Hi SCVTalkers!
I'm sure you've noticed in the last 24 hours that SCVTalk.com has been down. Alas, it's true.
After running my blog for 6.5 years with the same hosting company, I received word late last month that SCVTalk was using more than its fair share on the hosting company's servers. They wanted toextort increase my hosting costs from $10 per month to $70 per month.
As this is a non-profit venture we've got going on here, I balked and asked them for some time to resolve the problem.
Well, yesterday, time ran out, and the hosting company shut us down.
I can't blame them entirely; SCVTalk and the WordPress blog engine it ran on, has been hacked twice in the last four years. In 2009, the hack was so complete that it forced me to rebuild the site completely. Earlier this year it appears the site was hacked again, despite my best efforts.
Though I'm not able to determine the nature of the hack, I think it resulted in SCVTalk's server being compromised in some way (nerd talk: the host complained my site was using 100% of the server's CPU time, far and above what it should have given our normal traffic pattern, see the image to the right).
The host gave me a few weeks to work on the problem, and I did, reducing the number of WordPress plugins, optimizing the database, and clearing out old content. But it wasn't enough.
So they shut us down.
In the last day, I've been going over offers from hosting companies, including a very generous offer from local web guru Scott Berry at MagicalProductions.net to host the site for free. I'm still pondering these offers but, to be honest, I'm not eager to self-host a blog again. It's hard to run a blog while keeping up with the latest security threats to WordPress and worrying about how much CPU my blog takes up on some server in Texas. Why not just let Google worry about that stuff while SCVTalk worries about writing quality content?
So for now, SCVTalk.com is pointed at another of my blogs, NotesfromNewhall.blogspot.com. If you visit SCVTalk.com or www.SCVTalk.com, it should take you here. I have backup copies of our old site, but my efforts to import them into Blogspot have failed (SCVTalk's database is 173mb; the maximum blogspot will convert is 1mb).
Stick with us; we'll keep you up to date as the hosting situation becomes more clear.
Jeff
And we're back
I'm sure you've noticed in the last 24 hours that SCVTalk.com has been down. Alas, it's true.
After running my blog for 6.5 years with the same hosting company, I received word late last month that SCVTalk was using more than its fair share on the hosting company's servers. They wanted to
As this is a non-profit venture we've got going on here, I balked and asked them for some time to resolve the problem.
Well, yesterday, time ran out, and the hosting company shut us down.
I can't blame them entirely; SCVTalk and the WordPress blog engine it ran on, has been hacked twice in the last four years. In 2009, the hack was so complete that it forced me to rebuild the site completely. Earlier this year it appears the site was hacked again, despite my best efforts.
The host gave me a few weeks to work on the problem, and I did, reducing the number of WordPress plugins, optimizing the database, and clearing out old content. But it wasn't enough.
So they shut us down.
In the last day, I've been going over offers from hosting companies, including a very generous offer from local web guru Scott Berry at MagicalProductions.net to host the site for free. I'm still pondering these offers but, to be honest, I'm not eager to self-host a blog again. It's hard to run a blog while keeping up with the latest security threats to WordPress and worrying about how much CPU my blog takes up on some server in Texas. Why not just let Google worry about that stuff while SCVTalk worries about writing quality content?
So for now, SCVTalk.com is pointed at another of my blogs, NotesfromNewhall.blogspot.com. If you visit SCVTalk.com or www.SCVTalk.com, it should take you here. I have backup copies of our old site, but my efforts to import them into Blogspot have failed (SCVTalk's database is 173mb; the maximum blogspot will convert is 1mb).
Stick with us; we'll keep you up to date as the hosting situation becomes more clear.
Jeff