I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years weekend! Mine was pretty good and laidback. New Years Eve is not a big thing for us at all so we just stayed in and relaxed. We made homemade sushi, had a couple apple martini’s and watched movies. Lovely!

Today is my last day of vacation and I’m determined to be productive and get organized and ready to go back to work tomorrow! The good news is I’m really looking forward to going back to work and getting back to a schedule. 10 days off is a long time for someone like me who craves structure and routine.

***

Anyways, this blog post is not about that, it’s about the lovely news that I woke up to on Friday morning; my email and Facebook had been hacked.

I think we’ve all got those hacked emails before, I know have. But mine seemed to have been hacked on a colossal scale. Not only did they email over 600 email contacts that I’ve collected over the past several years they also emailed all my Facebook friends with an email address.

Then to top it all off they deleted every single email in my gmail folders from the last 3+ years. Every single wedding email. Every single email related to my freelance work. Everything.

After lots of investigation and reading through google forums and filling out complaints with Facebook I think I’ve *kind of* figured out ways I could have done things differently. Considering what a huge loss this was for me I thought I’d share those things with my readers so no-one goes through the same thing!

{source}

1. Have a different password for your facebook and your email

OK, this might be obvious, but I did not know this so I was using the same email address AND password to both. I have reason to believe the hacker originally gained access to my facebook account, likely through one of the many third party apps I’ve allowed to access my facebook information, and then tried using the information on my email and lucked out. This was definitely an actual person and not a virus and the IP address google tracked led to somewhere in Nigeria.

2. Use the two-step verification process gmail offers

When using this verification process in order to log into your gmail from any computer other than your regular one you need to enter your password AND a verification code that google texts to your phone. You can then choose to save that verification code on the computer for 30 days or not. If I had had this set-up before the hacker never would have got onto my email in the first place. Instructions for setting this up can be found here. It’s super simple!

3. Back-up your emails

I lost thousands of emails on Friday. Most of them didn’t matter but some of them did. At the time it felt devastating to lose so much information. This wouldn’t have been a problem if my emails were backed up. There are ways to back it up to your harddrive, others also suggested making a separate, ‘secret’ email address that you forward important emails to and there are several third party web services like Backupify you can use.

***

Last Friday was a really bad day for me. I was getting phone calls and my parents were getting phone calls wondering if I really was stuck in Spain. My @replies on Twitter and texts were blowing up letting me know I’d been hacked and I spent several hours in front of my computer trying to recover the lost emails. I’m STILL locked out of my Facebook account three days later, which is starting to get quite annoying. I wish they’d get back to me already!

However, in hindsight, the lost emails really AREN’T that big of a deal. And now I get to start 2012 with a nice, cleaned out inbox Trying to find the silver lining here!

If anyone else has any advice to avoid being hacked please leave it in the comments section!

Over a year ago I did a “Help a Reader Out” post when one of my readers emailed me looking for relationship advice. The insightful, helpful comments offered far more advice than I ever could on my own.

Recently another regular reader emailed me looking for career advice. Since the readers of this blog are much more wise and experienced than I am I decided to post her email (with her permission of course) on the blog.

Here is her dilemma:

Right now, I’m working at a small landscape design firm and have been in the same position for the last 18 months.  This is my first full time job since graduating from technical school with a diploma in Civil Engineering Technology (CET).  I’ve always been the kind of person who needs lots of new challenges to stay engaged in my work and my current office is starting to lack in that respect.  While I certainly still have more to learn, my learning curve has petered out dramatically in the last 6 months and the majority of tasks are becoming very routine.  I’m a real ‘baptism by fire’ kinda girl.  Throw whatever you’ve got at me! I can do it! (I think!).  This attitude is what kept me from returning to my much coveted position with the City’s Engineering Department.  After doing two 6 month co-ops with them, I was offered another 6 month, post-graduation, position.  Technically the job was  temporary, with the possibility of it turning into full time/permanent.  I declined. I decided I wanted to see what else was out there and ended up in landscape architecture.  This is hardly my field, I spend 90% of my day drafting.  And after 18 months, I’m bored and I want to get back into the engineering field, which has always been more my speed anyway.  I’ve been applying for other jobs for the last few months and haven’t been successful.

