Tour Guide Mike

[2infinityandbeyond]

But I'm not going in December!!!!

I think we need a November vacation club rush - come on - who's in???????

Wahhh

I miss everyone - sigh - and I've managed to trade in a boring political function for a night at home - thanks to a sick Jeb LOL [thanks boy! new there was a reason I had you!!!!!]

Btw Lisa - my dog is an exact twin of yours LOL

cherie

Moosemom is Cherie?? Cool!!

 

[jcemom]

Thats a good idea Tracey...got any room in that cabin on your cruise?

Will I find you camped out at the Port, passport in hand? LOL

 

[Kenswing]

Moosemom is Cherie?? Cool!!

Leave it to John to "out" someone. Oops! Did I just "out" John?

Ken

 

[mmcguire]

Yay! Glad you guys have things resolved, and we'll be happy to see it back up & running soon!

 

[scoutsmom99]

Btw Lisa - my dog is an exact twin of yours LOL

Cherie~ Is yours a trouble maker? Some days I wonder what gets into him because he will have dragged shoes all over the house (not to chew them mind you just to make a mess for me to pick-up). I though by this point in the game we would be done with the puppy stuff, but sometimes I tell ya.

 

[scoutsmom99]

Will I find you camped out at the Port, passport in hand? LOL

...well I did just re-new my passport last year

 

[2infinityandbeyond]

Leave it to John to "out" someone. Oops! Did I just "out" John?

Ken

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!!

 

[moosemom]

Cherie~ Is yours a trouble maker? Some days I wonder what gets into him because he will have dragged shoes all over the house (not to chew them mind you just to make a mess for me to pick-up). I though by this point in the game we would be done with the puppy stuff, but sometimes I tell ya.

Not to hijack [our random chatter LOL] but Lisa how old is he?
Sid [obsidian - she's a girl] was quite the handful LOL - she ate EVERYTHING - the playroom was like a buffet - and cleaning up the pen was, well, colorful - crayons were her favorite food souce LOL
She also dug up the backyard incessantly LOL and went on neighborhood jaunts when the opportunity presented itself
we had to crate her when we went out or she'd eat so much stuff she'd be ill for days [not at night when she sleeps with us LOL]

However after [don't cry] about four years she suddenly became effortless

not that she was bad before - I mean she housetrained in five minutes LOL and is sweet as the day is long . . . but oy vey!

I feel your pain - puppyhood is LOOOOOOOONG with labs LOL!

 

[pjtjm]

OMG--- Do you know that I actually did my homework tonight??!!!??!

What is this world coming too???

 

[scoutsmom99]

Not to hijack [our random chatter LOL] but Lisa how old is he?
Sid [obsidian - she's a girl] was quite the handful LOL - she ate EVERYTHING - the playroom was like a buffet - and cleaning up the pen was, well, colorful - crayons were her favorite food souce LOL
She also dug up the backyard incessantly LOL and went on neighborhood jaunts when the opportunity presented itself
we had to crate her when we went out or she'd eat so much stuff she'd be ill for days [not at night when she sleeps with us LOL]

However after [don't cry] about four years she suddenly became effortless

not that she was bad before - I mean she housetrained in five minutes LOL and is sweet as the day is long . . . but oy vey!

I feel your pain - puppyhood is LOOOOOOOONG with labs LOL!

Cherie~ I love the your girls name!

I don't think Scout ever grew out of some of puppy hood...lets just say he has lots of spunk and is high energy. I got him my senior year of high school and he just turned 8 in January Unfortunately, I found out last spring that he is pretty much blind. It is amazing to see him use his other senses to make up for the lack of eyesight. His sense of smell and his hearing are right on(if you open the fridge up he can hear it from rooms away lol).

Well this summer we got him a new friend named Chief aka Commodore Puddles. HE eats everything. I think today alone I have caught him with Kleenexes, q-tips (yes someone forgot to close the bathroom door ), a slipper sock, a cd case, a magazine, an empty juju fruit box, and fabric from a sewing project. If he can find he will eat it(and he rolls over when I try and get it from him as well)...you think with this cute face on him when we picked him up there would be no troubles at all Needless to say he is spending the nights in his crate.

Now back to TGM chatter

 

[Funwith4kids]

Hey folks,

What's the latest status on TGM's site? I see an additional 11 pages in this thread in less than 24 hrs - sorry haven't sifted through them all yet.

 

[XxStaceFacexX]

we're still down... so much for dinnertime

 

[2infinityandbeyond]

Hey folks,

What's the latest status on TGM's site? I see an additional 11 pages in this thread in less than 24 hrs - sorry haven't sifted through them all yet.

I don't think there is a latest status. It's still down.

