Moving back to Plog

Well, it was fun. When the site went down I came back to blogger 'cause it was a space for me to gripe about the site being down. But I rather like both interfaces on my plog better: for entering a new entry and for reading them; so I'll be going back there. See ya there.

Really? Oh You Don't Say

Have you ever been vindicated by your boss at work? How 'bout your boss' boss? Well, what about your boss' boss' boss?

Well, I was today. There was some "goof" with some highly visible parts I am working on. Two guys were trying to explain to me what went wrong and how we could correct it in the future. Bah. Yeah, that is nice guys - but all I care about it keeping my parts moving. I have a deadline to make. I want to see if I can salvage these parts and ship them to the outsource on time. I don't have time to rework the parts nor do I have the material on hand to start from scratch. And their suggestions? Things we had already discussed and the customer and us decided not to do them. The two guys didn't listen to me.

So I ask the guys if we could do something to them to use them once I make sure we can do further processing on them. The guys continue to to talk about why the parts are wrong and how we can't use them because of this and that. I refute their claims stating I know how the parts are used by the customer and how they are basically processed at the outsource. No one wanted to listen to me. So I just put a halt to things. Told them what I was going to do, what I will do later and I took my parts.

Gah! Even later when the data was finally collected - after the one of the guys had taken the parts back to his area, my boss^3 came down and talked to us. And then SmackDown #1 and SmackDown #2. My boss came down for SmackDown #3.

It was sweet sweet revenge. Iit was good to know I was thinking along the same track as my boss^3. But we will be able to use the parts and in the future the instructions for the guys will be updated to ensure they do what they are supposed to so no more "goofs" happen.

It is always nice to have a great day at work.

Day 7: Finally, Order is Restored

So I go to work steaming this morning since my site is still not up for me to see. I get to work and try to open the webpage and get the same error message about the domain not being found. Gah! So I printed out those pages for proof if need be later. I tried again at work about 4pm or so, still no site.

I get home, thinking it won't work, the site will still be down. When I tired to open it, it opened right up! WOOT! Finally. Order is restored to the balance. I had emailed the office of the president thanking them for their help in resolving this matter and they actually responded very politely and informatively to my email:

Dear Ms. Liss,

Thank you for your email.

The domain, cerebusfangirl.com was unredirected by the abuse team at 11:09am yesterday morning(Az time).

The 's' file was present in the phpBB folder and would be available to you when your site is unredirected. You can get the file within your hosting account as we have checked and it is still there.

Please remove the file immediately so you do not get redirected again.

Please let us know if you have need of further assistance.

Kindest regards,

Laurie Anderson

Office of the President
President@GoDaddy.com
GoDaddy.com
14455 N. Hayden Rd. Suite 226
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
(480) 505-8828 Phone
(480) 275-3975 Fax

Their email was a heck of a lot better, more polite and actually told me what was done, then the Abuse Department's email. I was sitting on the fence about renewing my website when it came up for renewal this August (the domain name is active for a few more years, but not the host account) - due to the length of time it took them to fix the issue and the lack of customer service. Well, this email and the Office of the President's help made me decide to remain a GoDaddy.com customer.

Day 7: My Patiences Grows Thin

So it has been 6 days since my domain name was locked and I couldn't get to it, we are starting on Day 7.

Appearently everyone in the group can get to the site - with no one responding that they cannot get to it. I still couldn't "see" it at 6:30am when I tried to visit it, and the other links I have from it, this morning. "The cerebusfangirl.com domain could not be found. Please check the name and try again." Bah!

And then in response to my email to tech support about the private option on my domain this is what they had to say:

Response from JASON P.
05/17/2005 09:48 PM
Dear Margaret Liss,

Thank you for contacting customer support.

I have forwarded this issue to the correct department. You will receive a reply back shortly. I appreciate your patience with this matter. Please let us know if we can help you in any other way.

Learn more about our Shared, Virtual-Dedicated, and Dedicated hosting: Click here

Sincerely,

Jason P.
GoDaddy.com
Customer Service Representative

General Support: 480-505-8877
Billing: 480-505-8855

We would appreciate it if you would click here and complete our Customer Satisfaction Survey. It only takes a couple of minutes and will help us serve you better in the future!

