Update: 10:45pm Eastern Time. 10/1/2013. Finally the server is back up. All parts of the blog are again functional. This stuff is enough to make an old man's ticker fail.
When I got the first report that the site was down I ran in the house. My wife thought the place was on fire from my frantic gestures. She ask "What is wrong?". In a stressed voice I replied "The blog is down." as I scramble up the stairs to the computer room. "Well have a duck why don't you?" was her response.
Obviously the fact that ten of thousands of scrollers from all over the world would not get their regular pattern fix had no meaning to her. This was serious stuff and I had to jump to action quickly or risk a certain rebellion from the masses. Not to mention the loss of 27 cents in ad revenue. Those pennies add up you know.
With my heart thumping in my chest. Not from the stress. It's hard to run up the stairs at my age. I grabbed my iphone and dialed my web host's emergency number. Hold! What do you mean "We are experiencing longer than expected hold time due to high call traffic."? My wife must have tipped them off that I was going to call.
I impatiently waited for several hours on hold. It was actually only about 3 minutes but it felt like hours and it makes the story sound more dramatic. The hold music faded away and Tom said "How may I help you today?" in a strong Indian accent. I don't think Tom was from Texas but he seemed like a nice guy.
"My site is down! I need help fast!". Tom"May I have you mother's maiden name please?". Okay I know her maiden name. It's........... Crap! Tom"I'm sorry Mr Good but that is not the correct answer to your security question." After several hours of deep concentration I remember my mother's maiden name and Tom said "Thank you Mr Good please hold while I access your account."
It's starting to become clear that this is a conspiracy by the wood turners of the world to keep us scrollers down. The thought of this attempted sabotage was about to become too much when Tom came back on the line. "I'm sorry Mr Good but I will need to transfer you to second level support. They will be happy to help you resolve your trouble."
Bob second level tech "Hello Mr Good, how may I help you today?". "My site is down! I need help fast!". Bob "May I have you mother's maiden name please?". "Crap! No wait that's not it!".
Battery dies on my iPhone. "This is going to be a long night.".
To make a long story short, too late for that I guess. The site was down because someone falsely reported malware on the server. Out of caution my host took the server off line while they verified that it was clean. I was pretty confident is was a false positive because it is scanned daily. Never the less it was the right thing to do to take it down. Better safe than sorry. You may notice now that there is a badge in the lower right corner of the blog. I invested in an upgraded security package for the server. I now will receive real time updates when something looks suspicious. This upgrade will also automatically quarantine any suspected files and keep the site up while they are inspected. It was worth the investment.
I checked the 11pm news. There was nothing but talk about the U.S. government shutdown. Not one mention of the Scrollsaw Workshop being down for 4 plus hours. The priorities of our news media are all screwed up.
