Category: blogs

Two

Well, it now seems that dastardly Cajun, brettcajun has given up on blogging. I saw his last update ending his blog and I was a little teary-eyed honestly. [1]No, Brett not because of you. It seems homer and I are the only two left of our original crew. I miss all of them. I used to spend a huge chunk of my reading every day catching up on personal blogs and getting to know folks thru their writing. It was awesome and made me feel connected to the gay community at large in a way I never thought possible. I’m a bit sad to see a lot of that come to an end. Everything has its purpose I guess.

Granted there are plenty of prolific bloggers out there. But most of the ones left seem focused on trying to make a buck or be famous, neither of which has ever been my goal. I still remember the first blog I ever followed. It was a handsome fella out of Wisconsin. He moved to Chicago after his blog ended and we lost touch after that. I remember feeling a bit foolish reaching out to him at the time. I was worried he’d think I was a stalker. If I’d only known. hehehe

Luckily, homer shows no signs of slowing down. If anything, he is doing better than me at it. I tend to have larger gaps these days. Life gets in the way more now. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep at it, but he itch hasn’t left me yet. I will always have a fondness in my heart for it. My blog and my readership seems to have leveled out over the last few years. I don’t blog near as much about random stuff as I used to. Most of that gets captured on social media. I always see an uptick in readership around the first of the month for some reason. But the averages are pretty even month to month. It does seem like more locals and coworkers read my nonsense more than ever these days.

Ironically, my photo site gets about twice the traffic as my blog. I’m sure there is a joke in there somewhere about a pictures and 1000 words. I originally set it up as a catch all for my online pics. Who knew it would be so popular? It gets consistently solid traffic. I blame Cooper. He is just too cute to miss out on.

I’m still at it though. To all who have gone, you are not forgotten.

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↑1 No, Brett not because of you.

Twelve

Well, here we are moving into year 12 of this here blog thingy.  Who woulda thunk it all those years ago when I started? Twelve years!

I’ve made many awesome friends along the way and said goodbye to a few as well. As I slowly pulled myself out of my immaturity and into adulthood, I got a chance to share my struggles with others. It was and still is my hope that others can gain insights from my struggles and be better for it.

I’m still at it . I went from answering questions of “What is a blog?“, to “OMG you have a blog too?“, to “You still blog?” and still at it. Hehehe I assumed it would be that way way back when. I kinda took to it right away and instantly expected to be doing it for years.

My favorite responses are often via Facebook when someone tells me they don’t read blogs but proceeds to go on and on about my Facebook post shared from my blog. I get on tickled. [1]It is the little things in life, ain’t it?  Anyway, moving into year 12 I hope to be a little more consistent. It seems life, laziness, and video games routinely interfere. I know, how rude?! 

I was looking back the other day and just sighed heavily with so many emotions. I didn’t think I’d ever find this point in my life. I never dreamed I’d find the contentment in my soul or the level of happiness I’ve achieved. It is still a bit much at times to accept it.

After so many struggles, so many battles, and so much angst, a boring daily life can be such an amazing blessing!  Here is to year 12!

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↑1 It is the little things in life, ain’t it?

Picture

Speaking of my blog, my photo blog has seen a huge uptick in visits. I’ve tried to set it up so anything I share on social media gets updated there as well. This benefits me for a variety of reasons. The biggest being if I ever leave or lose an account, I still have all my pretty photos. heehee I didn’t really think it would be that popular but it seems to have taken off.

I wonder though if it has more to do with the top level extension. When I moved from the old mobius.name [1]Sadly, these domains are pretty much assumed to be spam and are routinely blocked by filters domain to sfmoby, the .com version wasn’t available. There wasn’t anything there, it just showed as owned by someone. My inquires to the vaguely defined domain owner went unanswered so I gave up and settled on the .us version. Fast forward to present and it suddenly showed available last year so I gobbled it up.

So now I wonder how often people are hitting it first simply from habit. Most people always think of the .com version of pretty much every site first. Think about the last time you randomly typed in a domain name. I bet you used .com, even if was wrong.

I’m just thinking out loud here so there isn’t really a point to my ramble today. I just thought it was odd and now you know why.

