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News: Opinions and Editorials
News: Opinions and Editorials
Never let anyone destroy your dream!
Posted by johndilbeck on Friday, June 24 2005 at 6:21 AM
(Context Tag: Act On Your Dream) Sometimes it gets so discouraging that quitting -- not usually an option -- seems like the best way to deal with a setback.
Normally, I'm highly-motivated and don't let setbacks get me down.
However, in mid-May, 2005, after spending about nine months building A Portal For Cherokee County, NC, someone came along and destroyed it in a matter of several hours.
I was crestfallen and nearly heartbroke when I went to work on that site on the morning of May 15, 2005. All my hard work was destroyed and, in its place, was an obscene message.
Some misguided individual in Egypt destroyed my site, which is designed to help my local neighbors promote themselves and what they're doing, and replaced it with a hate-filled slogan about the United States and Israel -- neither of which were related to the site.
I don't promote political agendas and I don't discuss my politics in public -- yet, here I was the victim of someone half-way around the planet who destroyed my site and nearly a year of hard work to express his political views.
I think everyone has a right to express their views, but I think nobody has a right to destroy someone else's hard work.
So, what did I do when I found this?
I turned off my computer, poured my fresh cup of coffee in the sink, and went back to bed.
When I woke up a couple of hours later, the initial shock had worn off and my willingness to quit had been replaced with a resolve that I would rebuild the site and make it even better in the process.
I looked at why and how this destruction was accomplished.
Part of the reason was that the person who destroyed the site thought that was a legitimate form of expression. There was nothing I could do about that except go through my log files, track down where and when the destruction had taken place, and report it to the FBI.
That took a few hours. Once it was done, there was nothing else I could do, so I started thinking about what I had control over and what I could change to lessen the likelihood that this problem would reoccur.
When I initially dreamed of A Portal For Cherokee County, NC, I wanted to build an interactive site so that others in the community could easily participate. So, I decided to build it using PHP-Nuke, an open-source content management system that is very popular for building community sites.
Unfortunately, I was not aware, at that time, of the propensity for others hacking and destroying sites built by open source content management systems (CMS). After the destruction of my site, I did a search on Google for "hacked PHP-Nuke" and found many thousands of pages devoted to the subject.
I learned, after the horses had escaped the barn, that it is a full-time job keeping all the security patches applied to PHP-Nuke sites. This is not a condemnation of the program, because I liked it. Rather, it is an indication of just how many people revel in destruction rather than building something of worth for themselves.
I learned a long time ago that it was much more exciting to destroy something than it is to build something. Blowing up car models my brother and I made with fireworks was exciting and took much less time than the slow process of building them, but in the long run, it was much less satisfying. Not only did I waste all the time building the model, but I was left with nothing after destroying it.
Over time, I learned that creating a vision of something I wanted to accomplish and then working to make it real -- while harder to do -- was much more satisfying in the long run.
As an aside, from my brother's love of cars and racing, we graduated from building model cars to going to races. Over the years, my brother's love of drag racing grew while mine dimmed. A few years ago, more or less as a present to him, I started working on Georgia Drag Racing and it gives him a way to not only express his love of the sport but to also meet and get to know his childhood heroes. Who would have thought that a hobby site would grow to attract over a million page views per year?
Back to the subject at hand...
One of the central problems was that I was building my portal using software that was insecure and intrinsically prone to destructive attacks.
So, goal number one was to identify a different way to build the site.
Since I had been having very good results building sites using Radio Userland -- JohnDilbeck.com and GeorgiaDragRacing.com, each with about a million page views per year -- and I'd had no hacking problems from those sites, I decided to redesign my portal for Cherokee County, NC, using that system.
Without going into details, Radio Userland is a database that is scriptable and includes tools for blogging, building static sites, and much more. Not bad for a program that only costs $40 per year.
While it is true that we'd had problems with GeorgiaDragRacing.com about a year ago, it was because of programs we were using to show pictures on the site and other scripts that were running. Once we redesigned the site and rebuilt it having eliminated those scripts, the site has run without problems since.
