Not the best weekend ever – computer crashes and porn hacking

There were a couple of wonderful things that happened this weekend. I keep trying to remember that. The taxes are almost done and I started taming the file cabinets. We played a marathon game of Planet Earth Monopoly with Number One Son and his girlfriend, who shall now be named The Real Estate Mogul because she trounced us.

And we had an adventure Saturday morning that wound up with the purchase of a magic window. Which I will show you tomorrow.

But two very frustrating, irritating, enraging things happened.

The hard drive on my two-month old MacBook Air died Saturday. Completely died. I’m thinking it was a massive stroke. There was no way to recover any data or email. Most of it was backed-up, but I’m sure some things will slip through the cracks. If you are waiting to hear from me about something and I don’t respond by the end of this week, please mail me again.

Apple is replacing the drive without any problem. But I lost a day of work and will lose more time getting the replacement.

The second thing was worse. A pathetic loser hacked into the UNOFFICIAL LHA fan page on FaceBook and emailed all the members a link that took them to a porn site.

I would like to see that person flogged, but the police say I’ll have to settle for less.

The page that was hacked had no connection to me. It started by a high school student a couple of years ago. She has since left the group and don’t think anyone else stepped in to be the admin, hence the problems. A member of the group emailed me about the hacking and and I contacted FaceBook. I think they may shut the page down.

FOR THE RECORD….. There are 3 “official and approved” LHA pages on FaceBook:

1. My personal page; open to family, friends, and readers of my books. Send a request and I’ll friend you. URL: http://www.facebook.com/people/Laurie-Halse-Anderson/571139598.

2. An official”fan” page, for people who care only about my books and are a little sick of hearing me talk about snow and tomatoes. The URL for that is: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Laurie-Halse-Anderson/21437339487.

3. The official Wintergirls page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wintergirls/47142907401.

These pages, as well as my presence on LiveJournal and MySpace and Twitter are all monitored; you’re as safe as a person can be on the Internet if you stick to the monitored sites.

I apologize to everyone who received the email from the skanky creep. I am very sorry and angry someone highjacked my name. I would love to meet up with that person and express my discontent face-to-face, but that’s what my lawyers are for.

SO! That was my weekend. How was yours?

I promise a return to unabashed perkiness tomorrow. I am very stoked about the magic window and can’t wait to show you pictures.

18 Replies to “Not the best weekend ever – computer crashes and porn hacking”

  1. You mean Ms. Stevensson didn’t really find my photo on some random website and think I was a dear old friend? Garsh.

    My co-worker has had several run-ins with her Mac dying, too.

  2. My laptop hard drive died too! Poor thing, it was only a year and a half old, good thing it’s still under the school’s warrenty. My BF and his computer engineer friend think it’s physical damage, which brings more clout to my theory from last summer that it was melting. Just, in more technical terms. We were able to get most stuff off of it, but I hate losing everything. I got a virus in 9th grade, wiped it clean, I cried for hours. It sucks.

    Magic window? Hmm…

  3. OK, this is weird, because my HP hard drive died a few weeks ago. There must be an epidemic.

    I caved and got a MacBook. I need to go ahead and buy the AppleCare before too long.

  4. I’m torn between a dell, a mac or ,an hp. I still have a lot to learn about computers and I want one that is not hard to use. I need it for my writing and scanning and storing my own art work. If anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it. Keep in mind I only know the basics right now.

    Sorry about the porn thing. That sort of thing disgusts me!

    Magic door, hmmmm? I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I want one. Can’t wait to see the pics.

  5. Okay. Here’s some tips for you. Wipe your Hard Drive clean every six months or year (backing up beforehand, of course) and the HD will be fine. I’ve had my laptop (which is frankly getting a little passed it by my terms) for over 4 years and the HD has yet to be replaced. But that’s because I’m a geek and make time for these type of weird things that other people can’t be bothered or can’t do.

  6. I have a Dell laptop. The customer service is impeccable and my lappy still functions after 4 years. Don’t get an Acer compy. Apparently the customer service at that company is way past bad.

  7. Well, I’ve needed to reformat for a while, so I get your idea. But it is actual physical damage, which I don’t think that would help. I think it’s just cause it’s a crap hard drive in a crap laptop I bought from the school and only didn’t crash every day cause i put 3 more GBs of ram in it.

  8. My dad did the same, his work computer died and he got a Macbook. It works better for what he needs, so I get it. But it still bugs me they only have one mouse button.

  9. Thanks for the advice. Our home computer is a dell and we have had it eight years and it’s faster than my step-daughters hp and has never been sick at all **knock on wood**. I was leaning towards the dell laptop.

  10. I have recently begun saving all my writing and important documents to a thumb drive (USB memory stick.) it’s very easy to just pop it in the computer while I’m working and occasionally save the writing on it. Afterwards, I save a copy to the computer hard drive as well. This gives me 2 copies of my work, should something unsavory occur. They’re pretty inexpensive, too- around $20 to $35.)

    About the porn- so very sorry that happened! I had a website/forum that I have since closed membership on, due to spammers and porn peddlers. There are ways to block i.p adresses, but this is a bit like closing the barn door after the horse has left.

  11. I got that e-mail the other day. I found it very odd that someone on facebook recognized me in my profile picture, considering that I’m not even in it. I use a scan from a comic book, the same one as my icon. I didn’t follow the link, and now I’m glad I didn’t. Some people are just so pathetic. Porn peddlers, spammers and hackers have attacked pretty much every forum I’ve ever been on, including the ones for cartoon fans.

  12. well, I hope at least that the link was not up for long…
    And, who doesn’t like hearing about snow and tomatoes? It’s kind of a good motto for upstate NY. “we only have two seasons here, snow and tomatoes.” I’m quite ready for tomato season, myself.
    Take care.
    Lettie

  13. A pet site I go on (Wajas.com) also got hacked this weekend. Porn was posted, messages were spammed…

    Some people just have no morals. And too much time on their hands. Honestly.

    Don’t let it get to you too much. Most of your readers will know that it was just a stupid prank by an idiot who hides behind the computer screen. Nobody will hold it against you.

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