Well, thanks for the quick response Jason, but why don't you tell me which department you forwarded my "claim" to? Prolly billing, but how do I know as he didn't state it in his email. Just brushed off my problem to another department without telling me who that would be and why he had to do it - other then it was the "wrong department" - but why was it the wrong department? ::sigh::

They are really testing my patience - first locking my domain name, now I can't even see my domain while everyone else can - it almost makes me think they've locked my ISP's IP from seeing the domain. . .

Day 6: Puzzled Fangirl

I just don't know. After several attempts at emptying my internet cache and temp files and rebooting, after trying to get to my site via the cereb.us domain name, after trying to "google" it and go there via that link, after trying every Cerebus Fangirl link I know, I still can't get to my site. I'd upload a pic of my desktop with the windows error button "Domain Name Not Found" with the "OK" button, but 1. everything is not okay and 2. I can't even get to my site via FTP to upload a picture.

Jebus. Gah!

Day 6: The Agony Continues

Oh why oh why? So I can't log on to my site still. I email GoDaddy.com and they say to empty my broswer cache and that should work. So I do that. For both FireFox and MS IE. No go. So I try it again and reboot. Still no go. So I send an email out to the Cerebus Yahoo!Group asking if anyone else can get on to the site - and they can. GRRRRR! WHAT THE FUCK OVER?

Really. What the hell. If something happens to the site while I cannot get into my FTP but everyone else can see the site, I'll be royally pissed.

To top it all off - GoDaddy.Com had changed my domain name settings when they reactiviated my account: unlocked the domain and took it off "private" registration (so my info will now show up when you do a WHOIS look up). GRRRRR! So I locked the domain and fired off an email to tech support asking them to reinstate the privacy on that domain name - as I have on all the rest of my domains. ::sigh::

And they never did send me a copy of that file. I guess everyone with a domain name is at their mercy if they keep the domain locked or free it. I'm still waiting to see my webpage load up. I know I tried it about 3pm at work and it didn't come up. And their email was sent about 1:15 pm.

Day 6: The Unlocking

Well, GoDaddy finally did right - they released the domain name:

Dear Ms. Liss,

The cerebusfangirl.com domain name has been reactivated. The domain name was
suspended to ensure that our network was not compromised. After reviewing
the situation and your explanation of the problem the decision was made to
reactivate your domain name. The "s" file was deleted by our network
security staff but you should upgrade to the newest and most secure version
of phpBB. If you need help with the upgrade contact Go Daddy's customer
support department at 480-505-8877 or support@supportwebsite.com.

Sincerely,

Spam and Abuse Department
GoDaddy.com

Finally. Now to wait for it to progagate though the net. At least that is why I'm assuming the site still isn't showing up when I type in the URL for it. Umm.

Day 6 Begins

So day six begins. With no email from GoDaddy.com. So I wrote both the President's office and CC'ed the Abuse Department:

Hello Mr. Parsons -

In response to your email dated 5/15/5 you requested that I notify you
if the Abuse Department did not respond to my email by Monday. They
have not responded to my email nor the update (which I cc'ed your
office on, but will include below for sake of having the entire "email
chain" below). In a prior email I had asked the Abuse Department to
respond to my email or I would be reporting this incident to the BBB.
I have not done that yet, because I thought with help from you this
could get resolved in a matter which would be beneficial to both of
us. But if this does not get resolved in a timely matter, I will still
do so.

As you see in the email below, I have also requested a copy of this
"s" file - as I have some computer network and I.T. professionals who
wanted to take a look at the file, along with myself. Could you
provide said copy of the file for me please? I have also stated how I
think some hacker could have put this file on our network, and how our
network might not be secure if others continue to run this phpBB code.
Also, As I stated below, I am willing to remove the file, and lock my
phpBB board until I know I can either secure it or obtain a different
secure BB.

Your help in this matter is most appreciated. Thank you

We'll see what kind of response that gets. I still haven't gotten a response to my request for the mysterious 's' file that they said was on my website, nor have I gotten FTP access to my site yet.

Just a few things

A few things to post here while my other blog, or should I say Plog, is down along with my domain name (grrr!):

• I got my tickets for Star Wars III already. Woot! That and then sushi afterwards this Saturday should be a blast!
• Tomorrow I go into work early - 7am - to run some tests. Gah!
  
