This morning I had a hangover.
Friends stayed over last night and alcohol was consumed. Bit worse for wear this morning.
I was rattling about looking for a hangover cure when my wife said that a whisper was going around the village that the bilberry bushes on the moor had borne fruit. I know this sounds like a Thomas Hardy novel (but without the death, suicide or depression) but just bear with me for a bit – it’ll be worth it!
Bilberries are a local delicacy – a small round, blue-black berry that is made into ‘mucky mouth pie’, and ( I was told) has almost mystical hangover curing properties.
Ten minutes later this was me:
, along with spouse and kids…..
Feeling like death and wondering why I hadn’t chosen a bacon butty instead.
A couple of hours later and the wind and rain had blown away all traces of a hangover and I felt great!
And some kind of bilberry flan, tart, pie or whatever will be on the menu tonight.
Word had certainly got out though, and while we didn’t quite come to blows with any of the other bilberry pickers, I certainly used my newly bloodshot eyes, once or twice, to warn people to stay away from ‘my patch’.
When I got back home and checked my email I something that I’m pretty sure will be of interest to many of you. It certainly will to me!
A good friend of mine …………………….STOP!
I know many many marketers start emails with ‘a good friend of mine…..’ but in this case it’s true. I met up with some mates in the business yesterday and sat down with this particular buddy while we had some lunch and a pint and discussed a bit of business.
The man in question is John Sikora, and if you’re a guru you’ll definitely know who he is, because he’s the man behind one of the most avidly-viewed sites in Internet Marketing, GuruDaq.
John is on first name terms with more gurus than a Vegas seminar, and he’s a seriously clever bloke too. I’ve known him for several years and he’s helped me out with his technical knowledge on dozens of occasions. He’s the real deal when it comes to being an expert.
He’s got some new software out – just released – and he’s agreed that I can tell you about it, and he’ll keep the price fixed while you get chance to give it the once over.
Basically it is going to save many, many marketers a lot of time and money that they incur when they get HACKED. Now I attend the business meeting John mentions in the page below, and I can tell you that 75% of the internet marketers in that room had, at some point, been HACKED.
John’s created some truly excellent software that installs easily and sends you an email the very SECOND it detects that a file or folder in your hosting account has been added, deleted or changed. It does all this without you having to lift a finger.
Basically it tells you if you’ve been hacked. Automatically. You can set it and forget it.
If you’re hacked, you’ll be able to sort it out within minutes. Unlike someone I know who had a bank phishing page installed on his server for weeks without knowing anything about it.
That sort of thing costs a lot of money to put right, not to mention lost business, lost files and downloads, and subscribers losing confidence in you.
This baby is on guard for you 24/7 !!
If you have websites, grab yourself a copy of John’s software. No big fancy website here – just SOLID software that I reckon is going to be listed in the ‘internet marketer’s top 10’ of must-have software very soon.
Check it out if you have websites you care about. Don’t leave it too late.
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Hi Tony
You still look cool, even with a hangover 🙂 And what a miserable day to be out on the moors!
Your heads up about this software is very timely as my website was hacked just over a week ago. My son does all my techie stuff and I left it to him to sort out (I didn’t even know it had been hacked!). He said something about a malware javascript being installed. At least that’s what I think he said but if that doesn’t make sense don’t blame him, it’ll be me that’s got it wrong.
Regardless, it meant he was up late finding the problem and sorting it out when he should have been having an early night prior to setting out early next morning for a break in Scotland. I have emailed him the link so that it will be waiting in his inbox when he returns home on Friday. And in the meantime I’m a nervous wreck wondering if it’s being hacked again while he’s away!
Hope you’re feeling better now. And you know how to avoid a hangover in future, don’t you? Stay drunk 🙂
Enjoy your bilberry pie, I haven’t had one for years, maybe it’s time to rectify that.
Regards
Lynn
Just had half a dozen emails about Bilberries 🙂
It seems pilots used to eat them in the war to improve their night vision.
Like the ‘stay drunk advice too’ LOL
About the software – you know the norm in IM seems to be that you pay a grand for software that doesn’t bloody work??
