12.14.2015

All Locked Up

Sorry for the abrupt exit last week.  Someone I don't know was viewing and possibly downloading old snapshots, and it was clear he/she is someone I would not want near my children.  I must protect not only my children's real, physical selves, but also images of the same found in strange internet offshoots (i.e. blogs).   In the eleven years (what?! how?) since I first slapped up the sides of this ramshackle space, this is only the second time someone has misused what's here. I've nearly deleted this blog many times over the years, but for reasons apart from this, so the odds are pretty good that shotsnaps will stick around until the internet explodes ('cause it's going to explode, you know).

Those of you who contacted John, me, or Millie to unravel the mystery hereby win a Blue Ribbon of Faithfulness for proving yourselves cream-of-the-crop readers.  Those of you who didn't even notice?  Well....here's a White Consolation Ribbon because I like you, anyway.

Also, for those of you who don't have John's or my contact info-- either as friends of friends or as Good Folks who don't know us in real life, having stumbled across this blog on weary electronic travels-- you're of course welcome here.  If the need ever arises for me to more permanently make shotsnaps private, I'll try to give a heads-up before I barricade the doors so that I can add your email addresses to the access list. For reference, here's my secondary-spam-email account that I check about once a week: fridgefame at gmail dot com. If you want your email added to the safe list now, just send a quick email.

I don't have time for a real post at the present.  Soon-ish, I hope.
A blessed Advent season to all!

p.s. Sorry for the bother, but some feed subscriptions may not pick up new posts now, since the blog was taken off public lists for a bit.  Renewing the feed should do the trick.

11 comments:

  1. I completely understand. That is unfortunately why I had to privatize my blog and in doing so very few people visit anymore, but it had to be done. Thank you so much for your email of explanation :) I hope this takes care of the problem for you!!! Sending love and well-wishes your way this holiday season :)

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  2. YAY you're back!! I noticed that you had disappeared, but didn't contact you. I was hoping it was just a blog redesign or some such thing. I'm sorry it was something horrible instead. How did you know? I do worry about such things happening to me with how much I share about my children at times on my blog (& have over the years). I've tossed back & forth on going private many, many times.

    I'd love to be added to your 'safe' list. I'll send you an email when I get a second :)I hope you are keeping well & growing that little one!
    Blessings
    Renata :)

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  3. That is horrible, really icky to think of people doing that. I am in Australia, have possibly commented once or twice over many years. I really don't remember. I enjoy your pictures with scenery so different to down here. Will send an email but am fine if you don't want me to be on your list. Even my blog is not updated for months.
    Jan

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  4. Hey there lady! I was gonna ask you on Sunday about it, but thought I would give it a few more days to see what would happen. I was a little sad thinking I would not be able to see and read your wonderful posts!!
    SOOOOOOO glad you are still here!!! :)

    Mary

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  5. Well, there you have it. People won't *let* you quit, even if you wanted to!

    I noticed I was blocked when I went to look for a recipe of yours last week and couldn't get to your blog to get the food blog link. (Of course, it was food related. You make good food!) I saw it and immediately thought- either you decided to finally give in the the 'hate' side of the love/hate relationship with your blog or that something like that may have happened.

    It flicked across my mind for a moment that you hated me too. ;-)

    I never got a chance to ask on Sunday- but you didn't seem to hate me, sooooo..... hehehe.

    Glad you are back and glad you discovered what you did- so sad that things like that happen. I'll ask you how you happened upon that person some time because I would have no idea how to discover something like that. It seems kind of amazing that you did.

    And now- to your food blog! I'm hungry!

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  6. Ugh, ew, yuck.

    I'd be interested to learn HOW you knew someone was doing such things. As one who has chilluns on the blog-world, I'd like to know good ways to keep them & such images safe.

    love to you all.

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  7. Thanks for the good words, folks!

    I'm compiling a list of the email addresses you've sent in case I need them in the future.

    For those who wonder how I found out about the downloaded photos, it's easy. When I first began the blog, John installed an html code on here that allows me to see limited info. about the blog's viewers. I use it to flag any potentially inappropriate uses of the stuff herein.

    When my brother Joel called last week to see why shotsnaps was down (thus proving his love and devotion for all time), he mentioned Google Analytics. It sounds like it provides a lot more data on viewers than I want for my limited purpose, so I'm not going to check it out, but you others may wish to. A simple Google search should tell you how to install it, or a similar type of data collector, on your blog.

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  8. I wonder if your private setting impacts rss feed readers. My reader didn't indicate that your site/feed was blocked or down. First I knew of it was this post.

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  9. I put up this post before I opened the blog back up to test it, and both feedly and feedreader were unable to pick it up. I think if you had a previous subscription, most readers would still allow you to access the old posts they already had in their pockets, but new subscriptions didn't go through and new posts couldn't be accessed.

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  10. I am SO GLAD you're back. I checked compulsively for a couple weeks and was so sad to not read about your day while putting Charlie-good to sleep!

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  11. I am so glad YOU'RE back. I read your new posts the other week but was waiting to comment until the girls could read them with me...and that hasn't happened yet. It is so fun to read your news, even old news, and to catch a glimpse of those chickens, all so fine and big (save Charlie-good, who, though fine, is not anything close to big yet).

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