With that background, I was confident that a new portal built using static web pages would not only be less prone to hacking, but would probably rank better in the search engines, as well.
So, with that in mind, I looked at the features that were built into the old portal and had to decide what would be in the new one.
Some of the interactive features were out. The forum, the free journals (blogs), web site directory, reviews, and most of the interactive features had to go.
How could I replace them?
I built a new forum at WesternNorthCarolinaForum.com that could be used for posting news and conversing with others. It takes some time to get a new forum going, but I knew I would be posting a lot of articles and others would eventually find it and jump in.
Why this approach? Because, the people who manage Sparklit's ActiveBoards do all the background work to update the code and install security patches and all I have to do is concentrate on providing content and moderating the forum. Not only that, but they offer as many free forums as you want -- no charge!
I chose to pay for my forums because I wanted the extra control I could get for paying only $5 per month or so.
Now, for that one small monthly fee, I have four forums hosted there -- all in their infancy, but all with real potential for growth over time:
That is enough forums for now, but I may move my forum from JohnDilbeck.com over here if I have many more hacking attempts there.
So, now we have a forum for the Cherokee County, NC portal.
What about blogs?
I'm not going to offer free blogs, but I did want to offer a way for others to create blogs about things going on in the community and allow them a way to syndicate them on my site.
So, how was I going to do that?
Since I do a lot of blogging and plan to do a lot more in the future, I started working on a way to easily syndicate blogs and other news feeds using syndication tools that are widely available now.
As a result of the research I did over the last month, I now have a way to easily syndicate news feeds on my sites. You can see this, if you want, on JohnDilbeck.com's syndicated news feeds and on Cherokee County's Portal syndicated news feeds.
Now that I know how to do this and I've built, bought, and otherwise acquired the tools to get this done, it will be easy to add new feeds and to add these syndicated news sections on any of my other websites that I choose.
Now, if someone in Cherokee County, NC, wants to maintain their own blog, and it relates to the general principles for which the site has been built, I'll be happy to syndicate their news feed(s) on my sites. They don't have to worry about building traffic and all the other things I do, all they have to do is maintain their blog and I'll do the syndication for them.
So, goals one and two are decided upon and achieved.
I still have some more functionality I want to add to the site, but I'm going to be very choosy about how I accomplish them, with the goal of adding usefulness without a greatly-increased potential for hacking and destruction.
Was this easy to accomplish?
Absolutely not. I worked around the clock and put in over 200 hours redesigning and rebuilding the site.
Was it worth it?
Yes.
I now have a site that actually works better, will probably rank better in the search engine results, and I have developed a new set of tools that I can use on other websites in the future.
The best feeling, however, is that I didn't give up or give in to someone else's destruction of my work.
When I hit the obstacle, I found a way to get past it and make things continue in a direction I want to travel.
That is worth all the hard work.
Never give up.
Never quit.
Set your goals and find a way to accomplish them and you can make your dream come true.
Sometimes it takes considerably less than a year.
What can you accomplish A Year From Now?
All the best,
JD
A Portal for Cherokee County, NC Redesign Complete
Posted by johndilbeck on Monday, May 30 2005 at 7:21 PM
As you may, or may not, know, CherokeeCountyNC.com was hacked on May 10 and 12, 2005, by a very misguided person in Cairo, Egypt.
Many articles were deleted, the forum was corrupted, obscene messages were posted, and months of hard work were destroyed in only a few hours.
After researching this problem, I learned that PHP-Nuke, the content management system I'd been using to develop the site, is prone to this type of hacking attack.
I decided I had to redesign the site for long-term success. Over the next couple of weeks, I worked over 200 hours to completely rebuild the site using tools that would be much less likely to be hacked.
I apologize for the disruption and the fact that your bookmarks may no longer work for you, but, in the long run, this should be a positive development for the site and for posting information about Cherokee County, NC, and the people who live, learn, work, and play here and for those who would like to travel or move here in the future.
We have a lot to offer in Cherokee County,NC, and it is my goal to help you publicize what you are doing to a world-wide audience.
