Thinking before you blog

After hearing about the virus that was supposed to take over the PC world April 1st,I  was reminded about my blog incident last year. It was something I thought only happened to other people. Yet, this time it wasn't other people, it was me.

Last July, even with a virus scan and spyware, our computer hacked. Not only was  a lot of our

 personal information taken, but who ever did it accessed my blog and had changed posts, moved things around and created general havoc. In the end, our computer crashed, we had to change all of our information, and I had to delete a one year old blog with over 250 posts and had to start over. Painful. I felt very victimized and exposed and well.. helpless....

So in light of that situation, even though I find our blogging community warm and supportive, the rest of the world is not that way and can have darker intentions. I wanted to share with you a few tips for protecting yourself as bloggers. I know I am not an expert, and I know to some these may seem paranoid and over-kill, but I am only going from personal experience....

1. Make sure you have a virus and spyware system . One or the other is not enough, as the one that comes with the computer for free is not enough either. Once you have a blog, you are public, and who knows who is clicking on. Run your virus scans on a frequent basis even if it takes forever. That might be a good day to unplug...

2. With that in mind, beware about how you divulge personal information. Do you really want people knowing your kids full names and what school they go to? Google your name, and/or your blog name and hit images on the google bar.  What pictures pop up for everyone to see? Any picture you post on your blog have the potential of being seen by anyone. Do you have cute pictures of your kids running around in their underwear?  Even if your blog is closed to the public, the pictures still have the potential to be googled publicly...

3. If you receive a comment where a word or link is highlighted in the middle of a sentence ( not the name in the beginning.), it is either spam or something you don't want to open. Don't click on it.

4. Be aware you are googled on a daily basis. When you do your blog post titles  it might have innocent intentions, but be careful of the words you choose. I did a blog post before for  a"fun, girly nursery.".. After tracking back to the Google (which you can do through a free site meter.) searches, I realized that the people who were googling "fun and girly" were not the kind of people I wanted reading my blog.

5. If a commenter makes you uncomfortable, you are better to not respond back. While it is common courtesy to acknowledge your comments, sometimes it is better to let one go.

6. Never open attachments in your e-mails from people you don't know unless you are expecting them.

7.Only pay for things through Paypal unless you are %100 positive the site is secure. 

8. If you are e-mailed for promo's or giveaways, always check the companies background.

9. If you want to make your e-mail public to be contacted, always list it as Joeblogger (at) yahoo (dot) net  so that auto -dialers and spammers can't automatically paste and copy.

10. If you are posting photos that you really don't want copied at all (like family photos)  or art work, use a paint program or photo editing program to place a water-mark copyright in a really obvious place across them. Otherwise there's a good chance your kid's or great-grandma Sally is going to end up somewhere you may not want them to.  If you don't care, then don't worry about it.

11. If for some reason you think your computer has hacked, do not access ANY on-line things that require passwords such as banking. Go to another computer such as the library or your mom's and change your password's there. Alert the proper places, then have your computer checked out by a professional.

Like I said, I am no expert, but I hope these help you a bit in keeping your bloggy world just a bit safer.

Jen