What Happened to David Airey?

December 20, 2007 — Thomas

I have talked about David Airey before – he is an Irish Designer and friend of mine. David has an excellent blog on graphic design and advertising. He recently went on vacation for a month and was nice enough to let his readers know in his post I’m having a break.

It turns out that while on vacation, someone hijacked David’s website. He details the issues he is facing in his post DavidAirey.com hacked. I try to think the best of people and then something like this happens and I get pretty bummed. David worked hard to build a solid reputation, successful blog, community, and design site only to have someone pull the rug out from underneath him. Someone else is now reaping the rewards for all the hard work that David has done. If you read David’s post the level of composure he has is pretty amazing.

David’s new site is www.davidairey.co.uk. David outlines how you can help in his post DavidAirey.com hacked:

If possible, I’d greatly appreciate you helping me to spread the word of my move. Also, and I don’t like to ask, but if any of you have a link to my blog on your site, it’d be very kind if you were to change the .com to .co.uk.

http://www.davidairey.com is in the hands of a hacker.

http://www.davidairey.co.uk is my new online home.

I have found David’s site to contain excellent content regarding graphic design and advertising, as well as how to write a better blog. There are a lot of good tips to be gleaned from his blog. His blog is well worth reading, and that is why I added his updated link to my blogroll.

Technorati Tags: David Airey, Graphic Designer, davidairey.co.uk, hijacked, hacked

Posted in blogging. 14 Comments »

Opal Tribble/Vegan Momma Says:
December 20, 2007 at 2:08 am

That’s too bad. I use 1passwd for all my passwords the passwords it creates are very long. I’m impressed. It remembers passwords so I don’t have to. 😉 Hopefully his website will be returned after he submits the information needed.

Mike Goad Says:
December 20, 2007 at 5:53 am

This is the second post I’ve read about David Airey’s site. I also went to his current blog and took a look at the site that was hijacked.

The hijacked site is nothing but ads – one of the types of sites I leave as soon as I land on them. I really them.

I guess I really need to do something about my passwords. We are traveling right now, but always find places with internet access, though I don’t know that that would help if someone wanted to hijack one of my sites.

Thomas Says:
December 20, 2007 at 7:35 am

Opal – David is a good guy, I was bummed to see all his hard work hijacked. I was wondering why I had not noticed any new posts. 1passwd sounds like a great tool, but is specific to Macs – I wonder what type of tools like this are either OS independent or available for Windows. Thanks for the good info as always!

Mike Goad – Thanks for commenting even while on vacation . . . now that’s dedication to blogging. I think the information about what happened to David is important to get out, and I am glad that the issue is being written about. You want to remind people to be secure with their blogs and not lose any of their hard work.
Your right, the site is nothing but a bunch of ads, which is depressing considering all the work David has put into his site.

teeni Says:
December 20, 2007 at 10:30 am

That really sucks. I really am getting quite fed up with content thieves, scrapers, and now things like this. I didn’t even realize this was something that could happen. It makes me wonder what recourse bloggers have. I do have to say that one good thing about having built up a good community around him means that David’s got a lot of good people with vested interests looking out for him and helping him out now. Like you are doing, Thomas. I would love to see the hackers get severe punishment. But I’m so glad to see fellow bloggers rallying to support and back up David Airey when he needs it most. It truly warms the heart.

David Airey Says:
December 20, 2007 at 11:15 pm

This does indeed warm the heart!

Thanks Thomas, thanks very much for all the kind words and for helping me to get the word out about my old domain being lost.

It’s not the end of the world, by all means, but it’s a setback. Still, I’ve learnt to be more diligent with my password updates and choices.

Thanks too for the kind words from your readers, Opal, Tenni. Mike, enjoy your trip!

Thomas Says:
December 21, 2007 at 11:50 am

teeni – I don’t mind people scraping my content if I get credit, part of my mission is to spread the word and try to make a name for myself. I do get bummed when I see blog scrappers actually making money from my content.
I agree one of the best aspects of blogging is the community – with something like this happens to David, bloggers really rally around to help get the issue resolved.

David – You have great content, and I want to ensure that people have continued access to it. I admire how calm and collected you have been concerning the incident, I am not sure if I could stay as calm and collected. Looking forward to more great content in the future on your new site.

David Airey Says:
December 21, 2007 at 12:34 pm

Thanks Thomas, a lot, and I hope to keep the standards up regarding content.

You’re certainly a valued reader, and I’ll do what I can to keep you interested. Well, within reason of course.

Thomas Says:
December 21, 2007 at 9:58 pm

David – You have good insightful content on your blog, and I have always agreed with you that building community is important. I was impressed with your meme concerning the Face behind the blog.
It was the spirit of community building that I wanted to be sure that others have continued access to your content.
Having my blog hosted on WordPress I don’t have access to any of the back end works, but I was able to manually switch all your links from the posts I have created, you probably noticed some new pingbacks on some older posts.