I don't know how many of you stopped by Jeff's Place on April 5th to do a little reading, but depending on when you stopped by, you might have noticed that nothing came up but a white screen.

That's because somebody decided it would be fun to hack Jeff's Place and destroy it.

Apparently, somebody (or a malware bot) gained access to a vulnerability in Jeff's Place and was then able to inject malicious code into the site, and 'burn it down'.

The hosting service tech person I worked with to fix Jeff's Place was able to remove the malware, install security software to minimize future hacks, and hopefully secure the site, for a fee.

The good news is, as far as I can tell, that all or most of the content is intact after he finished the cleanup, which is really good news. But if you see something that looks messed up, let me know so I can deal with it.

After the tech got Jeff's Place back up & running again, he told me I would need to make a big injection of money for various security services they offer going forward to keep everything safe & secure.

As you might imagine, that was not welcome news, and frankly I don't have the budget to do what the tech suggested. I declined the services he tried to sell me, and told him I'd just have to shut the site down if that was the case.

Jeff's Place is my hobby blog site, and is not a business, so it wasn't designed to generate any income flow.

In fact it's just the opposite, as it costs me an increasing amount of money every year to run it, so getting hacked and having to dig out was sort of the last straw in forcing me to figure out what to do about the future.

I'm facing the choice of closing down Jeff's Place, or figuring out a way to defray some of the increasing expenses of running the website.

Thanks to reader & website ace, Kay Lu, for suggesting some budget oriented security & backup strategies. That could help keep ongoing costs down, so I'm looking into Kay's suggestions now.

There's a couple of approaches to defray some of the increasing expenses of running the website:

• The first approach, which a number of industry people have suggested to me, is that I should accept advertising in order to support Jeff's Place. 
• The second approach is to set up a PayPal donation app on Jeff's Place to allow readers who feel that they get some enjoyment value from what I write to donate in order to help defray expenses to keep the site up & running.

I'm trying the PayPal donation approach first, because it's easiest, and I set up a PayPal donation app at the top of the left sidebar for those who desire to help out.

I want to offer a special “Thank you!” to those of you who have already donated through the PayPal donation link I put up, it really helps! You're awesome!

I set up a page here to acknowledge your support, and as a way of saying "Thank you!"  If there's anything you'd like me to put next to your name - like your business name - let me know, and I'll add it for you.

I thought I'd do some National Public Radio style of limited-time fundraising approach for donations. I'm putting a couple of sentences at the bottom of each new post for awhile about donating to support the site through the PayPal app. When enough has come in to offset the expenses, I'll go ahead and stop the messages in the posts and give the "All clear!" that I've reached my goals and things are in good shape.

Hopefully I can get things sorted out and going in the right direction fairly quickly, and your helping me to defray the costs to keep Jeff’s Place up & running is very much appreciated!

I've pondered the advertisement suggestion too, but I nixed that one, because I wanted Jeff's Place to remain free from the distraction of advertisements. I suppose it's obvious I'm not a businessman!

Sorry this wasn't a cool audio post, which is what I would have like it to be, but sometimes other stuff interferes, like hackers.

Regardless of what happens, I have immensely enjoyed writing for you and running Jeff's Place, and I hope I've made some positive contribution to your musical & audio world.

Thanks to all of you who have encouraged me with help after this hacking incident, I truly appreciate all the kind words, good advice, and your offers to help with donations! Thank you!

Ok, now back to writing about hifi, and as always, thanks for stopping by, and may the tone be with you!