Since you are reading this, you can tell we are back online.

Since the recent service outage there has been a lot of work to get the system back and running with a minimal loss of data. We were able to restore more data than initially feared. In fact, one of the biggest problems you might find is that data you deleted in the past has been miraculously resurrected.

While the vast majority of data is restored and operational, here is a detailed rundown of the issues potentially affecting a specific subset of users and data.

Users

Unfortunately, about 1,300 users have lost all of of their preferences. Those users will need to use the Read more

On approximately January 21, 2010, the zeaLOG server was compromised by unauthorized access (ok, hacked). As this project is a less-than-nights-and-weekends hobby for me, the breach was not discovered until I received a hosting bill of about $600 - double the normal $300 - on February 3. Investigation revealed that our server, which normally transmits about 10Gb of data per month, had transferred over 2000Gb (2 terrabytes!) in just over a week.

Eventually, I was able to track down the backdoors and other compromises installed on the system and stop the bleeding. On February 5, I spent time working to perform various security upgrades on the server that hadn't been done in a while. Unfortunately, the system had been "rooted" and the requisite reboot of the system could not complete. The server was stuck.

The zeaLOG server is a virtual instance hosted on a Amazon's EC2 cloud platform. In situations such as this, when the server will not properly boot,...

Some of you more active users may have notice a LOT of new members showing up on the site. WE LOVE NEW MEMBERS. There is little better than knowing that you have created something that actually helps people on and offline. As the site has grown, it has begun to register on the radar of other sites out there that are designed to aggregate profile data from multiple sites in one place, so that people can easily check to see if their name is available for registration.

Online identity is extremely important to a lot of folks out there, and the ability to claim their name on as many sites as possible is understandably important to those folks as well.

While we are all for (seriously, ALL FOR) people registering their name, even if they are not yet ready to become active on zeaLOG, we've had kind of a population explosion of new users not just reserving their name, but basically parking profiles as a forwarding device to their businesses. That's kind of where it gets sticky.

More fun stuff to share...

First, while at w2e, Aaron gave a zeaLOG "reviewcam" demo to InformationWeek Editor-at-Large David Berlind, and he put together an awesome clip which we can now share with you. Thanks, David!

Also awesome, Demogirl did a screencast of zeaLOG for their review site. You can check it out right here.

...

Last Thursday was the Launch Pad event at Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco that we mentioned previously. Over 80 startups were submitted to Launch Pad, and just five were chosen to present their pitch on the Keynote stage at w2e. We were beyond elated to be among those five companies. Now, post event, we are just overwhelmed at the amazing response zeaLOG has gotten over the past few days. When you have worked so hard and long on something that you really care about, and people dig it... there are no real words. We are thanking our lucky stars we migrated to a bigger / faster / stronger server a couple weeks ago, as well, because WOW there are a lot of new faces joining the zeaLOT ranks.

As far as the presentation itself went, it was awesome. Aaron rocked it. The audience texted their votes for the "Audience Favorite" award and it came down to the wire between zeaLOG and another company called...

It is official! zeaLOG has been selected as one of only five companies to present at Web2.0 Expo's Launch Pad next week. To say we are excited would be a vast understatement, at minimum. Sure, we are buried in last minute preparations, but you know what? It's AWESOME. We live for this stuff. This will mark zeaLOG's first public presentation, and we can't think of a better place to do it than our own hometown.

If you are attending the expo, be sure to come to the Launch Pad celebrations on Thursday 4/2 and say hello (and also vote for zeaLOG). :)

It is true. We're not at SXSW. We'd love to be there, but the truth is, we've got too much going on right now to take the time away. Still, we wanted to mark the occasion in some way, so...

to kick off SXSW, we've gone to a fully open beta. No more invites. No more wait lists.

to kick off SXSW we've gone to a fully open beta. No more invites. No more wait lists.

How's that for celebrating SXSW? While the pull of Austin is nearly irresistible for internet geek types like us, we're fortunate enough to live and work in the SF Bay Area, which is like a mini SXSW year round. We actually spent Friday morning at the monthly Silicon Valley Geek Breakfast, breaking coffeecake with the hometown crew. We really couldn't be luckier. Anyway, short story long, all aboard!

Let's just get this out in the open. We are huge Twitter fans. January marked two years of continued Twitter fanaticism for us. Given that fact, it should stand to pretty easy reason that when we were designing zeaLOG, tweeting updates to LOGs was a huge priority for us. Text updates are nice. Email updates are cool. Twitter updates are essential. That was number one.

Tweet updates on zeaLOG launched in early January. You can update any LOG you belong to by tweeting @zeaLOGupdate with your data and a hashtag. That's it. Very simple. All LOGs automatically have their own hashtag, but that tag can be customized by the owner. You can also set one LOG as your default and not worry about a hashtag at all for that one. Super handy.

Word to the wise, if...

Hey, you know what's awesome? When somebody thinks your site is cool!

Yesterday, zeaLOG was named the RedOrbit Hot Site of the Day. This is especially fun because RedOrbit is all about tech, health and science, and zeaLOG is pretty much all those things, wrapped up in a pretty red and yellow package. Tracking all your personal data is like performing ultimate science experiment on yourself. Also, it's just fun, which makes most anything worthwhile.

Thanks guys! We're excited that you found us!

"You should build something so we can keep track of how much water we drink."

That was it. A simple request to create something more robust than the office whiteboard for monitoring some friendly water drinking competition. All in the name of good health.

At first blush it didn't seem that enticing or exciting. Couldn't you just use a spreadsheet, or maybe the office whiteboard? It would be easy enough to build the basics but not very interesting. It certainly didn't seem like something I'd want to spend my limited free time on.

I mumbled something like "mmm...yeah...maybe...I'll think about it," and hung up the phone. Usually, that little gem is the marks the official end of any such conversation and is the last anyone would ever hear about it. Usually.

This was a bit different. As I sat there a nugget was rattling around in my brain. Maybe if it wasn't water. ...