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↑1 Sadly, these domains are pretty much assumed to be spam and are routinely blocked by filters

Moved

You didn’t even notice it but I switched my domain manager and web host recently. Actually, I switched last month. After my rant about my old host, I got several emails asking why I was still with them. I started asking myself the same question. They weren’t bad, we just weren’t a good fit. 

I guess after my 1 and 1 disaster, I had extremely low expectations. hehehe  After some searching, I settled on InMotion. I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am with the switch. As happy as I was to be away from 1 and 1, I’m that much happier to have a host I feel is a really good fit. First, they deal a lot with WordPress, so can answer many related questions w/o delay. They also offered a discount on my first year of service so ended up cheaper than my previous host. After the first year, they’ll be pretty much the same price. They also offer 24/7 tech support by phone, web chat, an email. They transferred all my existing data, blog included, for free. I was a bit shocked when I read that part. They even transferred existing emails. [1]I always use IMAP instead of POP3 so had plenty of emails on the server.  I’ve never had a host do that! I had a tiny snafu with an internal domain configuration and they fixed it on the spot when I called.

Speaking of domains, I decided to have Google manage my actual domains. I transferred all but one from Tucows and the process was pretty easy. The Google domain management tool is pretty easy. They even offer email forwarding for domain only accounts. Email for a domain usually requires a host to physically store it. Google apparently allows you to create forwarders for no extra charge.

So, I’m all settled with the new host and so far extremely happy. 

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↑1 I always use IMAP instead of POP3 so had plenty of emails on the server.

Trifecta

You may have noticed some changes to the theme. You might have also Triquetranoticed there are new links to my other domains.

Each has it’s purpose and I’m working on integrating them together so they look and feel the same. My goal is one seamless look that blends all three sites together. Eventually, I hope to have floating or scrolling tabs instead of links. However, said tabs require some tinkering and testing of the theme and/or CSS. I’m not quite advanced enough to write it from scratch so I’ll have to find an example that I like and incorporate it here. [1]The image above is actually referred to as a Celtic Triquerta but it is often referenced incorrectly as a trifecta

Sfmoby.us
Of course, this will continue to be the blog. The only changes here are a new background image and links to the other domains.

Sfmoby.com
I’ve already started this one and it will continue to be a repository for photos and social media stuff. Basically, if I post it anywhere on social media, regardless of platform, I want it to show here. It is trickier than it sounds. Not all platforms export directly to WordPress. I think the exception will be twitter. I’ve pulled away from twitter a lot. I’m just tired of the idea of micro-blogging. Of course, I say that now. I may change my mind. There are plenty of widgets that drag in twitter feeds.

Sfmoby.net
Is new and will be a repository for some of my stories. Did you know I used to write short stories? I did. I was told often that I was pretty good at it. Even in high school, I got high marks for creative fiction. I might also try to fold in a dream journal. I’m not sure how dedicated I am to the idea though. haha  I’m still tinkering w/ideas on this domain but I definitely want it to be a more creative outlet than a journal.

*

I remember saying once back when I was still new to blogging that I wanted my blog to be a central hub for my online life. I even built a few website templates for it. Then came along social networking and I got sort of side-tracked. The idea of a central hub has stayed with me an I find I’m coming full circle again. I got a little down on myself for awhile because I tried to force too much into my regular blogging. As the need to tackle personal growth waned, I felt pressured to fill the void.  I think on some level I even rebelled a bit.

Anyway, feel free to check’em out.

References

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↑1 The image above is actually referred to as a Celtic Triquerta but it is often referenced incorrectly as a trifecta

Deep

Someone asked me the other day, “why I don’t talk about deep subjects like I used to.”  Well, I guess the answer is I grew up. lol

My blog started all those years ago as a coping mechanism. It turned into a path to enlightenment. And it worked! I confronted, challenged, and defeated many of my childhood insecurities and failings. I put them in their proper place in my id and moved on with life. Don’t get me wrong, I still have some but they aren’t the overwhelming plague they used to be.

I got a good birds-eye view of some of my old writings while I was merging the old and new blog together. I always like reading my past rants. It’s almost like reading a different person in some ways. It brings perspective to  where I am now compared to where I was.

