Hi, all!
I know it’s been awhile (over a year) since I’ve posted anything here. I’m mostly over on Twitter for regular updates, check-ins, and news.
Nothing particularly share-worthy has happened of late. I’m apparently a quilter now (hashtag DinaQuilts on Twitter if you’d like to see some of them) and have posted some pics of completed projects over on an Instagram I made for people NOT on Twitter (and I’m not on FB, because Fuck Zuck, that’s why) that asked where they could see what I’ve made.
Other than that, things are trucking along here. Spring has sprung and I’m about to go into my reverse hibernation (honestly, I hate this time of year so much), and figured I’d do a quick little post about a couple things:
1) My email was hacked.
Yeah. I’ll be sending out a newsletter regarding what’s been going on, but suffice to say I think between me, my webhost, and the email team, we mostly figured out what’s going on and how to (hopefully!) keep it from happening again. It’s taken months of back and forth and tricks and twiddles, but I hope we’ve managed to sort it out this time.
Suffice to say, if you got a spammy/phishy email from one or more addresses using “dinajames dot com”, it wasn’t me and I apologize for the fuckery I wasn’t even aware of until I got smacked by a banhammer from my provider calling out the bullshit going on behind the scenes. The spamming douchebags used a combination of spoofing and cloning, as the emails weren’t showing up in my Sent folder as Sent, but they were using my domain and bandwith to spam at various intervals. Brute force attacks were involved and I’ve learned SO MUCH about digital security these last few months. I thought I was pretty good with the security steps I already had in place, but things change and technology gets faster and what I thought was pretty great five years ago has been left in the dust. I’m all spiffed up now, and hopefully it shouldn’t happen again.
Again, apologies for any bullshit that may have landed in your inbox.
2) Speaking of spiffing up, you should be seeing some new shinies around here soon, courtesy of my handler/enabler/Platonic Murder Wife, Skyla Dawn Cameron of IndigoChick Designs. You’ve heard of her before, and if you haven’t, shame on you. Go buy her books and hire her for amazing things.
3) Writerly stuff and things are in the works, and I will update you about them later as things develop.
I know the pandemic has taken it’s toll on everyone (us included!), but it isn’t over yet, so despite what’s happening in your neck of the woods, please continue to mask, sanitize, distance, and get vaccinated. We’re all tired and ready for things to be over. Even if you’re done with COVID-19, it isn’t quite done with us yet. We’ve got it on the ropes, though. Just keep fighting, and we’ll beat this fucker.
-Dina