 

[Kenswing]

Hey folks,

What's the latest status on TGM's site? I see an additional 11 pages in this thread in less than 24 hrs - sorry haven't sifted through them all yet.

This is from TourGuideMiKE from earlier today:

Hi everyone!

Please accept my sincerest apologies for this 2-day downtime. Fortunately, there is nothing wrong with our server -- the mechanical device that stores our web sites -- nor have we been hacked for personal information. We didn't discover until late last night that someone entered our server through a direct account set up years ago, not a "TGM AVP" account like all of you have, and removed the internet address files required to display a web site. We can see that they tested their own access to the server a week ago, and then at 3:45 p.m. 2 days ago, went in and removed the specific files that would shut TGM.com down completely. They also took the extra step of removing key files from the server's Windows software so that it would have to be completely reinstalled.

So ... that's the technical stuff as best as I can openly describe. That, and I'm anything but an IT specialist, so if I said something above that doesn't make complete sense to more knowledgeable people than myself, know that it's accidental. All that I care about is if our database used for my TGM guests had been accessed -- no -- and was anything done to remove updates or files from the database to affect the site's content -- again, no. We should be exactly where we were when the site went down at 3:45 p.m. 2 days ago as soon as we're back online.

It appears that the only goal this individual had was to remove tourguidemike.com from the internet and nothing more. In a weird way, I'm thankful, and we should be back up in a few hours from now (I'm typing this at 1:22 p.m. on Fri, March 2).

I know everyone worries about their credit card information when they hear a commerce site has gone down or been illegally accessed, and please know that we never store anyone's financial information anyway. We had that as a prerequisite for running an online business years ago when developing the business plan for tourguidemike.com because at the time, around 2001, hacking was receiving more and more press. We use Verisign to encrypt the purchase page, one of the Internet's most recognized and respected companies for that purpose, and Authorize.Net to approve your credit card purchases. Once your purchase is authorized by your own credit card company or bank, everything but the last 4 digits and your card's date of expiration is removed. Even I do not have access to this information -- nor did I ever want or need that responsibility.

For the record, I just received an angry email from someone stating that they have not been able to access the web site "all week." This simply is not true. We transferred TGM.com to a new server hosting company several months ago and this is actually the first downtime we have experienced beyond a few minutes here and there. However, if anyone out there wants a refund because of this downtime, or for any other reason, please use the "Contact Us" link that's at the bottom of every page, public or while logged in, on the entire web site. Again, I sincerely apologize for this inconvenience, and I do completely understand how frustrating it must be -- especially for those leaving yesterday or very soon, and please know that we are taking every measure we can to ensure this does not happen again.

I hope everyone has a great day today, and I also appreciate your support with this matter. Thank you!

Best regards,

Mike Hewell

a.k.a. TourGuideMiKE

 

[scoutsmom99]

Hey folks,

What's the latest status on TGM's site? I see an additional 11 pages in this thread in less than 24 hrs - sorry haven't sifted through them all yet.

Mike made a post here and a follow up here sounds like it is supposed to be up anytime

 

[moosemom]

Oh lisa so cute! and so evil! LOL
I had a blind beagle for years and years - the cats used to trick her I kid you not - one would crouch down in front of her and the other would head butt her until she gave chase - and fell down - it was the funniest thing in the universe [she thought they were her babies so she didn't mind LOL]

anyway - back to the chatter

Funwith4kids - you'll hopefully see TGM up some time tonight - evildoers did some really bad things intentionally to our happy place and it's nearly fixed but they're quadruple checking security - there's a couple of posts about it from Mike in the last few pages . . .

 

[d4est]

As someone else said, my poor refresh button! I will need a new mouse by tomorrow...

 

[reelmom]

Oh lisa so cute! and so evil! LOL
I had a blind beagle for years and years - the cats used to trick her I kid you not - one would crouch down in front of her and the other would head butt her until she gave chase - and fell down - it was the funniest thing in the universe [she thought they were her babies so she didn't mind LOL]

anyway - back to the chatter

Funwith4kids - you'll hopefully see TGM up some time tonight - evildoers did some really bad things intentionally to our happy place and it's nearly fixed but they're quadruple checking security - there's a couple of posts about it from Mike in the last few pages . . .

The beagle story made me laugh so hard. Thanks, I needed that.

 

[Funwith4kids]

WOW. I am impressed with the TGM following. I am sure Mike recognizes this and hope this has not hurt his business too much. Given the sheer number of posts in this thread, it appears this is some kind of therapy where if we can't log on to TGM we can at least write about us not logging on to TGM.

Thanks for the response with the latest updates.

Happy Friday!

 

[leonger]

Just hit F5 on your keyboard instead.

As someone else said, my poor refresh button! I will need a new mouse by tomorrow...