VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘ugh’

Earlier this week VMETC.com fell victim to a WordPress hack that redirected readers to a malware infested site. Best estimate is that early Thursday morning (9/17) the site was compromised by an attacker that was able to add several lines of code to the beginning of every PHP file in my public_html directory. With several other WordPress sites hosted in the same directory, there were thousands of files that needed to be cleaned up. All site RSS feeds were rendered unavailable as a result.

The hacker left a “silence is golden” message in a few of the files. There are 18,900 hits on Google for this WordPress attack.

Lucky for me, the social community not only notified me of the issue (thanks Ken Fury, @kculw, @ericsiebert and @jasonboche), but came to the rescue as well.

@SirStan (Stan Brinkeroff), A Twitter follower (that I follow as well), offered some assistance if needed and I jumped at the chance.  Stan figured out the exploit, identified the rogue code, deciphered it’s evil, implemented a temporary work around for Friday night, and then found, tweaked,  and t-shooted the script to bulk remove the offending lines in each file. Stan is definitely a PHP master and a ‘nix wizard. For saving this site Stan is now an Ugly Green Hero as well!

Stan lost 3+ hrs of his weekend to help me. I hope the VMETC and VIRTUMANIA t-shirts I am sending him are an adequate payment (let me know if not, Stan).

VMETC.com and VIRTUMANIA.net are back in business. Please let me know if anything is still messed up.

Do me a huge favor, tweet @sirstan and tell him thanks and great job! I can’t say it enough by myself.

The 2009 Q3 winners (tallied by email address) with the number of comments made July through September :

1. Jason Boche – 16 – UGG
2. Dracolith – 16 – UGG
3. Tom12010 – 10 – UGH
4. Vladan – 10 – UGH
5. Cody Bunch – 5 – UGH

As always, the winners will receive an email from me shortly requesting a shipping address and a t-shirt size. I’ll get the shirts delivered from Cafepress.com as quick as possible.

The reader with the most comments each quarter earns Ugly Green Guru status and will receive a unique t-shirt with UGG on the pocket instead of UGH (as pictured).

I’ve created a UGH Hall Of Fame (HOF) Page here on VM /ETC. Check out all the previous winners there.

In the first ever tie, VM /ETC regulars Dracolith and Jason Boche slugged it out all quarter but apparently decided to cross the finish line arm in arm. Since this is Jason’s first UGG I’m giving him the top position. Dracolith won UGG status in Q209, and has not been officially de-throwned.

It’s good to see Tom12010 returned to UGH status again after a brief leave of absence in Q2.

I’d like to welcome Vladan and Cody Bunch to the UGH club. Both first time winners this quarter, but both have been VM /ETC regulars since the beginning.

If you just have to have a VM /ETC t-shirt and can’t wait until you win in Q4, check out my CafeExpress.com store and order one of several different styles for yourself.

Q4 2009 winners will be announced in January 2010, so start commenting on the posts now. You don’t have to leave anything profound to win. Just help answer questions, add your experience, or just express how a topic is relevant to you.

As always, thanks to all the readers who comment on VMETC.com posts!

Or maybe it’s just a cleaning service for the popular Australian boots!

Besides, Ugly Green Gurus don’t mind a little mud on them once in a while.

Jason Boche sent me this photo. With 2 consecutive UGH awards, Jason probably already has an annual pass at this establishment!

I wonder if any VM /ETC UGG/UGH winners actually own any UGGs?

Continuing the “storied tradition” established in Q1 2009, VM /ETC Ugly Green Guru (UGG) and Ugly Green Hero (UGH) award winners have been decided. Regular readers will recall I announced these new quarterly awards for Top Commenters on vmetc.com when VMware announced the vExpert program this past January.

The 2009 Q2 winners (tallied by email address) with the number of comments made April through June :

1. Dracolith – 18 – UGG
2. Jason Boche – 8 – UGH
3. Doug Hazelman – 4 – UGH
4. Sean Clark – 4 – UGH

As before, the winners will receive an email from me this week requesting a shipping address and a t-shirt size. I’ll get the shirts delivered from Cafepress.com as quick as possible.

