I'm Under Construction…Again
If my website looks a little different, here’s why:
My server host decided the best way to solve the brute force hacker attacks I was receiving was to kick me off their server…permanently. They cited me as an abuser of their system and someone they had to suspend four times to protect their other users. I’ll take ownership for one of those times—the first time (note to readers: do not install a wiki unless you know what you’re doing because it’s a spam magnet)—but the other three shutdowns were caused by brute force hacker attacks that my host emailed and told me were NOT MY FAULT. More on brute force hacker attacks in a future post. I’ve learned a LOT since April 2013.
Bottom line:
Web Hosting Hub will never get any of my business nor my recommendation. Ever.
They shut me down and kept me down with no ETA or updates (as promised in their emails) for 1 – 2 days at a time, were horrible with email-based customer service, had long online wait times for help calls that were never answered before I gave up and hung up.
Rather than import the data dump file they generously gave me 72 hours to claim (and which doesn’t even seem complete), I decided to restore my blog almost from scratch. Just in case I had some malware. I had a blog backup but it was from the end of April. Better than nothing. The media images did not want to import so I’m working through those slowly, re-importing in bulk then reattaching to the posts. Ditto with the widgets and pages.
Since I have 3 of these blogs to rebuild, it’s going to take me a little time.
My apologies in advance to any of you who had blog subscriptions via email as I’ve no idea if those will transfer over.
My apologies to those of you who had cover reveals, giveaways in process, guest columns, etc….I’ll rebuild as best I can but if they were posted in May or June, it may be more problematic.
My apologies to visitors seeking information about my books. Believe me, I want you to get this information as quickly and easily as possible and will try to get all the links back up before this weekend ends.
My apologies to The Romance Reviews and those participating in their Sizzling Summer Bash. Sadly, the legitimate traffic from that party is probably what drove the final nail in my coffin.
My sincere and humble thanks to you for sticking with me and for your patience.
Yours truly,
Lila
(who got the termination notice email at 2 AM, tossed and turned with anxiety until 6:30 AM and has been working on setting up my new host site and restoring blogs for about 7 hours now.)
