Shit. I saw that email about my hosting pw reset. I went to my hosting provider and tried to change my pw and start backing up my dbs and files. Okay, whew. Now back to my email problem…

What to do when your gmail is hacked

1- If they have NOT changed your pw, (they changed mine), go to your google account and change your pw to lock them out. Google Accounts login
2- Okay, didn’t work? Try to reset your password at the gmail password reset page. I heard this may take up to 24 hours to respond to. But you want your email now!!!
3- Still out? Go to the gmail recovery form. This is actually how I got my email back. It took around 30 minutes for them to send me email reset.

Unfortunately, they still had the pw to my hosting server and changed every one of my personal websites to the image above. Fuck!

Prevention:

a) At this point please make sure you have a backup email in your google accounts file, this is where they email the password recovery info to. I used a fake email intially to register my gmail, so from now on I have a real backup email in there.
b) Make backups of your dbs and files from your personal servers right now. Saves you the headache, my other sites had files deleted so now I have to go to google search and used cache links to try and save them.
c) On gmail, I created another account and then setup a filter so every single piece of email I receive is forwarded to that account.
d) Have different passwords. I know you know this but I use the same password, ‘hello’ on so many things. Now I don’t.
e) Update wordpress. These guys put in some backdoor files (pol.php,aa.php, etc…they can name them whatever they want) in really hidden folders so they could access my sites anytime they want. Make sure to check for this and delete them if you find them.

I hope this helps and saves you the frustration and anger that I faced. Any other ideas or similar stories?

link to photo

Solution: I called AT&T and asked to change my plan to one with higher minutes and asked if they could retroactively turn it on for the past month that I went over my minutes. They could. My bill is now $70. Woot!

PS. I will be putting up a vote so you guys/girls can choose who should win the free Sumo chair.

1- Ctrl+k into Firefox search bar. Make sure its using Google as the search.
2- Open a new tabbed window (Ctrl+t).
3- Type in the data you want to remember and hit enter.
4- Close window (short cut = Ctrl+w) and you are done.

Now a few weeks later you want the data? Go to http://www.google.com/psearch and you have all the notes you’ve ever typed.

Problem? It takes a LOT of time to get a place in San Francisco. Plus, you have to do many interviews, resumes, credit checks, full body searches, etc…

Solution? I found a person in Bulgaria using elance.com to help me on Craigslist:

a) take my criteria for places I want to live in: Potrero Hill, Inner/Outer Richmond, Cole valley

b) contact them with a template I created below:

your place sounds chill. hopefully i am flexible enough as a male to qualify for your place.

about me:
- i run a small start-up based in san francisco making online games. we are funded & profitable, ie. i can pay rent:)
- i am originally from san jose, went to uc berkeley and have been working at start-ups since 2004 (intel, facebook, mint.com, kickflip (present).
- i like cooking, running, biking, chess, watching movies,wine and pretty much anything else fun.
- i will likely be working from home a fair amount of the time and/or not home at all as i do a fair amount of traveling.
- i am 26 and enjoy fun, nice people, no drama and good times.

preferences:
- i do like to cook so i will be using the kitchen albeit if there is one:)

cheers, noah 510 866 6624

c) I had him create a gmail account, email people with semi-customized emails and schedule appointments around the times I am free.

Result? I got a place! …but then this morning the guy backed out of it so I am on the hunt again. If anyone knows a place in Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay or San Francisco I am looking for a room around $800.

link to photo

“Oh dude, let’s buy some chicken.” How many times have you gone to the store for one thing and come out with 15? My hack is to only buy what we carry in our hands. Much harder to buy too many things w/o a cart or hand-basket.

Have fun!

Go to the airport arrivals section!

link to photo

I was picking up my friend from the airport yesterday and I have never seen so much pure happiness.

Any other fun ways to feel better?

What is the 1 thing in life you can never get back? Time

After talking with my good buddy Jon from edurev last night I really absorbed this thought. It’s not that you can’t meet new people, watch tv, etc… but controlling the ways you use your time and not allowing others to direct how it’s going to be.

Two days ago I got the chance to talk with a very impressive entrepreneur who I loved talking with on the phone. He suggested we meet in person to discuss more business issues. He said one of the coolest things ever:

“Noah let’s layout the objective of this meeting”

Booyah. I Fell in LOVE right at that point. It is not that everything has to be black/white, benefit/cost, giver’s gain, etc… It’s about in certain situations having clear expectations and responsibility of how you are going to spend that time, makes the time more useful and beneficial.

How are you letting others pwn your time and what are you going to do about it?

Are you sick of emails that say “thanks” or “sounds great” and other pointless ones that you really didn’t need to read?

Let’s join together and advocate for NRN. NO RESPONSE NEEDED. Include this at the end of your emails and let people know they don’t need to say thanks or other useless phrases.

Bottom Line: NRN for this post. Just do it;)

Bottom line: Evaluate the things you spend time on during your day and where/what you really get value out of.

This has been a non-sponsored message by the time wasters at Sketchfu.com, draw it…FOO!

Bonus Productivity Tip: Don’t bring your power adapter home at night. I have been doing this lately and it limits my time to work and helps me focus on the essentials. Tim would call it Parkinson’s law.

1) Being optimistic improves your immune system. In a study of women right after breast cancer surgery, researchers found that those that were optimistic had stronger immune system than those that did not. Actual blood results were used in this study. (Source: Research in Nursing & Health Vol 30(1) (Feb 2007): 72-83)

2) Being optimistic improves your emotions. Inmates who shared their feelings and looked at the positive of situations had better emotional lives; which in turn caused better psychological and physical health. (Source: Criminal Justice and Behavior Vol 34(5) (May 2007): 697-708)

3) Optimism can predict your future. Based on how optimistic, neurotic, stressed and your coping style, it can be predicted how your life will be in the future. Specifically, will you turn out to have a positive or negative well being overall. (Source: Personality and Individual Differences Vol 43(2) (Jul 2007): 277-287)

4) How much weight do you want to lose? Researchers found that your level of optimism towards your weight losing goals, such as how high you set the goals and your belief in achieving the goals, were predictors in whether you would lose the weight or fail. (Source: Journal of Applied Social Psychology Vol 37(4) (Apr 2007): 844-861)

5) Increase sales through your Positive Mental Attitude: One study found that people having a positive mental attitude (being optimistic) helped them easily overcome problems in their sales jobs and thus increase sales. (Source: Sociological Quarterly Vol 47(1) (Feb 2006): 41-68 )

6) Optimism helps the entrepreneurs and startups get going. A research paper found that entrepreneurs and investors often have to have blind-optimism in future enterprises otherwise nothing would get done. Not investments would be made and not new companies would be form. (Source: Creativity and Innovation Management Vol 14(4) (Dec 2005): 405-412)

Your Experiment: Decide to be totally positive for one day and see what results you get that day.

(There such a thing as being overly optimistic, and it can be a negative thing at times, maybe I’ll write about it next if there’s interest.)

Are you an optimist? Why or why not?

This post written by Andre Nosalsky.