For those who didn't email, call, or send fruit baskets, let me just say that Saturday was, to this date, the most traumatic day for me as a blog author, ever.
I came to my computer, preparing to write a rather genius blog (to come Wednesday) and found, to my absolute horror, that AbbyGabs was nowhere to be found.
It went something like this:
(If you can't see the video, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9reJhCZw7QQ)
Well, at least that's what happened at first. I'll spare you the shouting, cursing, fist-shaking, nervous breakdown, etc. Oh, and the close-up of me crying, reminiscent of the infamous Blair Witch Project scene.
As you probably know, while AbbyGabs is its own domain, it is powered through Blogger....which is powered through Google. (You may already see where this is going, so feel free to shake your head in consternation as I continue this story.)
When I noticed there was a problem with my site, I immediately went looking for help from the pros. There is no way to contact Google, or Blogger, directly (which took me an hour to find out) so I headed for the help forums. I noticed there were a few similar complaints on the forum, so I checked in with them first. They weren't receiving much help from said "HELP" forum, so we started bantering back and forth, trying to troubleshoot our own problem.
I also posted a "HELP ME BEFORE I HAVE A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN" thread for my own humble little blog.
An hour in, we still hadn't heard from any of the moderators. Meanwhile, more and more people were creeping in with the same issue.
That issue was this: when we went to our domains, using any browser available to man, we received the message that "www.thatwebsite.com" cannot be found. Cache copies were available, but we couldn't open the domains.
Consequently, I couldn't open their domains and they couldn't open mine.
However, friends and family and my therapist all said my blog was perfectly visible to them.
HUH?
So....back to the forums. At approximately 11 am (2 hours, 2 very large cups of coffee, and a handful of diazepams later....)(just kidding) I finally had a response from a moderator, who we'll call Blogger Nazi for the purposes of this post.
Was the response from Blogger Nazi helpful, kind, or in anyway relevant?
No.
He said, "If you want my help, please remove any posts from this forum that are unnecessary, confusing, or inflammatory."
That left me incensed. And baffled, considering my responses in other threads were basically, "Me, too!" and "Hey, what a coincidence!" and "I don't think there's a way to contact Google directly."
But, being desperate for help, I complied with
Then, for the next 2 hours, he decided to dump link after link after link to his "Here's How To Fix Your Blog" blog, filled with techno-speak that you need a degree to understand. He kept asking me the same questions over and over and over again, asking for clarifications, for me to be "specific" and "less emotional" in my responses. He kept insisting that my blog wasn't down, because he could see it, and that it was obviously an error in my part since clearly, I'm a newbie and an idiot and I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Until I sent him about 15 links to other bloggers who were having the same problem.
That shut him up, and quick.
When the mob arrived brandishing pitch forks and lit torches, Blogger Nazi finally compiled a list of complaints and turned them in to Blogger.
Who turned them in to Google.
Who turned them in to GoDaddy.com.
And THEN we found out that, in fact, it wasn't an isolated incident, but it was an issue with GoDaddy all along. Apparently, there was a large DDOS attack in two of their data centers.
I have no idea what a DDOS attack is...sounds like something from World of Warcraft to me.
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| Aww...cute little orcs, aren't they? |
At any rate, GoDaddy cleaned up all the dragons and beasties, and now my site is back up and running.
No thanks to
Well, sort of thanks to him, but he could've just lodged a complaint without being so mean. He called my blog superfluous. SUPERFLUOUS. Can you believe that???
I should send my orc pals after him.
Anyway, during all the chaos, I got a lot of help and support...and even got an amazing offer to do a guest post for my friend, Tricia, at her blog, The Katnip Lounge! She was a fan of The FatKat Kronicles, and I've gotten a lot of requests to bring Scoot and his pals back....so, I'm kicking off my soon-to-launch weekly FatKat comic strip over at the Lounge today! So, head on over to The Katnip Lounge to read my very first Guest Post!! It will make me forget all about Saturday's debacle.
Almost....
