A Little Note

Before I forget, I wanted to let you all know that if you are trying to link up to my blog via my domain, www.BringingupBenjamin.com, you're not going to find it. I chose not to renew the domain this time around. So switch up your links, please! http://bringingupbenjaminblog.blogspot.com - I know it's a mouthful, but it is what it is!

Thanks y'all!

We’re Back

After a long break from having Bringing Up Benjamin public, I have decided to bring it back. I’ve tried, as some of you know, to blog over at my other blog, but it never really felt right. It was like drinking sweet tea made with Splenda instead of the real deal. Just wrong.

So I’m going to attempt to get back into the swing of things! So much has happened since July, the last time I updated! We’ve done a lot of traveling, and we’ve had guests, and meetings, etc! It’s been busy around here!

But for now, I’ll just leave you with this – and hope that soon I’ll get my inspiration for blogging back. I’ve had ideas, but lost them … maybe they’ll come back to me!

Ahhh, it’s good to be back!

Welcome to Invite Only!

If you are reading this, huzzah! You accepted my invitation to read my blog when it went invite-only, or… I don’t know how to make it invite-only. Either way, at least I have attempted to make this invitation only for security purposes. And I know that anyone reading this would likely already know why I decided to go invite only, but for those of you who have been asking, here are some security tips:

1. Know who is coming to your site and how. SiteMeter.com is great for this. You can see exactly how people are getting to your site (such as, someone else’s blog, a google search – and yes, you can see what they search, or Networked Blogs… etc). You can see what their entry pages are and what their exit pages are. Stuff like that. Another site that I also use is http://whos.amung.us/
2. Know what content is being copied, if any is at all. I use the site tynt.com for this. This is how I found out that someone was copying photos that I had posted back in 2009. It tells you what page they are copying from and what they are copying. According to Tynt, I had 9 images copied from my site in the past 30 days, two of which were just blog buttons, but the remainders were of Me, Benjamin, and my old rabbit.
3. Watermark your photos, but do it in a place where people can’t just crop it out or do a good photoshop job to get rid of the watermark. Make sure to make it so that if they really wanted to misuse your photos, they would have to put a lot of work into it.
4. I have heard that you can disable right and left clicks on your page. This would be useful… if there wasn’t such a think as a screenshot. I’m just sayin’… if someone wants your stuff and it isn’t THAT hard to get it, I am sure it wouldn’t be a big deal to open up paint and just take a screenshot. Also, some computers have snipping tools, which is just like taking a screenshot, except easier because you can select which part of the screen you want to save. So I mean, this would be great… but at the same time it isn’t the BEST security, you know?

Now, I’m not generally a paranoid person. I don’t know who was taking my pictures or for what reason. I don’t even know that they meant any harm by it. However, in February of 2010, I received two comments on my blog that freaked me out beyond belief:

Scary right? It turned out these photos were actually taken off of my facebook by someone I knew personally. It was a giant fiasco, and really was not something fun to deal with. I have tried since then to monitor who I am friends with, but it is hard to think that anyone could do this… again. But people do. I should probably go through my friends list again soon.

Basically I am saying, be careful. You are responsible for the information you put out there and I have heard that if you put it on the internet, you have no way to ‘get’ anyone for taking something of yours. Just be careful out there on the world wide web.

Cons to Blogging follow-up.

I really appreciate all the input y’all gave on the “Cons to Blogging” post. I had a hard time getting to sleep last night because of all that being on my mind. I was pretty certain last night that I was going to start all over on a new blog and just have better security there, but I think what I have decided to do is have this blog email invitation only, that way I know exactly who is viewing my blog. One of the things that has really bothered me about this is I know that some people have come over from a blog that I guess linked me somehow, I dunno… anyway I tried going to the blog to see how people were getting to mine but the blog is invite only itself so I’m like … ookay?

I’m not a super paranoid person, but the fact that we have dealt with this before makes me wary about it happening again. I don’t think that everyone has bad intentions out there on the internet, but I do know that there are people who do take things too far and we are responsible for what we share and the information we give out to people.

So anyway, I figure I will just have this blog as invitation only. I’m going to make the transition … let’s say Saturday. So you can give me your emails, either in a comment, in an email (my email is at the bottom of this blog), or in a facebook message. If you are family or friend, or a blogging friend that I do trust, I’ll be sending you an invite, but for those of you whom I do not know and request an invite, please don’t be insulted if I don’t send one to you. I am just trying to do what is best for my family!

Thanks for all your input! Y’all are great!

Cons to Blogging?

I love my blog, and I love to blog, but there are some moments with blogging that really … freak me out a bit. Call me paranoid, but I have these nifty little codes on my blog that tell me who is coming on my blog {I feel I have a right to know as it is my personal blog} by way of where they are from and where they are coming from link-wise. I also have a nifty little code that shows me more details about which pages are most popular and even what content is most popular, and with that it shows me what content has been copied from my page.

This is where I get freaked out to the point of wanting to put on the breaks and shut this thing down. There are folks copying photos from my blog. Some are oddly enough photos of me, and some are photos of me and Benjamin, and one of just Benjamin. One of my old pet rabbit… for whatever reason…

Some of you may remember when I had issues way back when with someone taking pictures from my facebook. I have since tried to be more careful in that way, trying to remember to watermark my photos {just realized the post I had put up earlier didn’t have watermarked photos so I took that down and saved it as a draft to post some other time…}, etc.

I wish I could import certain blog posts, such as my Morning Glories posts, stuff like that, to a different blog and just transfer my domain and start fresh. I’m considering it. I love this blog but I want my family to be safe.

What are your thoughts? Would you be freaked out if you found out someone was ‘copying’ your stuff? Also, if you are reading this and you are someone who copies photos, maybe even mine, please… just stop. I don’t know what reason you might have for copying them, but it can’t be right. I know I haven’t gotten any emails from anyone asking permission to use my photos. I’m just sayin’.