For anyone who’s been following my site updates, you’ll probably recognize that you’ve seen update #50 before…more than once. This is the third time I’ve edited this post because the situation has kept changing. My site got hacked about a week ago, and originally I was relieved because I had backups from March that I was sure weren’t compromised since it was a couple months before I got hacked. So I went ahead and imported them to my hosting provider, just to find out a couple days ago that my backups were riddled with malware. This was a very difficult lesson for me to learn, that sometimes the cheaper option (self hosting) isn’t always the better option, especially when you’re a more casual webmaster and aren’t a professional in IT Security, or well versed in using linux operating systems. After realizing my backups were all infected, there was really no way to remedy this situation other than to salvage a few scraps of my site and delete everything else and start fresh. I managed to save my primary site’s blog posts, which are thankfully not compromised, as well as my webring files and some images. My webrings and blog posts were what I cared about more than anything. I’ve had this site for over 3 years. If I lost all my posts and my webrings, it would have been beyond devastating. This situation could have been a lot worse for sure. I’m just thankful it wasn’t and now that I’m past the point of shock and grieving my old site, I’m actually really excited and filled with creative inspiration for what’s to come next. I get a blank slate to work with, where I can take all of my web design and web-mastering lessons from the past, and apply what I’ve learned in a more fun, creative, and cleaner way. So that’s the silver lining in all of this and I’m feeling pretty optimistic despite everything.
If anyone reading this was a webring member of either the Book Ring, the Sovereign Web Ring, or the Free Speech Webring, these webrings will be making a comeback and you won’t have to re-apply. You will, however, need to update your widget when I get them back up again if you still want to be part of the webring. I’ll send out a mass email once I’ve got the webrings back up, so stay tuned!
What I’ve gotten done so far in this rebuilding stage:
Added a Disclaimer Landing Page
I’ve decided to put back in a disclaimer for my landing page. Nothing crazy. But I am an adult and will talk about mature topics sometimes on my blog, so when I do, I feel like it’s only right to put a disclaimer discouraging minors from entering. I know it won’t stop anyone from entering and minors will come in regardless of what I say, but I feel like at least I’m doing my part in being a responsible adult in creating that small barrier.
I’ve also cleared my YourWorldOfText iframe and made it the background behind the disclaimer, and added a nice pastel gradient. I’ve always loved YWOT. And adding it as an iframe is just such a fun way to make a site more interactive. This time around, I want to just leave it as is. No more clearing it, or changing it up. I want to be able to look back on it 3 years from now and see all the different messages people left.
Underneath that, I’ve added the Sky Port with all of the webrings and directories I’m part of. I really liked this feature so I salvaged the code I used for it and optimized it a bit to make it more secure.
Also, there’s a little music player button in the bottom right corner of the page. If you click on it, it plays nostalgic Maple Story music. I don’t know if I’m going to keep it or not. I wasn’t sure what to put for music on that page, so I decided to put something memorable that kind of fit the vibe. I suppose I probably didn’t have to have any music at all, but I wanted to, just for that page.
Started working on the Index Page
It’s still a work in progress. I’m still kind of brainstorming how I want to have it exactly. Previously, I was kind of leaning towards having everything feel like a physical place, but, I think I want to back up a little bit on that idea and just make it a hybrid. I like the interactiveness of having a space that feels alive, but, I also don’t want to be limited to that and I want to be able to have some solid website structure as well. So I think that’s what I’ll do going forward. Add interactive elements and spaces where it feels right, and just kind of do whatever I want everywhere else. Why put myself in a box?
That’s about it for now.