Problems with other sites

[Croghan27]

Is anyone having trouble with Yahoo?
 
I use it for my main mail address and have some buds in messenger .. but frequently, more frequently lately, I cannot get anything done ... It is not just the newbie computer .... I have seen it on others .... any see any articles that says that Yahoo is 'rationalizing' staff?

[pogge]

Yo! Skdadl! I would answer your email but the problem that's affecting the blog is also affecting the email accounts. Second time in four days. I feel a move coming on. (I'm on my fourth host in eight years. They keep crapping out from under me and maybe this one is too.)

To explain: the blog is only available intermittently because the server on which it's hosted is going down. So one minute the site is there and the next minute it's gone. At least that was the explanation on Friday.

ETA: I probably sound cranky. In the last six months I've had to contact support several times because the database server (which in this case is a process rather than a physical server) has gone down. Lurkers won't notice because Movable Type publishes static pages which is what you read. But authors will notice because we can't log in to post. On at least three occasions, the permissions on a Movable Type script have mysteriously changed in such a way that the script won't execute. That's why skdadl had trouble commenting the other day. Now it's intermittent connection problems.

We're paying a premium to host the site in Canada for the obvious reason. I could use GoDaddy and pay half the price for unlimited bandwidth, more control and more features. It's awfully tempting.

[Debra]

pogge NO NO NO NO  NO!!!! Please no. If you are going to go to a US based server at least use Hostgator.

I have not a one single client on Godaddy who hasn't had issue after issue. They have a habit of putting over 2000 sites on a single server on their shared hosting. Nasty things happen.

[pogge]

One advantage to the GoDaddy package I was looking at is that I can pay by the month. So I can go in and try it and if I don't like what I get, I can move again.

We're down again. Support contacted.

[skdadl]

We don't seem to be getting through to PB either, or am I missing something?

[pogge]

I have PB up in another tab right now. Seems fine. (For the moment.)

[Debra]

hostgator also goes by month

[skdadl]

I meant I cldn't see you taking a bow, but now I do. You should know you got all those votes without me.

[Croghan27]

went to have a look see at Truthout today and what do I see:

 
Dear Readers,
Late last night, Truthout.org was attacked and our content over the past ten days was deleted. We're working to capture the cache versions of those stories that are no longer available and republish them on our website.
You may find that some links will take you to "Page Not Found." Right now we're working to restore the vandalized stories.
We will update you as soon as we have more information, and hope to be back in full force very soon.
Thank you for your patience and your support!

Sincerely,
The Truthout Team

where are the anonymous folks when you need them? 

[skdadl]

I'll bet that Anonymous would step in if someone could figure out who did that. Maybe they're working on it now, but it can be hard to track down source of attack. Anonymous has mainly got people so far because of the targets' big mouths or known history.

[pogge]

To avoid taking another thread off track, I'll put this here. Alison wrote:

Pogge, I had the devil of a time making a link to you stick - couldn't get your post to fully load.

There's a Woolite ad that seems to involve reading from a server at ytimg.com. That's a YouTube image caching server and I've seen one or another of those get silly from time to time. I'm curious as to why a commercial ad is cached at YouTube but the symptoms are consistent -- when it's this particular ad, the sidebar hangs at that point and the status bar says its reading from that server. Eventually the ad pops up and then the rest of the sidebar loads. But the post itself has already loaded. That's one of the reasons I like to have the main content on the left and the infrastructure on the right. Visitors can read while they're waiting for the rest of the junk to load.

So when you're seeing too much of "Read xx.ytimg.com" on any site -- with the xx being various letters and numbers --  that's a YouTube server that's overdue for maintenance. Or something.

[Alison]

'K, Pogge, you know I'm a total technodolt, right? So I'm not able to interpret the no doubt very clear answer you just gave me.


Here's what happened yesterday. I go to Pogge and there's a grey bar directly under the pic of John A that says "Install" or "Download" or something. Thinking it's a new comment policy log-in - I did warn you about the doltiness, didn't I? and it was 3am - I click it and it asks for a mobile phone #. Thinks to herself - well what are the chances that Pogge is gonna phone me? - but I give it the number of a blackberry I never use as a phone (and me mum is the only other person who knows that number) and hit "next".
Page that comes up is some contest or whatever and I lose patience and close the Pogge window.


Then later when I go back to link to you there's a jumpy flashy bright green ad right across the top left under John A and I can't link to the post.
And today I have Viagra spam on that blackberry for the first time ever in the two years I've had it. First spam of any kind actually. Coincidence?


Boring you with this doltiness in case there's something the downloady people haven't told you about themselves.

[pogge]

'Here's what happened yesterday. I go to Pogge and there's a grey bar directly under the pic of John A that says "Install" or "Download" or something. Thinking it's a new comment policy log-in ...

That was an ad. Now identified as such.

Then later when I go back to link to you there's a jumpy flashy bright green ad right across the top left under John A and I can't link to the post.

Different ad.

And today I have Viagra spam on that blackberry for the first time ever in the two years I've had it. First spam of any kind actually. Coincidence?

Boring you with this doltiness in case there's something the downloady people haven't told you about themselves.

The ads are being served by a broker called adBrite. They have a reasonable reputation.

I would think that typing a mobile phone number into a web form carries the same risk as typing an email address into a web form. The more often you do it, the more spam you'll see. I get way more spam on my pogge.ca account than on any other (and I have several) because it's the one I use the most.