Creativity Base

Yesterday I coined the term ‘blogtastrophe’, when I vaporized my blog’s back catalog of posts by tinkering with some new WordPress plugins. Having only discovered the wonderful blog platform of WordPress a little over two weeks ago, I had been impressed by the stability and user-friendliness of the system. Obviously, WordPress’ team can’t guarantee the same rigour in its vanguard of external plugin and widget developers, so that was where my suspicion fell.

As an eager freelancer and budding entrepreneur, the plug-ins I was looking at had been options for expanding my blog to include a revenue stream through on-site advertising. I had earmarked two for this purpose: SmartAds (which uses Google’s popular AdSense engine and is currently running beautifully) and the more ambitious Revver plugin.

For those embedded in the world of online video, you’re probably aware that Revver is one of the few sites which offer a return for content creators. Not only would this plug-in start me off towards an ad sponsored pay-per-click system of sharing our video productions with the world, but it also promised to integrate other aspects of my Revver profile into the WordPress backend. I read nothing about a feature designed to destabilize and discombobulate my entire blog!

The party began immediately after installing the Revver plugin. All of my blog content links were appearing as ‘not found’. I realized that a swift undo operation was the order of the day, but alas, the Revver plugin did not offer a convenient method. I checked my options… I could copy and paste the articles from my Google Reader feed. I could download the files from Google’s cache (via its search engine), and re-post them. Oh no I couldn’t. New posts weren’t appearing either! I then discovered that the data had not been wiped afterall, and I could edit the posts provided I went to them via editing comments first. Edit, yes. Make re-appear? No. My two weeks of prolific posting was simply orphaned from its would-be readers… entombed within a buggerised backend. So I put the challenge to the experts at the WordPress.org forum, and Steve from the great WordPress tutorial website EduChalk came to the rescue.

Steve’s medicine was fast, effective and professionally administered. In a couple of hours, my blog was restored to peak fitness, and I thank him dearly for his professionalism, generosity of time and spirit. Incidentally, when I revisited the plugin’s page at the WordPress plug-in directory, it told me that the plugin had ‘not been tested beyond WordPress v. 2.6′. The moral of this story: always read the fine print… or… act in haste, repent at leisure as my Grandmother would say!

How I was feeling this time yesterday...

It had been years since I had a problem with a virus or malware of any kind… until yesterday. A talented musical friend of mine Vitreous sent me a link to download a current mix of his, and suddenly things turned wierd. Evidently a trojan-horse had made it past my internet security suite from Comodo, and I received an alert telling me my antivirus needed updating. The pop-up window at a glance looked like an official Microsoft notice, and without thinking I downloaded the ‘update’ and with it, unleashed a can of worms.

When the alert windows started coming, (in a range of styles, each professing doom for my computer) I became immediately suspicious. I hit ‘Ignore’ every time an alert encouraged me to buy, register, purchase or clean my computer of the 7000 odd ills I was being told it had… and turned to Google in search of an answer.

Sure enough, I had welcomed into my Windows XP machine a dose of AntiVirus 360, a fake a/v program that hustles you for your details, money, and slows your PC performance down like a ball and chain. Fortunately, with a little help from this great free application Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, I was able to rid myself of the problem, and restore my PC’s performance to its former glory.

The one thing the remedy I found via Google didn’t mention is that AntiVirus 360 has a neat way of intercepting your attempts to clean your computer, by forcing the Malwarebytes app to close. After much frustration, I found that by downloading the app to my desktop, then restarting Windows XP in Safe Mode, I was able to install the application, run it immediately after and clean my PC with little complication.

The long and the short of this is: don’t take your PC security for granted, and carefully scrutinize any pop-up that throws itself your way, no matter how familiar and legitimate it may appear at first glance. Thanks again to Malwarebytes for getting me out of this pickle… and with any luck, this article will spare more of you from this particular nasty!