Luckily, however, I have a neighbour (and friend) who just happens to work in HR for one of my ‘top 3′ Firms.  She graciously offered to take my resume to the head of the department and came back saying he was *thinking* about hiring new people around Christmas.  A day or two later, my old boss at the City called and they where looking to fill my old position.  They’re desperate for help right now and want me to start the beginning of January.  They’re willing to negotiate wages and even the tasks I’ll be doing.  While it’s really nice to have an offer, I’m hesitant to return to my old job.  I know exactly what I’ll be doing BUT, the perks of working with the City include the ability to make ‘lateral’ moves within work place, there-by getting plenty of job experience.  This is also a draw for my Top 3 Firm.  If it came down to the City or this other firm, it would be with the Firm for sure.  But there’s no guarantee the big firm is actually going to be hiring…we all know how these things work, they want to hire but it takes months to get the paperwork/funding/approval.  Knowing that, what if I accepted my job with the City tomorrow only to be interviewed and hired with the Firm a few weeks later? Quitting after a few weeks at the City is a jerk move and would burn my bridges for sure.

So I’m feeling stuck: I’m desperate for a job that’s in the field I want to build my career in.  The City job is full of perks, but I dread the all the ‘knowns’.  The Firm could take months and months and there’s no guarantee I’ll get hired or oven get an interview…but it’s my Top 3!

I’m left with cliche vs. cliche:

A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

vs.

Sometimes you have to say no to the good, so you can say yes to the great.

Advice needed!

***

Anyone ever been in a similar situation? What did you do? What do you think you WOULD do?

Can’t wait to hear what you guys have to say!

{Source}

Today is my last day of work before going on vacation until next Monday! Eric and I are off to Orlando, Florida for the weekend. It’s the first getaway for just the two of us in over a year! It is a super quick trip with only three full days in Orlando but we have lots planned.

Our vacay starts tomorrow afternoon when we make the 6-hour drive to Seattle for the night. We are only there for about 15 hours (most of it spent sleeping) before we catch our flight but I’m hoping to squeeze in showing Eric the space needle at the very least and maybe Pike Place Market too.

We arrive in Orlando around 11:00 PM local time on Thursday night so we will be going straight to the hotel and to bed.

Friday morning the fun starts! We got the 2-day, park-to-park pass for Universal and Islands of Adventure. Our big focus for the weekend is the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Eric and I are both HUGE Harry Potter fans so all day Friday and Saturday will be spent at Universal and the Islands of Adventure.

Saturday night we are going for dinner with Stephany. We’ve been blog friends for a long time and I am so excited to meet her!

Sunday will be a bit more of a relaxed day. Maybe lounging by the pool at our hotel or wandering around and exploring Orlando. Sunday night we have tickets to go to the Medieval Times dinner and show. I went in 2006 when I was in California and it was pretty cool, this time it’s more for Eric as his 25th birthday is on Monday!

And then Monday we will have the longest day of travel ever when we fly out of Orlando at 7:50 AM (4:50 AM PST) and arrive back in Seattle around 1:00 PM to make the 6-hour drive home. And then go back to work and school on Tuesday morning. I figure we’re young so now is the time to do whirlwind trips like these!

I’m SO excited! I am bringing my laptop to get some work done during our flights/layovers so I will probably be blogging daily recaps!

***

Questions of the day to help with the trip: If you’ve ever been to Orlando, any recommendations on things to do and see (especially on our ‘free’ day, Sunday)? What kind of bag should I take to Universal to carry our stuff in? I was thinking a backpack maybe? What ride/sight can we NOT miss at Universal or Islands of Adventure?

Random questions of the day: Where was your last vacation? When and where is your next vacation?