I spent the weekend on politics, on both doing and writing. So today is a get stuff done day. I am so freaking far behind that I may have a serious breakdown if I don’t make some progress. Fortunately I have very low standards and what counts as progress is defined most generously. That is a trick I learned while being a mother.
Seriously, I leave for vacation with the Hubby in less than a month after which he returns home and I go on to BlogHer ’12. That means every frigging thing in my life has to be in order in less than a month. I’m not really OCD, so I can’t imagine what kind of pressure and stress a truly OCD type would feel in a similar situation.
The first thing I must do this week is stop staying up until 2 a.m. “catching up” on games. Foolish waste of time… But so much fun!
I am trying to do some serious networking before BlogHer ’12, not only for practice, but to learn from other repeat offenders, er, I mean attenders. I actually have to do a mind check and think of BlogHer as work, because it is, but I have so much fun there that I tend to feel guilty about attending! I also have a couple meetings I need to attend this week, one tomorrow, and one Wednesday, both of which require materials I haven’t created as yet. But they are materials I can use at BlogHer so at least it will be time I can count toward multiple goals/projects.
I have a few letters of inquiry (emails actually) to vendors that will be at BlogHer that I need to send out.
And there are client, and potential client, follow-ups to be made, as always.
I’m attempting to put in serious time in on Twitter, too, but I am not someone who cannot work that into the multitask menu effectively, so I have to allow a pretty much dedicated block of time to it. I need to do the scheduled tweet thing. But doing scheduled tweets can open a can of worms, so I have to set it up judiciously, effectively, and in a way that actually helps me. I am such a nerd that I really have to be careful setting up “gadgets and widgets and apps, oh my” or I will spend all my time ditzing around with them and not actually do anything that helps me build a business.
I also need to spend an afternoon getting all my accounts interconnected properly with all the right info showing on each one. For instance, I am pretty sure my twitter account links to nfhill.com and not this blog. It should link to this blog. Also, I need to make sure my “hire me” and “contact me” forms all lead to the same forms and have appropriate examples.
Then there is also a real need for a whole day to be spent on cleaning up and securing all my sites and databases. I suspect that the SQL injection thingy that puts code into databases has not been eradicated from all files on all my domains. Most self-hosted WordPress sites that don’t have a professional service monitoring them 24/7 got infected a few months ago, and I just thought of another place I might have missed cleaning out. That means that all accounts and all files, databases, etc. have to be re-cleaned and re-protected. So, I want to reduce to as few as possible installations of WordPress on my host’s server as possible because they are all interconnected and can reinfect each other if I haven’t scrubbed each and every database and reinstalled the security software. Getting it out is more difficult than keeping it out of a clean system. I can do this, but I’m not enough of an expert to teach it to you, so I’m sorry if I’m confusing you.
What I do know enough about to tell you is that basically there is malware out there that isn’t a virus per se as in sending spam to everyone in your email address book. It is more like sending an email about combating yeast infections to any contact stored in your website’s comment database if that visitor has also searched your site for the word feminist. Most hosts do not protect you from such an attack. Most site scan software will show your site as clean even if you have “scanned” it with security software. To get this sort of malware extracted from your databases, from what I can tell, you will need to actually read through your database code and scan your data for things that do not look right. This is why reputable firms get paid a few hundred a month to maintain your site securely. I am documenting my explorations in this area, but database security is one tough cookie, and when you pull the fortune out, it reads, “You are screwed!” This is why I am not in the hosting business and why most people who are should not be. I cannot know about a problem and not fix it. Most companies have not problem in that area though. Being ethical can really cut into your profits.
How will I know if I have fixed any problem that might exist? I will show a greatly reduced number of servers trying to talk to my servers from Romania, the Ukraine, and from China. But don’t quote me on that, I’m just paranoid.
Anyway, when I have all that done, I will be putting tons of domain names up for sale, as well as setting up a page where you can search and buy your own domain name and populate that site with articles about why you should have your own domain name and how to protect it. Some will be freebie articles, some free pamphlets, and there will also be e-documents you can purchase. So between security and this venture I have to spend a couple full days on this sort of stuff this week. There will be a page I set up that has the URLs or domain names I’ve listed for sale at afternic with little promos about what could be done with each title. I have some great foodie blog names and some great boomer names as well as some business and security ones.
Oh well, off to work I go.
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The articles I scanned for inspiration before writing this were:
- Psychological Distance: 10 Fascinating Effects of a Simple Mind Hack
- Afraid To Succeed? Sufferers Unite
Thanks for reading along while I organize my week!
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