Category Archives: Internet

Do-it-myself, that is. I kept seeing all these sunburst mirror tutorials made with a little hot glue and some clothes pins. Everyone kept saying how easy and cheap it was to make. Everything was at the dollar store. I was convinced that I could do it, too.

So I headed to the dollar store and found me some clothes pins, but they had no mirrors I could use. Michael’s had some, but they sure weren’t $1. While there, I picked up some wood glue and some scrapbook paper for decorate the shit out of my future mirror. This sure was more expensive than everyone else’s project, but I figured I could decorate the clothes pins with pretty paper until I found a mirror. Of course, I needed an utility knife to finish it off.

I went home and glued a bunch of paper on a bunch of clothes pins, but that’s not any fun, and I couldn’t find the right mirror, so I stopped for a while. The other day, I randomly found the right type of mirror at the dollar store and picked it up, so I finally sat down glue my pins onto the mirror. I found out/remembered a couple things:

• Hot glue is hot
• I sure use that burned finger for everything
• Hot glue is also messy
• Apparently, it’s harder for people–like roommates–to remember that having two pairs of scissors allows you to keep on for non-food stuff. Mine was nice and sticky from popsicles. Yay.
• Lining up clothes pins is a little harder than I figured
• The whole thing wasn’t much fun

I lucked out, I had exactly enough clothes pins and hot glue to finish the project. It’s drying, upside down, and I’m afraid to move it. You see, the glue acted less like glue and more like little silicone grips. I think it’ll work fine. I mean, it’s not like the pins will fall off. Maybe I should have gotten better glue. This is only a glue gun and sticks from a 100Yen store in Japan.. from like five years ago. Does hot glue go bad?

Anyway, let me know if you want pictures. I don’t think I like this whole project after all. Everyone else’s look so much better..

I checked my email yesterday to see a notice from my host about how one of my websites, Lyrical Musings, was acting as a phishing scam. It seems that someone gained access, changed a bit of code in my main theme and uploaded a couple dozen directories to use my website as part of their phishing activities. I hadn’t noticed, because I don’t often update it. In fact, WordPress came out with a pretty recent security update, and I was on the ball with my other three websites that use it, but totally forgot to update my writing blog.

Someone must have fallen for the phishing scam and then reported it to the actual website, who then took the time to contact my host and myself. My host immediately shut down the website, and I went to work, because I was at the computer right when I received the email. Although they didn’t touch my WordPress database, they’d uploaded a bunch of files, so I logged into FTP to delete those. I then manually updated WordPress and reinstated the website, so that I could update any plug-ins, all of which were up to date.

I was receiving an odd error, so I ran through all my WordPress files that I hadn’t updated to see if that was any inappropriate code, and I found a single line in the beginning of the index for my main theme. I deleted it, and everything is safe now. In the grand scheme of things, I’ve only personally been “hacked once” in over ten years, so I’m doing okay. The hack was also pretty weak. They accessed no passwords, and didn’t lock me out. I didn’t need to do a complete roll back; although, I could have.

There were a few lessons to be learned anyway:

• Just because you don’t frequently update a website doesn’t mean it’s less of a target. In fact, that may very well be the reason it is a target.
• This is why it’s so important to update all your scripts.
• Scripts as popular as WordPress take security seriously, but can only do so much if you don’t update your stuff.
• You may not necessarily notice that you’ve been hacked. It could take several weeks, if you don’t frequently check the website.
• Every single anti-virus company has a tool to check websites for compromises (although, efficacy varies).

Have you ever been hacked?

So I’m not super rich, bitchy or dumb–well, maybe bitchy–but you can keep up with me in a variety of ways, you know.

• Grab my feed and stick it into your RSS reader, Google home page or feed app on your phone.
• Subscribe to my blog on your Kindle. It’s just $.99!
• Go mobile. Her Realm now uses an awesome mobile app that should autodetect your phone, tablet or other devices.

I forgot how much I love the Anti Joke website. Seriously.

Q: What is red and smells like blue paint?

A: Red paint.