I was robbed…

… of my online space that is.

A few weeks ago, my home on the interwebz was broken into, and instead of taking shit, like ‘normal’ thieves do, these criminals left a whole bunch of NASTY stuff behind.

And all of the nasty made a REALLY BIG MESS and got my site ‘black-listed’ on the Googles!

Oh the Shame!

(Seriously, it sounds so damn ominous and cold war-ish. I feel like one of the Hollywood Ten. OK, not really, but seeing a big red screen shot saying your site is DANGEROUS every day for two week sucks big time and makes you feel awful and really mad that someone has taken away something kind of important in your life.)

Now given that I am no web genius by any means, I reached out to the universe (aka Twitter) and pleaded for help.

I have to give a huge shout out to @danaditomaso and @jkparker for coming to my rescue and being the geniuses that they are. They both gave selflessly of their time/expertise and helped get me and my little website out of this NASTY jam.

And on that note, I have a few reminders for everyone:

1. Keep your site(s) updated to the latest version and free from clutter (like unused plug-ins and such).

2. Change your passwords periodically and make them really, REALLY hard for anyone to guess or figure out (use upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols).

3. Be nice to your IT friends, always!!!

Now, I have a back log of posts that are mostly in my head right now, but once I can get some alone time I will get working on them and get some posted as soon as I can.

Thanks for sticking around.

Cheers all,

Natasha~

Photo credit: devdsp on Flickr