I use a few different solutions for my web stats, one of them being Mint. It is a pretty good compliment to Google Analytics if you like more real time stats.

Like most of you, analytics are an important part of how I manage my websites. Today was no less important. Today was actually quite entertaining, and it will probably get better here soon.

I set up feeds from Mint on iGoogle for all my sites, so I can watch referrers as they come in. Today, I see a site come in and I was curious as usual and clicked through. Wasn’t I unpleasantly surprised to find a pretty blatant rip off of the Armeda.com website.

It’s happened in the past on various sites I own and have owned, but come on, really??? This is just nasty, lol.

Take a look at the screenies:

This is pretty straight forward and crappy, but what can you do but laugh. Most of the links don’t work. The ones that do, still lead back to Armeda.

Check out the source above to see my code (which has been screwed with), it all still references back to Armeda.

Now for the best part…

The Rip-off artists happen to have the same name as me and are also service connected disabled veterans, what a coincidence!

Again, the links in the footer lead back to Armeda, and my feed. The icons that lead to Basecamp, Freshbooks and MediaTemple still link to my affiliate links, at least I can thank them for that.

The thing that cracks me up the most about the whole thing is their site is written in ASP and still rocks the WordPress logo….awesome :)

For anyone interested, you can check it out live here. It’s a subdomain owned by a design and development firm in Turkey. This goes to show, do your research and ensure you hire REAL web designers and developers!!!

Have you ever had your site ripped? Tell me your story.

The latest and greatest news is alongside Tony Perez and Xiomara Armeda, we have formed a new company named – CubicTwo LLC. We are really excited and hope you are too, please stand by as we start this new venture, a lot of great things to come.

So What’s this mean

Armeda will continue to be my personal journal which will include the same lack of consistent posting about WordPress and other cool stuff I get to work with. :) If anything it will transform the way I blog for the better.

It will enable me to write about more than just WordPress but design, methodologies, start-ups, security, and other random stuff in an effort to help others and to just plain share my thoughts.

What is CubicTwo LLC?

You’ll just have to wait and see :) Just kidding. The idea was to structure a solid building block around some of the services I have been offering as a consultant. There will be some other initiatives and verticals we look into based on the experiences and networks of the other partners in the new venture.
When and When?

Have you noticed a lack of movement here?

Yessss, me too. As you know recently Jonathan Dingman and I launched WPVibe and that has consumed a lot of time. You will most likely see subtle changes around here over the next few months as CubicTwo comes alive. After our major properties are constructed and pushed into production, you can expected some major changes here on Armeda.
Thank you to all

At the end of the day, this logical move for me would not have happened without the wonderful supporters and clients I have had the opportunity to work with and collaborate in various ways. Thank you for being there and expect great things in 2010.

Stay tuned for more info about the move, what is changing in detail and so on.

It seems that Media Temple was exploited yesterday evening and you may be in danger. As you know, Armeda is on Media Temple and I really enjoy their service.

Last night I received an email which was followed up this morning with a second communication that their was some irregular activity:

This is an automated notice informing you that our system has reset your Server Administrator FTP/SSH password due to suspicious activity observed on your (gs) Grid-Service. Our systems have taken measures to protect your service from any possible future exploits.

Please take this opportunity to create strong passwords for your Server Administrator, Account Center contacts, and any Email accounts associated with your service. Typically, strong passwords should be at least eight characters in length, combine numbers and letters, and not include commonly used dictionary words.

I reviewed all of my instances of WordPress and I don’t seem to be in the group that was affected by what seems to be a wide spread hack of Media Temple yesterday evening.

Later in the emails they sent, they also included the following:

We also strongly suggest examining your website content for anything suspicious that may have occurred as a result of this FTP activity. If you find files, folders, or code that seem suspicious please delete them as soon as possible. As always, keeping working backups is encouraged.

We have provided some examples in a Knowledge Base article detailing the most common exploit associated with this recent activity. See http://kb.mediatemple.net/questions/1715/ for more details.

You can also see a post on Digging into WordPress by Chris Coyier.

Food for Thought

1. I went through and changed all of my passwords and I recommend you do the same, if you haven’t been affected yet, it doesn’t mean the risk doesn’t exist.

2. I’ve also done a visual overview of all of the WordPress files that seemed to have been affected, just to ensure no malicious code was introduced into my environment. Again, I recommend you do the same!

A couple more tips and I’ll leave you to your turkey day celebration

3. Back-up your databases and download them off of the Media temple environment. Some folks are doing fresh installs of WordPress but this seems to have affected theme files as well so again, it’s a good idea to do an overview of your files.

4. Lastly, there are various host integrity checking tools out there, it’s a good idea to use one. What they do is alert you any time a file is changed on your host account. I recommend WIGSI by Sucuri. It will email or tweet you any time a change occurs, I use it on almost all of my sites.

Conclusion

I am not sure what the root causes and actions taken are yet but I will say that it seems Media Temple was quick to notify all of their users to the problem. They have always been pretty good to so in my book.

Things like this happen and it helps if you are taking steps like monitoring your site, regular back ups, and adhering to best practices when it comes to WordPress and security principles.

Have you been affected? Let me know if you received the emails from Media Temple and please expand on my post if you can

Well this post isn’t a crafty HOW-TO on finding the next best brand on the web. I was going through my domain portfolio this last week and found a few names I am looking to part with.

Some of them are very specific, others are not, but in my opinion, all of them are pretty catchy and very brandable.

Take a look, tell me what you think:

• directmessage.me
• wpvibe.com – No longer for sale
• castlegator.com
• cubictwo.com/net
• cloudgator.com
• tweetsec.com
• twitskit.com
• twitstic.com
• twizzlicio.us
• chicagotweets.com
• clearlyclouded.com
• cloudedtruth.com
• feedcastle.com
• hostedvideo.info
• hostedvideorecorder.com
• snoringmoose.com
• snortex.com/net/org

Feel free to contact me if you are interested in one or more of the names on the list.

You’ve seen a slow, non-productive blogging effort here at Armeda over the last couple of months, and I would like to offer my apologies for that. Well here is the reason for the lack of effort and productivity. With my long time friend and fellow WordPress geek Jonathan Dingman, we just finalized and brought to life WordPress Vibe (WPVibe).

What will WPVibe Be?

Well this is hard to answer, we know what we want it to be. At the end of the day it’s what the WordPress community makes of it. We’ve divided the initial content offering into four main areas:

1. News – Latest Dev news, Up to the minute security issues, WordPress Updates, etc.
2. Resources – Got offer some awesome hacks, tutorials, video HOWTO’s and the kitchen sink here!
3. Interviews – Look for some in depth, personal discussions with some of the big names from the community, WordPress.Com, Automattic, and more.
4. Reviews – Need the skinny on the latest hot theme, plugin, framework & WordPress SEO, well tell you all about it.

So in short, if you’re a WordPress junkie like me, this sounds like a place for you to hang out. The other idea here is to evangelize how great and easy WordPress is to apply for new and interested users.

What about Armeda

Armeda, ah well, this is my home :) This is the place where I will continue to post my latest work, random posts about design, security, and products I like. As you’ve grown to know, I am pretty slow about posting.

A couple of things going on here. I have had 100′s of requests for a plugin of my WP Post Carousel hack. Good news is it’s in the works. You should see it over the next couple months and will be posted here and at WPVibe.

Are you interested in contributing on WordPress Vibe? I would enjoy hearing from you, make sure to let us know by the visiting WPVibe Contributor page.

Also don’t hesitate to post your comments about the move. Should be really exciting and an opportunity for all of us to learn more about our favorite platform.