My Gmail and eBay accounts got hacked.
Yep, that’s right, the worst nightmare for millions of Gmail users happened to me. I still don’t know why or how the hacker figured out my not-so-easy-to-guess password, but early last month I woke up one morning and couldn’t log in. I could still access Reader and Groups and whatever other services I was automatically signed in to, but not from another computer. I filled out numerous Gmail help forms, and as the days went by, only received automated replies.

To expand on the above paragraph … I also foolishly used the same password for both my Gmail and eBay accounts. The hacker obviously knew this too and decided to link them together and scam people by selling fake PS3s. In the end, it took about a week for me to get my Gmail account back (practically torture since it contained all my email) … but eBay was amazing and restored my access in literally 5 minutes. I’ve since changed my passwords and started using Thunderbird so I don’t have to funnel everything into Gmail, among other things. Here’s a screenshot I took of my account immediately after regaining access:

And “Tengjiao Ji” can die

Aunt Ann and Ed:
- stocking: cookie-scented candle, Starbucks gift card, The Complete Worst-case Scenario Survival Handbook, jumbo cherry candy cane, chocolate biscotti, Orbit gum (2 packs), and various food/candy items
- Amazon.com gift card

Grandpa and Mary:
- 2009 horse wall calendar
- Across the Universe Blu-ray DVD
- fair trade silk purse from Thailand

Uncle Chris and Mary:
- label maker
- Urban Outfitters fingerless gloves

Grandma and Bob:
- money

Ross:
- Wall-E Blu-ray DVD

Mike:
- Friends: The Complete Series Collection DVD box set
- Cold Stone gift card

Dad:
- trip to Tampa

Mike’s dad:
- Schmitt t-shirt
- Christmas bandana

Mike’s mom:
- necklace

Edit: The comments patch works, but you have to change the last line from this:

add_filter('comment_text', 'tguy_cmu_fix_quotes', '11');

To this:

add_filter('comment_text', 'tguy_cmu_tidy_code', '11');

All the steps below are basically the same as the ones here — just slightly modified since that post is over 2 years old and some things have changed:

1. Create a folder called “Calendar” under your C:\ drive.
2. Download wget for Windows, extract it to a folder, and place that folder in your C:\Program Files folder.
3. Now you need to create the script to handle the automated downloading. You can call it download.bat or calendar.bat (or whatever-you-want.bat) and place it in your C:\Calendar folder. Copy and paste the code below into the new file:

@echo off
"C:\Program Files\wget-1.11.4b\wget.exe" --spider http://30boxes.com/iCalUser/xxxxx/name/numbers/1/
"C:\Program Files\wget-1.11.4b\wget.exe" -O "C:\Calendar\calendar.ics" http://30boxes.com/iCalUser/xxxxx/name/numbers/1/

Both URLs are the same, but need to be changed to reflect your calendar — find yours in 30 Boxes’ “Sharing” settings. Just copy the location of the “ICS File” link and overwrite each URL with it.

These last steps will set up a scheduled task to run the script however often you’d like:

1. Go to your Control Panel.
2. Open the Scheduled Tasks folder.
3. Click “Add Scheduled Task,” then “Next.”
4. Hit “Browse” and find your download.bat (or whatever you named it) file.
5. Name your task and select how often you want it run (mine runs daily). Hit “Next.”
6. Pick when you want it to start, and “Next” again.
7. Leave the username and password fields alone. “Next” again.
8. Check the “open advanced properties for this task when I click finish” box, and hit “Finish.”
9. If an error comes up, hit “OK.” In the advanced properties box, check “run only if logged on” at the bottom. Hit “OK” again.
10. Right-click on your scheduled task and run it to make sure it works.

All you have to do now is tell Rainlendar where the calendar.ics file is (make sure the scheduled task has run at least once before doing this — otherwise the file won’t be there):

1. Open Rainlendar’s options.
2. Go to the “Calendars” section.
3. Click on the name of your calendar.
4. In the “iCalendar Format” area, click on the “Filename” row and browse to where calendar.ics is with the “…” button.
5. Switch “Monitor changes” to “Yes,” then hit “OK” and you’re done!

For the record, here’s what my 30 Boxes + Rainlendar (with the default theme) looks like:

So yeah … here’s to XHTML and web standards and accessibility … and hopefully more posts from me in the near future!