• Then the day after that, I've got customers coming in to visit and see the process.
  
• Then in a couple weeks another customer is coming. In fact, they both have my most difficult parts to make. One is a five stage etch (usually we only do 1 stage) and the other is multiple process job (laser cut - forming - etching - drilling).
• My yahoo!mail is cool - 'cause I can check it on my cell phone, but I like my gmail better. . .but gmail doesn't let me check it on my cell. It would be perfect if I could. . .
• A letter from Dave on the online archive - not much news, but it looks like we'll be looking for "volunteers" to input keywords for the archive items. Woot! I'm going to ask Dave if he minds me scanning in the letters and posting them on the site - once the site is back up and running, making an "archive" page where the "reports to the newsgroup" can go, along with my letters from / to Dave and the first 30 pages of Albatross One.
  

Day 5: Still No Release

Of my domain name. It is still locked by my "host" and they didn't respond to my email. You read the email from the President's office yesterday, well if you haven't, go read it here - see? They told me to contact them if I don't get a response by today. Well, no email as of yet. Gah! If I don't hear back from the "Abuse Department" by the time I go to bed tonight, the Office of the President is getting an email - and if I don't hear back from them tomorrow, then I'll be sending a complaint to the Better Business Bureau. Maybe their customer service will be better. Though, to be honest, anything is a step up from here.

Day 4: Still Down

I'll be updating the picture posts with some text to go with it after I post this, the latest update on why my site is down.

I found out thanks to Dan about a way hackers could've uploaded a file onto my site. At least now I have a probable "how" to this whole mess. The president's office responded to my email:

Dear Ms. Liss,

Thank you for your email.

We have forwarded your request to our Abuse department for a response.

They will respond to you as quickly as possible.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but we must defer to the abuse department in this matter.

If you do not receive a response by Monday, May 16, 2005, please let us know.

Kindest regards,

Laurie Anderson

Office of the President
President@GoDaddy.com
GoDaddy.com
14455 N. Hayden Rd. Suite 226
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
(480) 505-8828 Phone
(480) 275-3975 Fax

And yes, I'm publishing their phone numbers and all - as a public company that stuff would be easy enough to find on the internet, and I'd like to have it somewhere other then my computer in case I need to find it again.

But I digress.

So after I got this new info, I emailed the "abuse department" and cc'ed the President's office with the new info and a request for a copy of the file. I also said I'd be willing to work with them as to the source of the hack so it won't happen again. I'm still refusing to pay the $199 to reinstate my domain name, as this isn't my fault. GoDaddy provided the software that 'caused the problem, and they were the ones that shut down mysite without first allowing me to delete the file and fix the problem.

The rainbow

The Rainbow - the sister ship to my grandfather's lobster ship, The Sunshine. I don't know if I wrote about the Rainbow being in my mom's neighbor's backyard. Prolly. Short story: The boat was thought to be scrapped, but it showed up when the ex-fisherman that lives next door brought it. I don't know why, or how, but there she is. I should go find out next time I'm at my mom's house.

Margaret's Bike

Yes, that is me, on my bike. The bike is a Kawasaki KZ400 (a KZ400C to be specific), it was made in Dec 1977 for the 1978 model year. My Dad got it from some teenager in 1989, rode it for a few years and then put it away when he got his Honda Shadow a couple years later. So last year when I got my motorcycle license (woot!) my Dad said I could have the KZ400 as long as 1. I had it fixed up so it would run, as it had been in his shed for over 10 years and 2. when I was done with it, I would give it back to him. So I took it to the shop, who didn't want to work on it at first, but eventually caved in and did.

Which I'm torn in half about it. Part of me thanks them for getting it running, and part of me is teed as they said they would put in an inline fuel filter, which they didn't (neither my dad nor myself could find it when we were working on it) and I hope they didn't charge me for it, I'll be looking into that and they also took forever and a day to get it fixed. It took them so long, by the time they were done, we just took it to my mom's garage to store over the winter.