Anyway, I’m sure there are still a few “deep” subjects left in me. hehehe  If one surfaces, I’ll be sure to put it all out there. Ironically, for someone who didn’t feel very moral, I find these days I tend to comment more on the failing morals of society at large. There’s a kick to the rubber pants if there ever was one.

Imported

Good news! After 5 years, I’ve finally been able to import all of the posts from my old blog. I started the sfmoby domain with a fresh database as WP grew a lot in those first few years and my old mysql table was quite cluttered. I didn’t want to import all the errors from the old database basically.

That’s the good news. The bad news is I may have inadvertently imported duplicate pages and user accounts as well. If you were signed up as a user on both blogs, you might (and I say might) see double emails for new posts if you are/were subscribed. I will be reviewing them slowly. You’ll most likely just need to reset your password as if you lost or forgot it. And conversely, if you notice a problem logging in, just go thru the lost password process.

Some images didn’t come across either. I’ll have to manually update them one by one. [1]WP didn’t always support short linking very well This will also take some time to complete. While most of you won’t notice anything, I’m giving everyone a heads up.

This also means I’ll be retiring the old archive as it is now in one place. Once I have purged and/or corrected everything I can, I will delete the old blog completely. I’ll keep the old URL for some years to come but it will just redirect here.

If you have any problems with your user account, please email me directly.

 

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↑1 WP didn’t always support short linking very well

Still

​It appears le blog is still being subjected to random brute force attacks. If you notice long load times or get a "500 internal server" error message, it is because I’m being timed out by the server to prevent it from crashing. [1]Nifty little protection mechanism I didn’t even know servers did that. lol I’m not gone, just try again in a bit and it will be back. If you get updates via RSS, you shouldn’t notice any issues.

I keep getting grumpy notes from my ISP about my server CPU stats. It isn’t me specifically that is being targeted. I’m nothing special in the grand scheme of the big interwebs. However, WordPress has some weak areas that bots and hackers routinely try to take advantage of to proliferate s p @ m. They basically take advantage of inherent internet workings to overload a server with too many page requests.

Anyway, I’m having to step up my game a bit. I’ve turned on site-caching from the server instead of from within WP. This just means a visitor gets served a cached copy of my index page vs the server rendering a file from scratch every time someone visits. Loading a static file only consumes bandwidth vs compiling php files on each request. The cache file gets updated every time I create a new post.

Hopefully, this will cut way back on the server load. If the problem continues, I’ll most likely move my blog to WP servers. They do a lot of work on the back end to prevent this sort of nonsense. I mean it is their product so it makes sense. lol My ISP helps when I ask but they are smaller and leave most of the burden on me. I simply don’t have the resources to combat such things.

Time will tell.

References

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↑1 Nifty little protection mechanism I didn’t even know servers did that. lol

Attack

My blog has been under a brute force attack for over a week now. Several foreign bots have been hard at work trying to break into my WordPress software. Sadly, for them, that is all but impossible. I use several layers of security to protect WP. One of those layers locks any user account, including myself, after more than 5 failed log in attempts. [1]I also deleted my default admin account ages ago  The user must then go thru the password recovery process.  However, the brute force can bring down the server itself. Even with site-caching, the server has to respond to every request.

Most bots make a concentrated effort for minutes and/or hours and then usually move on when they complete (or fail at) their task. This was much more focused and indicates a deliberate attempt. My blog is not overly popular so I’m a little surprised. Dedicated attacks usually target big sites or at the ISP level. The rest of us fall into the “search and conquer” category described above.

I’ve had to take more direct action now and start blocking bots at the server level. It is often a cat-and-mouse game because said baddies often use already compromised or spoofed IP addresses. They rotate them quickly so blocking doesn’t last long. However, for bots it’s a wee bit easier as they usually carry distinctive names that can be blocked using the .htaccess file.

For my readers, hopefully you won’t see any error pages. On the odd chance you do, please email me and I’ll get you restored. An easy way to tell is by accessing my site from different connections. The chances of both being blocked are extremely rare.

The attack already seems to be waning. The CPU drain from my account on the server is down within acceptable levels for my ISP. It is still higher than normal but going down. Wish me luck. hehehe

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↑1 I also deleted my default admin account ages ago