The reader with the most comments each quarter earns Ugly Green Guru status and will receive a unique t-shirt with UGG on the pocket instead of UGH (as pictured).

Dracolith and Sean Clark have simultaneously  become the first commenters to “hit for the cycle”.  In Q1 Sean won the first ever UGG title and Dracolith achieved UGH status. Jason Boche is “batting 1.000″ by winning his second UGH award. I wonder what these guys will wear to work the other 3 days of the week from now on?

Doug Hazelman has always been an honorary Ugly Green Hero at VM /ETC for his efforts to try to get me to understand how the ISV game works. I’m glad to see he won a shirt legit!

If you just have to have a VM /ETC t-shirt and can’t wait until you win in Q3, check out my CafeExpress.com store and order one of several different styles for yourself. I’ve recently added a $13 value shirt to the inventory. You can even order a UGH shirt like the winners, but I’m keeping the UGG version exclusive for the top commenters

Q3 2009 winners will be announced in October, so start commenting on the posts now. You don’t have to leave anything profound to win. Just help answer questions, add your experience, or just express how a topic is relevant to you.

As always, thanks to all the readers who comment on VMETC.com posts!

I’m proud to recognize the first ever VM /ETC Ugly Green Guru (UGG) and Ugly Green Hero (UGH) award winners. Regular readers will recall I announced these new quarterly awards for Top Commenters on vmetc.com when VMware announced the vExpert program this past January.

So without further delay the 2009 Q1 winners with number of comments are:

1. Sean Clark – 13 – UGG
2. Carlo Costanzo – 8 – UGH
3. Jason Boche – 7 – UGH
4. Tom02010 – 6 – UGH
5. Martin Lohmeijer – 5 – UGH
6. David Marshall – 4 – UGH
7. Dracolith – 4 – UGH

The winners will receive an email from me this week requesting a shipping address and a t-shirt size. I’ll get the shirts delivered from Cafepress.com as quick as possible. Click the shirt image to see the back of the shirt too.

Special recognition goes to Sean Clark as the first ever Ugly Green Guru. Follow Sean on Twitter, Disqus, VMworldunderground.com, and his blog.

The reader with the most comments each quarter earns Ugly Green Guru status and will receive a unique t-shirt with UGG on the pocket instead of UGH (as pictured).

I originally thought I could lean on the Disqus plugin to track my Top Commenters, Read the rest of this entry »

Hey, it’s been a week of announcing new virtualization awards so I had to chime in with my own announcement, right? VMware announced the vExpert reward, vinternals.com announced the humerous vIdiot awards, and now I am announcing the UGG (Ugly Green Guru) and UGH (Ugly Green Hero) awards.

Can you think of a better award for stressed out, overloaded, virtually insane virtualization professionals who take the time to help others?! Maybe you’re not a vExpert (and hopefully not a vIdiot!), but everyone should recognise the value of publicly announcing a good “UGH”!

The winners will be announced Quarterly and will get a special t-shirt so they can proudly display their accomplishment.

Here’s the details for determining the winners:

• Take the time to comment on posts here at VM /ETC. Help others, add information and links, answer questions, and keep me straight.
• If you’ve already commented in the past, claim your profile on DISQUS by creating a free account. (More on DISQUS comments later in this post) Otherwise open a new DISQUS account.
• Make sure I add you to my DISQUS Community Friends.
• Keep an eye on the Top Commenters via the PEOPLE tab of the multi widget in the VM /ETC left column.
• Award clout points to other comments. I willl do the same. Participate in the discussions.
• The top commenter wins the UGG Guru award, and the second and third place finishers get the UGH Hero award.
• The fine details of using clout points versus number of comments to determine the winners will be subjective and my call – it really depends how I well I can track my comments.
• I will mail the shirts to the winners.

I am not trying to become the next VMTN Communities or virtualization forum. I have no illusions about that! I just want to recognise and thank those that help make this blog informative and helpful for both myself and all subscribers and readers.

So, what is DISQUS? Why did I switch to it for VM /ETC and why should you sign up? Read the rest of this entry »