One year plan…

So, I have a One Year Plan to make my site and web content better and at the very least self-supporting.  I have had this site for 16 years and it is not free.  I would like for it to at least generate enough income to pay for the software updates, registration fees, equipment, and hosting costs.  A Great Leap Forward without the Maoist philosophy, mass-starvation, mass-migration, and such. It is multi-pronged and here it is:

Shop:

  • Stop eschewing progress for perfection.
  • Get it set and start working and building and doing!
  • Finish current Jeep projects

Website:

  • More regular updates
  • Split my personal BLOG/website and my “commercial” one
  • More video content for this site and commercial site (trying REALLY hard to buy Matt of Many Trades from its current owner – see blurb below)
  • Use as a funnel to increase my YouTube traffic

YouTube:

  • Monetize Account
  • Branding
    • Change the page name
  • Focus on specific content – craft and making stuff
  • Split art, travel, family, cycling and kayaking videos onto second YouTube channel
  • Become a better filmmaker
  • Spend time in front of the camera
  • Use better tools
    • Lenses
    • Lighting!
    • Microphones
    • Drones/software
    • Camera Mounts
  • Make better videos
  • Make some of my own music for videos

To kick this off right and so to as not to make plans without follow through, I have now re-branded my YouTube Channel from “matt talley” to “Matt of Many Trades”  to match my Instagram User Name.  I have used the name for about 25 years and even considered it for a company name (I was building decks, doing some trim carpentry, concrete forming, wiring HVAC systems, residential electrical, welding on red steel, and doing some light remodeling) while in college to pay tuition/groceries/rent.  I even have an OLD shirt I had silk screened with a hammer and cutting torch crossed with the name in an arch above.  It is about accurate branding and I do/make/build/fix/break a bunch of random crap 🙂 and it is time to embrace accurate branding.

HACKED…

Son of a…  My site got hacked.  I thought that I was safe:  A host provider I trust, back-doors closed, a random generated password, all the stuff you are supposed to do.  I was talking on the phone last night and I noticed a “payday Loan” link just under my site name on my home page.  Son of a…

This is a BIG deal.  Aside from some ass-hat having a BS ad on my site, it meant that my corner of the web was compromised and the second that Google gets a whiff of it, your site is no longer searchable and you get put into website purgatory.  It happened to me in 2005 and it took me YEARS to get it all fixed and to be back in Google’s and all the web filters good standing

I immediately put my site to sleep, scoured my site code for the offending link, and then searched the inter-web forums.  It looks like the link was added via a .php server backdoor and was somehow attached directly to my WordPress Theme, so I deleted the existing theme and rebuilt the my main page and widgets.  That seems to have done it for now, but I contacted my Web Host to see what they were doing about any possible breach and got the “We are experiencing a large call volume…   longer than usual wait times…” message.  No luck with live chat or e-mail either.  Super pissed.  I have been with them since 2002 and have never had a server-based security breach.