Mar. 2, 2007
*** Important Announcement ***
Posted in Tech Support
It looks like things are finally all clear here at HomesteadBlogger according to tech support. Apparently there was some type of worm that had worked its way into our system and our tech support folks had to go through each and every blog in our system to remove all traces of it. (BIG JOB!) Apparently the virus could only be seen by people who had an old version of MS Internet Explorer. However at least the virus should not have affected your personal computers, it was just going into the blog templates. Again, I don't know a lot about tech stuff, but keeping your web browser up to date does really help to yourself from online attacks, here's the page to update Internet Explorer and here's the page if you're using Firefox. Now in order to protect ourselves from further attack, they have installed a feature that will remove any javascript codes that people try to add to their templates so that we cannot be infected like that again. Javascript that you may currently have on your blog will continue to work though. The key thing is that you CAN NOT go in and make ANY changes to your template or you WILL lose that javascript function. If you go in and save ANY changes to your template, our system's new javascript removal code will disable any javascript that you have in your template.
For some of you, this won't affect you at all. But if you have a counter, blogroll, slideshows, etc.. that use javascript, you could potentially lose them if you just simply went in to change anything in your template. We don't want that to happen.
What does this mean to you?
- Your current javascript is ok. Just don't make any changes or you will lose it.
- Right now you should NOT make
any changes to your template. This doesn't mean that you can't post
entries on your blog as usual. This just means don't go in and change
the "look" of your blog right now.
- You will not be able to add any features to your blog that use javascript in the code. Our webmasters will be creating a whitelist of "safe" javascript codes (like counters or no-click scripts) that they will allow us to use. But for now they are erring on the side of caution and just turning off that option.
- You SHOULD go into your template and copy and paste all of it into a word document for safekeeping. To do this: Go into your manager, click on Settings,click on Template, right click in the box and Select All, right click again and Copy, then open a new word document, and right click in it and Paste. Voila! Now just Save that document with a name so you'll know it's your template and click on SaveBack to My Account, to get out of that section.
Thank you all for your patience as we've worked through these issues. All of us at HomesteadBlogger are very dedicated to keeping this a safe family-friendly community. You can always contact tech support through our online form or email your question to me. Just always be sure to include your blog and username in your emails so that we can deal with your specific issue accurately.
If you have any further issues, don't hesitate to contact us. Although it may take a day or two to respond, that is much more reliable than just posting an entry or comment.
Happy Blogging,
~Nancy Carter
SeniorEditor@HomesteadBlogger.com
Comments
Mar. 2, 2007 - Thanks
Posted by motherearth
Thank you for keeping our blogs updated and safe, I enjoy my counter and the javascript goodies so I can't wait for the white list.
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Mar. 2, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by GrandmaRosie
Sure do appreciate all the hard work and time spent on protecting our blogs. I really love blogging here. Thanks for all the efforts.
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Mar. 17, 2007 - question
Posted by motherearth
When can we change our blog templates w/out losing the Javascript we currently enjoy? I want to update I don't want to lose my cute counter and java pics...
:-)
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Mar. 17, 2007 - It's going to be a while
Posted by HSBFrontPorch
I checked with our tech support last week and they said that it is going to be a while. Made me think it could be a month or so.
I totally understand your situation, my personal blog is totally off-center and I'm trying to wait until we get the all clear so that I don't mess up my counter.
~Nancy
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Mar. 18, 2007 - Is there a new problem?
Posted by lizbet
I tried to post a new blog with no success tonight and wondered what I'm doing wrong. I don't know if this will send or if you'll receive the message I sent to support.
If there is something I need to do please let me know.
Thank you for all your hard work, I get a lot of inspiration from this site.
Liz
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Mar. 19, 2007 - Hi
Posted by MyThreeDaughters
I couldn't post a new entry either.
Edited by MyThreeDaughters on Mar. 19, 2007 at 05:42 PM
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Mar. 20, 2007 - Yea, we're having more troubles
Posted by HSBFrontPorch
The webmaster has been working on it all day so hopefully we'll be back up and running pretty soon.
Thanks for your patience.
~Nancy
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Mar. 21, 2007 - Couple more questions
Posted by YPAmy5
What about the other problems with posting- like not being able to add links or paste in photos? Will those be fixed also or will we no longer have this feature?
Also- I'm having trouble cutting and pasting from Word for a post- it brings up a clean up box and then deletes what I've written . . . . . any ideas?
Thanks and we will be patient.
Amy W
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Mar. 22, 2007 - Amy,
Posted by HSBFrontPorch
The webmaster is looking at those issues too. They haven't told me yet when it can be fixed, but it shouldn't be long.
~Nancy
Thanks for being patient and hanging in there with us! :O)
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Mar. 22, 2007 - Copy & Pasting from Word
Posted by HSBFrontPorch
, I tried copy and pasting from a Word document onto my personal blog and it worked just fine no kinks at all.
Here's what our webmaster said about that though. "The Word "clean up box" only works on certain types of Word documents. What you might try doing first is clicking "cancel" in the "do you want
to clean it up?" box. This should allow newer versions of Words' code to be pasted with no problems.
In some situations the code after it's passed throug this "clean up Word code" process is a significant improvement. Sometimes it isn't. If it doesn't work one way, try the other."
~Nancy
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Mar. 27, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Sweetmama2
Thank You.
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