Gordaen’s Blog

On the fifth, Dreamhost had some security issues. If my blog was inaccessible around that time, that’s why. Here’s what they (DH) said about it:

We’re still working to determine how this occurred, but it appears
that a 3rd party found a way to obtain the password information
associated with approximately 3,500 separate FTP accounts and has
used that information to append data to the index files of customer
sites using automated scripts…

Mine was one of those, obviously. I guess I could have done “abc123″ as my password rather than memorizing yet another randomly generated one. I’ve been meaning to do a review on DH for quite some time, but my opinion of them sways frequently. They’re definitely a “value” host, so I wouldn’t recommend them for someone with significant hosting needs (despite the excessive features of their hosting packages). For the most part, their service has been good (as in not excellent but not terrible) and their communication with customers is very good, but every so often they have an “incident” like 3.5k accounts being hacked (they claim only 20% were accessed…) or the Summer of Hell last year and my confidence in them falls. As a file storage service, they’re not bad…

In other news, this was finals week, so I’ll be working 40 hours a week starting Monday, which should mean more time for blogging. Last summer my unwritten goal was about 5 posts a week. I’m not sure if I’ll try for that this time or not; I’m hoping to spend more time on hobbies, but some posts may come out of that. One of the hobbies may be creating comics, as I’ve been making a list of ideas and it’s become quite large. I have a cheap graphics tablet on the way. More on that when it arrives.