But back to the bike - there was two major things we had to do: put the fuel tank back on (which including reattaching the fuel lines) and replacing the fork oil. First, we took the springs out of the forks and drained the fork oil - it looked clean, until I saw clean fork oil. So we put some fork oil in it, pushed the forks up and down, and then drained out that new fork oil also. We then put more clean oil in, checked the level and put the springs back in. A few lightbulbs needing replacing - as it looked as if the shop had totally fried the bulbs, as the filament was totally balled up in the bulbs. Then we reattached the fuel lines and put the tank back on. With the addition of the battery and then some fuel, my Dad showed me the choke.

He put it so it was on full choke and turned on the bike key and pressed the start button. It started right up. Woot! I took it for a ride up and down the street and it was lots of fun! The float in the carb got stuck and the carb was leaking massive amounts of gas. My dad knocked the carb with the screwdriver and the leaking stopped. I drove it up and down a few more times.

All that is left is to fix the switches for the horn and the headlight's low beam switch - both are in the same box on the handlebar. Then as soon as I get plates and insurance, I'm road ready. Woot!

The 'Stang Meets the Cycle

The bike and the mustang, side by side, look uncannily like the same color don't they? See how the front fender shines so? Well, after I get my way, the rest of the crome on the bike will look like that, I just need a little help from Mothers.

Still . . .Down. . .

No response again from GoDaddy.com. Why am I not surprised. I did a google search for "GoDaddy Sucks" and found a multitude of links and angry ex-customers of GoDaddy's complaining about poor customer service. I was wondering if something like this had happened before with others, and it has. But, back to me. I sent this email to the Abuse email addy this morning:

Hello -
Since you have not responded to my emails (see below), I will
summarize them: I will agree to remove said malicious file from my
website - if I can find it, as I don't know where it has been planted,
if you could give me that information I can remove it. I will continue
my promise to you that I will not put such files on my website, and I
would like for you to promise to me that you will ensure my website is
secure and such files will not be placed on my website by "hackers"
again. I do not think I should have to pay the $199 reactivation fee,
as GoDaddy.com has shut down my domain name for an act that I did not
commit.

If I do not have a response to my email by Monday evening, I will be
reporting this incident to the Better Business Bureau. You have
accused me and already penalized me for an act that I did not commit.
I have requested information for how you plan on securing your network
so an act like this one does not happen again to mine, and others',
websites.

I have been happy with my service from GoDaddy, as you provide "more
bang for my buck" and the up time has been 100% (until this incident).
I would love for my domain names and my website to continue to be
hosted by your company, and would like to come to an agreement that
suits us both.

Thank you for your time.

I also just got fed up with the Abuse email addy not responding to my emails, so I emailed Bob Parsons, the company's President - when I was looking at one of those "GoDaddy Sucks" pages, Mr. Parsons had actually responded to it in the Blogger's Comments! I figured if he cared so much about his company to respond to a fellow Blogger's comments, then he might help me out with my problem. So I emailed him by forwarding the email chain to him and this response:

Hello Mr. Parsons -

As a fellow veteran (I wasn't as Gung Ho as yourself, as I was a MP in
the Army), I'd just like to say thank you for your service during the
Vietnam War.

I wanted to bring this email "chain" to your attention. I love my
GoDaddy.com hosting and would like to stay with your company, but the
Abuse Department (I'm not sure what their official name is within the
company) backed me into a corner. I cannot seem to resolve the
situation with them, and am asking for your assistance in the matter.
Please see the below email from myself to the Abuse Department. Is
there anything you can do to help me out? I would be most appreciative
if I could just get my domain name & website with GoDaddy.com back up
and running as your company has always done right by me in the past.

Thank you for your time.

Hopefully I'll hear back from him.

Gah! Still!

So the site is still down. No email response to my email of last night. So I called Tech Support today - same answer as last time. Plus the news that the "abuse department" doesn't have a telephone number due to the amount of verbal abuse they were taking from customers. Umm. So if you can't deal with customers, then isn't that saying something right there?