Well John is the most methodical, dedicated software producers that I’ve ever known, and he’s tested this little gem rigorously.
It’s a cracking piece of kit and something that I’m personally installing on all my sites.
Thanks for posting Lynn!
Tony
Tony
I notice the software alerts you as soon as there is activity on your hosting account…that’s fine but what about making it more secure in the first place so that hackers have a harder time? Is that posssible? I have to say I don’t know an awful lot about hacking other than I want to do all I can to avoid it and software that just tells you when its happened seems a little timid?
What do you think?
Ian
Hi Ian
I know what you’re saying but from what I understand about hacking, being able to STOP hackers is the Holy Grail – and it’s just not possible, although you can make it harder for them – see the other comments on this post.
A lot of the damage is done when people simply don’t realise their sites have been hacked.
This software can pretty much elimate the damage by alerting you to a new hack within minutes of it happening.
If someone ever does come up with software that just stops hackers (and NASA, the British Government and Microsoft have all been hacked) I’d like just a 1% share in the company – I’d buy a small European country with the profits 🙂
Good post though – I really enjoy comments like yours that raise important points! Very welcome!
Hi Tony,
So glad your hangover got blown away. Your reference to
bilberries took me back to my childhood when we used to go
onto the moors to pick them and the resulting pies were
scrumptious.
My son builds new computers and repairs sick ones and he is
fanatical about keeping up to date with software to keep out
the nasties. I leave all that to him and it gets checked very
frequently to make sure everything is working. Please give
my kindest regards to Sara and these of course are extended
to yourself. Best wishes Barbara.
Hi Tony,
Nice to see you and the family taking advantage of the wonderful Yorkshire countryside.
I didn’t know very much about hacking, so this is something of interest to me. I didn’t even think about it happening, which is a bit ‘head in the sand’.
Do you know how easy it is to remove a hack should it happen? I don’t think I would know where to start!
You can certainly make it harder for hackers. If you control your server switch off FTP and use SSH, preferably on a port other than 22, instead. That along with keeping scripts like WordPress and PHPBB bang up to date will make most ‘script kiddies’ turn their attention elsewhere. If someone really wants to hack your particular site, of course, there’s always a way if they have enough skill and patience. That’s when this software will be invaluable to even the most cautious webmaster…
Cheers
Alex
Cheers
LOL!
You weren’t the only one hung over this morning mate, Lee McIntyre and I were both nursing bad heads from one too many beers at Kevin Brown’s worskhop.
I went for the sleep in and then egg & bacon option… 🙂
I’ll go check out John’s software, sounds pretty useful!
thanks.
Matt
Hi
Here’s something which might help in the ‘prevention’ area.
It’s something Bill Myers advises people to do who have bought his Pubstermax software but it applies to anyone who has hosting. It’s from the ‘public’ area of his site so I know Bill won’t mind me sharing it with you. Here’s the info:
http://www.pubster.com/public/111.cfm
Hope it helps
Jack
Will do Barbara – thanks for posting!
Tony
Hi Katie – nice to hear from you!
For $27 Johns software is a no-brainer for me because if I manually checked all my sites every day it would take me weeks 🙂 if you know what I mean. It’s an unlimited license too so you can use it on as many sites as you want.
It’s a simple install but I have so many sites I’ll have to outsource that job.
Cheers
Tony
Thanks Alex – excellent post and great info.
Tony
Mr Garrett!
Not a seminar bar left intact eh mate?
You must have more contacts than a Westminster Madame 🙂
I know Lee likes a pint and you’ve been know to imbibe *one or two* yourself so I bet sore heads were the order of the day eh? A walk on the moors will beat a hangover any time but not as much fun as a bacon butty.
Do check out John’s software – I think it’s a great little script.
Cheers
Tony
Jack – thanks for the info and the link!
Tony
Fortunately, I haven’t had my site hacked so far! I use a hard-to-guess password (I hope that helps!). Regarding the Sitewarder software, is it a script or compiled software?
BTW, your hangover cure was helpful except for the fact that there aren’t any bilberries where I live (Goa, India). However, there are many Englishmen who have settled here. I hope they’ve brought some bilberries!