Yet again I find myself making stupid blunders.

Guess what I did the other day. No, go on - guess. It has to do with the fact that I released a minor update to PHPAskIt the other day.

...yup, that's right, I left all my database details - complete with passwords and everything - in the config file which I released as part of the .zip file. Now a normal person would check over the files up for release, and make sure that there are no passwords or sensitive information left in them. Or at the very least, download the file once it's been released and make sure all the parts work properly. Did I do that? No. I tested the files on my local PHP installation and assumed everything would work. Then I used one of the fixes on another site, and found out that it didn't work. Why? Because I have PHP5 locally and this other site uses PHP4. No big deal, obviously that function had been updated in PHP5 so I consulted the PHP manual and found a working equivalent for PHP4. I then updated the zip file up for download. Then I noticed a few typos here and there and updated the file around 230943435235 more times. Not once did I notice I'd left all my info in the config file. 3 days later I suddenly ask myself if I'd tested this or that in the new version, so I download the one I'd put online to check if I had added something before I went about tinkering with the code again.
...and there we go, I noticed my own info in the config file. THREE DAYS AFTER RELEASE. I'm surprised I wasn't hacked again since I used that password on my cPanel and stuff. (Note to all hackers and other nosey people: passwords everywhere now changed, so don't bother trying it.)

My boyfriend (whose birthday it was yesterday - and whose present hasn't arrived yet even though I ordered it some time ago) thinks I was blonde in a previous life, or that I'm a natural blonde with dyed hair because of all these stupid blunders I make. :\ Perhaps he's right.

Ooh, but my server time is now corrected. Some new guy has joined my hosts and although last week things were looking a bit shady (I was hacked a total of 3 times and support did absolutely nothing about it) it all looks to be better now. Notice you can actually get to my site now? Yay :)

My stupidity knows no bounds, it really doesn't.

So yesterday, I found out I'd been hacked. Nothing major, just a defacement of an old folder I used to use. The whole server had been done and any folders which were writeable had files inserted and others defaced. I stupidly thought that folder would be safe since I'd password-protected it, but obviously not. Anyway, like I said - no big deal, but I decided to change all my passwords just in case. To do this for the databases, I had to delete the MySQL users and recreate them with different passwords and all that. I use cPanel for all this, so in order to delete the MySQL user, I first deleted the user from the access list for the database just in case. Of course, I clicked the wrong delete and managed to delete my entire Wordpress database. :'(

Fortunately I had a recent-ish backup (two days old) so I was able to restore everything (give or take a few comments) but still... cPanel should have a confirmation asking if you're sure you want to delete databases. Grrr. Either that or I should be more careful where I'm clicking.

On a somewhat related note, my server's time is messed up. I keep having to change the offsets and it's really annoying me. Right now it's almost an hour fast - a gmdate() function reveals the GMT time to be almost an hour fast, anyway. I asked support about it and they said they would look into it, but so far nothing seems to have changed. :(

So, I took the plunge and installed PHP and MySQL on my computer so I don't have to upload all my pages every time I want to change something. I found a nice little package called xampp which has absolutely everything I need in it. I was going to install Apache, PHP and MySQL separately, but it was just my luck that Apache.org was down at the time. >.<

In other highly interesting news, I'm finally getting round to updating my question and answer script, PHPAskIt. Does anyone have any suggestions of improvements/features that need adding or even things that need removing? So far I have no ideas other than redoing the layout and general look of the thing. Oh, and I will make categories optional, as well as the option to update them from the admin panel instead of the itty-bitty list thing in the config file.

I still haven't got any ideas for layouts. Ranee suggested I make a Christmassy (if that's not a word then it is now) type one, which I have to say I'm rather tempted by. However, what to do and how to do it is still something that bothers me. Bleh.

By the way, my Wordpress comment notification emails are suddenly working again. Whaaat? I changed nothing. I didn't upgrade WP, I didn't change my mail settings, I didn't do anything. Weird.

Speaking of weird mail servers... xampp comes with a local mail server for receiving SMTP requests and such. Now, at first I thought the reason I wasn't getting the mail was because I had the wrong configuration options and/or coding. Wrong: it's actually Norton AntiVirus blocking it because of some error thing. I disabled email scanning, both incoming and outgoing, and even disabled NAV completely - nothing doing, it's still scanning my SMTP port and blocking anything I send out that isn't through Outlook Express. Grrr. I swear, Symantec are in league with Microsoft, trying to make people stick to their products and in turn insuring high income for both parties. Windows is full of "virus holes" and things, and NAV seems unwilling to do anything that's not to do with IE or Outlook/Outlook Express. *Grumble*

Edit: Ra. I caved and installed the Gravatar plugin. Wootiness.