But I did find this information:

GO DADDY SOFTWARE, INC.
14455 N. Hayden Road #226
Scottsdale, AZ 85260

Original Business Start Date: 01/13/97
Type of Entity: Corporation
Principal: Robert Parsons, President
Customer Service Contact: Jackie Baumgartner, Advanced Product Support Mgr.
Phone Number: 480-505-8800
Fax Number: 480-505-8844
Web Site Address: godaddy.com
Web Site Address: supportwebsite.com
Web Site Address: www.godaddy.com
Membership Status: yes
Date Joined BBB: 04/20/00
Type of Business: Internet Products & Software
Internet Services

From the BBB. So If I don't get a response over the weekend - as I'll be down at my father's tomorrow, and my mom's on Sunday, then I'm going to give Ms. Baumgartner a call.

Still Down

So last night they responded to my email fairly quickly - my email was sent at 6:00 pm and their's was sent at 8:04 pm. Their email lacked something - a presumption that I am innocent until proven guilty. They claimed that their IT person or whomever had noticed that I had a snoping file or listening file on my website. Why the hell would I do that? And what the hell was this listening file? I still don't really understand what one is used for.

They told me for my domain name to be reactiviated - I would have to remove the file. Heh. I don't know where it is located on my website - not that my website is huge by any means, but I do have lots of folders. I don't know which ones to start looking in. Though I do want it removed, if it is as nasty as they say, I don't want it on my website where it could harm others.

They told me I would have to promise not to do it again. I never did it in the first place so how could I promise to not do it again! I made an agreement to bind by the terms of service when I signed up for the hosting service, I don't think I'd break them. It sounds like their server is not as secure as they thought it was - they should be telling me what they plan on doing to ensure that this doesn't happen again to my website.

They also told me I'd have pay a $199 reactivation fee! Gazooks! That is expensive! I didn't even do anything wrong and they want me to pay out the arse for them to correct something that they did intentionally to my domain name (shut it down)? They should be apologizing to me for such a snafu on their part. They also didn't contact me either by email nor snail mail (as of yet, the site went down yesterday morning at my earliest knowledge) about shutting down my domain name and my supposed violation of the TOS.

gah! I responded politely, again, to their email - at 8:30 pm - it took me a bit to think of how to say what I wanted to say politely. They haven't responded back as of yet. I'll let you know how it goes. I'd be putting this in my "plog" on my website, but that is down also, down with the domain name. gah!

Cerebus Fangirl dot com is down -- grrr!

Grrr. Well, the CerebusFangirl site is down. Again. I had switched over from my old host to my new host 'cause of downtime problems. Now this.

I log on this morning about 6:45 am and my homepage doesn't come up. My homepage is a page of links that I visit daily all on one handy dandy page to make life easier. I thought something was funny about it, but didn't have the time to look into it.

So I get home from work and boot up the computer. And presto - my homepage won't come up again. It tells me domain cannot be found. Wha? So I go to GoDaddy.com's site and check my account information - I have three domains, and only two are showing. The CerebusFangirl.com domain name isn't there. Wha? I have paid for that domain name for the next couple of years and have it locked so nothing can happen to it.

So I do the next reasonable thing - I contact tech support. The guy is nice and all, but all he can tell me is that for some reason my domain name has been put on hold or removed or something due to a violation of GoDaddy.com's user agreement. Umm. I just double checked the user agreement to see if it changed since the last time I read it. . .and no, nothing I've done can constitute a violation of their user agreement. So he gives me this email addy to contact. I ask if there is a phone number I can call. No, he says, there isn't. So I just emailed them about a half hour ago and I'm awaiting a response. We'll see how long it takes for them to get to me.

In the meanwhile, my site is down. ::sigh::

I never got an email from them or anything. Nothing. So I double check the user agreement and found this:

15. NOTICES. You agree that all notices (except for notices concerning breach of this Agreement) from Go Daddy to You may be posted on our Web site. Notices concerning breach will be sent either to the email or postal address You have on file with Go Daddy . In either case, delivery shall be deemed to have been made five (5) days after the date sent.

Well, no email. I just double checked the email addy they have on file for me - and while my link requires me to go thru my domain name, I can also go thru the GoDaddy.com site's link and check that email just fine. And there is nothing there from them. So then I guess I should expect a snail mail? That last sentence does not make sense at all.

::sigh:: I hope they make this up to me.

Aardvarks Over UK Tour '93 Poster

"Page45" was kind enough to send me this poster - as I'd never seen it before then. It now hangs on my wall. And yes, I was too lazy to "touch-up" this picture, hence the yellow glow.