Updating Blog & Website

July 11, 2009| Lindy| 0 Comment | 12:51 am

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Just finished importing my previous blog posts from Blogger. As part of my updating my website, I decided to switch to using WordPress via my hosting site, rather than have my readers go to the Blogger site to read my blog. WordPress provides me with more functions and features to better manage my blog.

I hope you like the new look for the blog and the updates to the website. The website will always be a work in progress — much like my knitting projects. Just spent quite a bit of time choosing a new color scheme and I am still figuring out how to modify my blog to match, so look for the color scheme to change.

One of the ongoing maintenance items for any website is the task of keeping links current. Links, particularly to individual knitting websites and blogs, seem to change frequently. It is always sad to discover that a site that I really liked and recommended on my website is no longer available. I found that I had several “dead” links when I went to check them. In some cases, I was able to find the updated link — in others, there is nothing to link to anymore.

The latter is the case with the Knit.with.us site. This site was really very nice when it was up and running. However, the owners of this site are no longer focusing on knitting and have moved into a completely different direction. Thus — no more Knit.with.us. I wish the owners well in their new endeavors — I will miss the content they offered.

If anyone reading this has suggestions for knitting related blogs that I can include in my links, please comment to this post and include the link. Thanks!

Knitting Socks in Waiting AreaKnitting Socks in Waiting Area

Yesterday, I had the role of being supportive of my DH while he underwent some tests at our local hospital. (Nothing serious, just part of routine maintenance for the over 55 crowd.)

Anyway, I decided to take along a pair of socks I am knitting as my “keep occupied” project for the time I would be sitting in the waiting area. I am doing cuff down, two at a time on 2 circular knitting needles. So I pulled out my knitting and started to knit away while I sipped on a cup of coffee. An older woman walked into the group of chairs where I was sitting — and pulled out her knitting!

She was knitting something on dpn’s in a pretty dark green yarn. For a time, we sat and knit without any conversation. Then, she put away her knitting and came over and sat next to me and chatted. (I think she was anxious about whomever she was waiting for, but she never really said.) I learned that she was working on a pair of mittens and she was very curious about the method I was using for knitting socks and my self-striping yarn. We exchanged bits of information about yarns and knitting and then she was called to go back with her family member while he/she recovered.

It’s interesting how knitting forms a link and an introduction for us. I know it made the time in the waiting room go by more quickly for me and I’d like to think it eased my companion’s anxiety a little and helped her time in the waiting room pass more pleasantly.

P.S. Started the socks so that I would have an easy knit project for the knitting guild meet ups. More on the guild in another post. I promise to post a picture of the socks when done.

Ravelry – a community for knitters and crochetersRavelry – a community for knitters and crocheters

Are you on Ravelry? If so, you know about this marvelous site on the web for interacting with other knitters/crocheters with like interests. If you haven’t heard of it or looked it over – I recommend you check it out: www. Ravelry.com. In order to get the full benefit of the site, you need to join and it takes a while to get your Ravelry ID, but it is worth the wait. There are groups to join, forums to participate in, and your own area for listing projects, keeping track of your stash, inventorying your books and much more. There are also places to locate patterns – with the ability to purchase if you want or you can contribute a pattern to the site. And of course, there are many other knitters and crocheters who participate on the site and are willing to help with questions and solving technical problems. Warning: you can find yourself spending a lot of time on this site!

P.S. My Ravelry ID is “LindyBeir” if you want to find me there.

OMG – I was hacked!OMG – I was hacked!

I haven’t posted for several weeks because I was busy transferring files from my old computer to my new one. You know — it takes awhile whenever you switch computers.

So yesterday morning I was at a point where I thought I should post something new to my blog — and when I attempted to login and do so — I got a really nasty surprise. When I typed in my url — what came up was this very blunt warning message that my site had suspicious activity and was now considered a dangerous site. OMG — I’d been hacked! 😮

And that ominous warning page wasn’t going to let me get anywhere near my login page. A bit of a problem, since one of the things I needed to do was go in and change passwords and update WordPress. So I started by notifying my Webhost that I had been hacked. I use IX Web Hosting and I have to tell you their response was great! By this morning, they had located the malware and removed it from my site. I was not expecting this because everything I had read about how to clean up your site after a malware attack indicated that I would have to do this myself. Thanks, IX Web Hosting!

So then the challenge was to get Google to remove its warning page — and to do that you have to go to Google Webmaster tools and request that they re-review your site. It took an hour or so — but then my site starting coming up without that dire warning. Whew!

I’m still having issues with Firefox on my new computer — it pulls up the warning page every time I try to access this site, but Internet Explorer and Safari are fine. I can access the site using Firefox on my old computer — so it has to be something with Firefox on my new computer.

In the meantime — if this ever happens to you, dear reader, go immediately to Google Webmaster Tools — it will tell you what the problem is. Then go to your Webhost and alert them to the hack. May this advice never have to be used…