Sunday, December 15, 2013

Losses and gains…

A dear friend of ours passed away on Thursday.  Jim was our Grand Marshall – the heart and soul of our neighborhood.  He is missed already.  Rest in peace, Jim.



In other news, I have been through hell the last couple of days.  All of my gmail accounts were hacked including the one I had attached to my blogger account, so if you got an email from me, rest assured that I am not in the Ukraine and don’t need you to send me money.

I managed to get my primary email account restarted and restored even managing to recover all my contacts that went missing out on some Cloud or another, but when I went to view my blog to make sure nothing was wrong there, I got the message:


Blog has been removed
Sorry, the blog at commonplacebeautyphotography.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.
Did you expect to see your blog here? See: 'I can't find my blog on the Web, where is it?'


As you can imagine, panic set in.  I didn’t know what to do, so I googled what to do and tried to follow the directions they gave me, but nothing seemed to work.  Where was my blog that I have put countless hours into for the last three + years??

When I went to bed last night, I was very upset thinking my blogging days were over.  But when I got up this morning I began doing my random clicking thing trying to find out where the blog was and why it wasn’t where it was supposed to be.  Eventually, I went on the Google Product Forums and typed in my problem together with the URL of the blog.  After I entered my question, for some reason, I clicked on my blog URL and voila…there it was in living color.  My blog restored!

I am very confused about how and why all this happened.  If this has happened to any of you out there, I would love to hear what you did to recover your blog and your sanity and, more importantly, what you are doing to keep it from happening again.  I did get suggestions on the forum for which I am very grateful.

Meanwhile, life goes on.


14 comments:

MadSnapper said...

i was one of the ones that got the email and knew you had been hacked, they even had on CNN that FB, Twitter, Google had been hacked. i am thinking blogger closed your blog so someone could not use your password to post on it. when you sent them the alert they put it back.
so sorry to hear about your friend passing away

commonplacebeautyphotography said...

That is possible that blogger temporarily closed my blog. I hadn't heard that the hacking has been so widespread. The nerve of some people! Thanks for the sympathy.

holdingmoments said...

Sorry to hear about your friend Barbara.

Losing your blog and having your mail hacked like that must have been a nightmare. Glad it's all sorted now.
I'd be totally lost if something like that happened to me.

TexWisGirl said...

sorry about the loss of your friend and neighbor.

i agree with sandra that blogger/google probably temporarily disabled your blog due to the account hacking.

fyi, after another blogger suggested it, i use 2-step verification to sign in to my blog. it sends a text to my cell phone with a code i have to enter into the sign-on screen in order to access my blog account. it is a hassle, but i feel better just in case...

Rose said...

I wondered what happened...I clicked yesterday(?) and you were no where to be found. I am sorry for your trouble...and I do know how you feel...but don't have any suggestions.

And so sorry for the loss...he looks like such a pleasant man.

The Furry Gnome said...

Glad you survived that episode!

Pamela Gordon said...

I'm sorry to hear about your friend, Barbara. I'm sure he will be missed by the community. I'm glad you figured out how to get your blog back. I'd be like you and just want to give up. A scary situation to be in! I hope this next week is a better one for you.

Tina Fariss Barbour said...

I'm so sorry about your friend, Barb. It sounds like he was a person who will be missed by many.

I hadn't heard about Google being hacked. That doesn't make me feel too safe. Wonder if I should be more security conscious and do the two-step sign in?

Cezar and Léia said...

So sad news, sorry about your friend. You prepared a beautiful homage for him.
About Google, sometimes I got weird messages as well. I imagine your panic, I would feel in the same way. Glad everything is fine now!
hugs and a nice week,
Léia

Kerri Farley said...

Very sorry for your loss!
Glad you got your blog back :)

Debbie said...

awww your friend looks like such a kind soul!!

and i already wired the money...hehehe, what should i do now ;)

Nicki said...

I am so sorry for your loss. On top of which, how infuriating to lose your blog and sanity. It sometimes scares me to think how closed tied those two things are to one another.

Leave It To Davis said...

So glad to hear that someone else is having trouble with scary things happening to their blog and email and computer. I was feeling like it was just me. I had deleted mine because of all the hacking and just plain crap going on....but can't stay away for long, so I go undelete it. I went to blogger, where I get the same message as you....but just always go to dashboard after signing into Google...and it gives me the option to undelete. I have been blaming memes on my problem because before joining in on them, I never had any of the problems I had been having....none of the junk comments and none of the email where a fellow blogger was trying to get me to click on a link to "join" them in some site or another....I never clicked...and would eventually see that blogger telling their followers they didn't send the emails. That's why I deleted mine several times now....but just keep undeleting it because, I, like you, miss blogging friends and I have also put way too much time into blogging to lose it forever! Good luck. Hope you lose the email bugs soon!

Sylvia said...

So sorry about your friend, Barbara !
And all those problems with your blog, glad everything is fine now ...
Nice week,
Sylvia