Thanks for ignoring the debris while I knocked out the walls and rebuilt everything.
Now, it's time to get back to work and catch up on the last two weeks of what has been happening here.
Thank you for visiting, and I hope you will support my sponsors who make the site possible.
All the best,
JD
Reloading all historical postings
Posted by johndilbeck on Sunday, May 22 2005 at 7:47 AM
As a result of a hack of this site, I'm changing how I manage it and I'm removing the PHP-Nuke content management system that was previously used.
I'm reloading all the posts that were previously in that section (I'll refer to them as historical postings). I've been experimenting with methods to alter the timestamp on the files so they would look as if they were posted on their original dates, but each approach introduces new errors into the mix, so I'm going to forego that and just load the messages with the current date and a note in the posting of when it was originally posted.
After I get these 400+ articles reloaded, everything should return to normal as I post current messages.
I'm sorry for any confusion this may cause, but I want to get back to posting news and articles and get away from programming and developing the site.
All the best,
JD
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Cherokee County NC News Headlines - All Categories
Campbell Folk School Benefit Auction - Brasstown, NC 28902 - Saturday, August 16, 2008 -- August 15, 2008, 2:29 AM
Healthy Coffee House - Murphy, North Carolina, USA - Save on drinks and overnight stays -- January 21, 2008, 7:54 AM
Free 2008 North Carolina Travel Guide -- January 19, 2008, 12:39 PM
Wild Game Supper - Andrews, NC 28901 - January 24, 2008 -- January 19, 2008, 12:38 PM
Free workshop - How to eat well, even with a medical condition - Murphy, NC 28906 - January 22, 2008 -- January 19, 2008, 12:37 PM
Breast and Cervical Cancer Clinic - Murphy, NC 28906 -- January 19, 2008, 12:35 PM
Free Financial Fitness Workshop - Murphy, NC 28906 - January 22, 2008 -- January 19, 2008, 12:34 PM
Support The Valley River Humane Society - Marble, NC 28905 -- January 19, 2008, 12:33 PM
North Carolina Cooperative Extension Master Gardner training - Brasstown, NC 28902 -- January 19, 2008, 12:31 PM
Mountain Little League Baseball Signups - Murphy, NC 28906 -- January 19, 2008, 12:29 PM
Mountain Little League Umpire Clinic - Murphy, NC 28906 - March 1, 2008 -- January 19, 2008, 12:24 PM
Water Arthritis Aquatic Class - Murphy, NC 28906 -- January 19, 2008, 12:23 PM
Nick Guthrie and Bryan Durrance were Top Agents in December 2007 at Western Carolina Real Estate Co - Murphy, NC 28906 -- January 19, 2008, 12:21 PM
Fourth Annual Robert Burns Dinner - Murphy, NC 28906 - January 25, 2008 -- January 19, 2008, 12:20 PM
Celebration Station Ribbon Cutting - Murphy, NC 28906 - January 31, 2008 -- January 19, 2008, 12:19 PM
Mountain Valley Pac and Ship-It Ribbon Cutting - Murphy, NC 28906 - January 30, 2008 -- January 19, 2008, 12:18 PM
Butterfly Life Grand Opening - Murphy, NC 28906 - January 19, 2008 -- January 19, 2008, 12:16 PM
Sing Behind the Plow Nominated for an Emmy Award - Brasstown, NC 28906 -- January 19, 2008, 12:14 PM
Nighthoots and Morningsongs Available at Folk School - Brasstown, NC 28902 -- January 19, 2008, 12:12 PM
Jan Davidson Receives North Carolina's Top Honor - Brasstown, NC 28902 -- January 19, 2008, 12:11 PM
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Copyright © 2003 - 2006 by John L. Dilbeck: jd@johndilbeck.com
Last built on Thursday, March 16, 2006 at 10:30:28 PM by JLD,
using Radio UserLand and BBEdit on Apple Macintosh computers.
Another site in the growing Dilbeck Marketing network owned by John L. Dilbeck.
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