, waited a few minutes, and watched as one by one entire directories just poofed. No backup files, no forum, no wordpress… Another panicked note to the support team. This time, a response: they’re aware of it and working on it and it’ll be up within the hour. But that was at 1 AM and I have to be to work early today for a meeting. (yay meeting.)

Did you ever go to bed at night and wonder if everything you’d done was going to be there in the morning? Not a comfy feeling. I think I “get” Neverending Story in a whole new way now.

After a fitful night sleep, I’m back, and so is everything else. The support team was, as always, good to their word. And I am immediately applying what I learned. First, a backup was done. (I do these regularly, but not regularly enough.) And second, I’ve added a link to my Xanga blog in the links section. Strangely, when everything else was disappearing rapidly last night, the homepage was still there, so the links section was still functional. If all else has failed, I’m relatively sure Xanga will still be standing, and since it doesn’t live on the same server as everything else, it’s a decent place to post updates when I can’t post updates. Of course, in case of catastrophe, homepage mileage may vary, so you may want to make note of that one somewhere if you haven’t already.

So anyway, mental breakdown over, and I have to get my butt to work. Here’s hoping the next 24 hours contains fewer heart-attack inducing elements for all of us.