Blogging tips

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

.Protecting Those I Love.

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I really love blogging. The more I do it, the more I love it. I have always loved to write, to journal, to inspect my heart with a pen. When I started on xanga four years ago, I had no idea what an outlet blogging would be. I know there are those who cannot understand that, but I think that most of you who read my blog will "get it". I love being encouraged by women of like faith whom I have never met and will likely not meet this side of heaven. Growing up I always had a pen-pal, and that continues to be my most favorite way to get to know a person - on paper first and then over coffee. I feel a little more prepared that way. {grin}

I have said this before, but I am just so humbled by all of the wonderful people who read my blog. I never really imagined my little nook on the web would attract any attention. But with a rise in followers and readers lately, and who knows how many lurkers {grimace}, it seems that maybe God is using my little space, and I pray He is using it for His honor and glory. It always makes me nervous when people say they are a regular reader but never comment! It's not that I need those comments and I certainly do not blog for comments, but sometimes that leaves me feeling vulnerable. At the same time I am the one who has put myself out there, so I can expect and accept that. From time to time I have worried about protecting those I love, though, and I wonder if I am putting them in harms way by having such an open blog. For a time I had locked my blog on xanga before I came over here to join blogger. I liked the security of that, but at the same time if I were to lock this I would miss out on some beautiful women. Some women I have found via coming to my blog and have developed a real relationship with - exchanging emails, reading their beautiful blogs, sharing prayer requests, and even tweets. {grin} I don't want to miss out on that, and I don't want to miss out on an opportunity that God may have for me to encourage other women, other mommies. I feel like this is my little niche - here blogging - writing. I always dreamed that I would someday be an author and get a book published, but maybe not, maybe I am just to blog and have a few women connect with my writing here. How cool is that? My ministry priority of course is my home and family. That continues to take precedence over my little blog.

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I want to be safe because I love my family. I have started watermarking all of my photos on here. I have settled on watermarking them with the name of my blog, so that is what you will see unless I post an old one or one linked with my photography site. I get very nervous about having my photos of my children stolen. That just makes my skin crawl. I have heard some creepy things about that lately, and I want none of it. I think I need to go even farther and disable the right click-ability. I have looked at a few tutorials, but keep getting lost. I need to have my hubby help me out with that. I know a lot of blogging mommies use fictitious names for their family. I can see the validity of that, but I am already in too deep. I would have to spend days changing our names here, or so it seems. I read a great post on this subject of blogging safety here.


However, I want to know what you, my sweet readers, do to protect your family in this blog world. Many of my bloggy friends have much bigger blogs and followings than I, and I thought you might have some wise counsel. Please share!

12 comments:

Jenilee said...

thanks for linking to that post! GREAT information!!!

Heather said...

This is definitely something to think about. I am thinking about watermarking my photos and disabling right-click. I am going to look into that soon now.
When I first started my blog I didn't use my husband or my son's names, but now I do. Just our first names, though. I don't have middle names up.

rameelin said...

My blog is right click disabled, but other than that I am completely vulnerable. Call me stupid, but I don't mind it. Alot of my readers are from our small town, although I have had some hateful comments in the past. With that being said, there have been a few times I have worried, but the second I feel like we may be in true danger, I would immediately remove the blog. It's important to me, but not more important than the safety of my family. My mom always freaks me out because she has read statistics on people obsessed with redheaded children and how they stalk and groom them for years before finally abducting them. Of course, I pray and give my fears to the Lord. These are only statistics, after all. I live for a God with His very own stats!
Good ideas though...I understand how important it is to feel protected:)

Lauren said...

Thanks for the link! And by the way - if you want to change your names (I have said the same thing - in too deep) but still I have read about a way to take out all of your posts and change all the names with a "seek and replace" option and then put them back into the blog. It is supposed to only take minutes. Again - not something that I will be using but if you wanted to know how I can find the info for you!

Have a great day.

Kelley said...

First, let me say that I genuinely enjoy reading your blog. I only have a handful outside of my local friends that I read faithfully, and yours is most definitely one of them!

My programmer husband tells me that the key to protecting your pictures is to keep them very low-res (not that I do this). I thought about watermarking mine like I do for my clients, but without watermarking across the entire image, I figured someone could just crop the watermark out. And I know anyone can use the Print Screen button and copy my images that way even if I disable right click.

I do a lot of what your article talks about. I don't use our names, don't give my city, have a separate email address...

I'm not overly paranoid about the blog world dangers, but I'm the kind that isn't going to put my kids' names visibly on their backpacks or shirts either. :-)

Anna said...

This is something that has been on my mind as well. I don't have nearly as many followers as you do, but it does sometimes worry me about who is reading that I don't know about. It's hard to know what safety precautions to take in this age of the Internet. Thanks for the link!

Kylee said...

Hi there! I'm not sure if you have visited the blog www.urthmama.com...it is a beautiful blog written by a mom of two adorable kids. She recently (Jan 25th, 2010) did a post talking about changing real life names to fake blogger names. Apparently there is an easier way to do it where you can change it all at once, without having to go through each post individually. You have probably seen her blog, but I wanted to mention that to you just in case. She had really great, helpful tips and explained it so it was very clear!

I love your blog and enjoy visiting here. Blogging is such a fun hobby, and an incredible outlet. Nothing is more therapeutic then writing out your heart!

Kylee said...

oops...that's theurthmama.com. my bad!

Jenna said...

That's why I made mine private. I enjoyed having people come and look at it and publicizing it because of staying in touch with people after we moved, but I wanted to feel free to show a lot of pictures of where we are at and give specific details of our ministry for our extended family and close friends. I really enjoyed the aspects of playing with the layouts and design, etc. but I don't really have time for it anyway right now. I guess I have been watching too many Criminal Minds, CSI, etc. too! ;)

The Anglin Family said...

My little blog isn't read by many, but I have still gotten hateful comments. I feel the blog world is so full of women of faith and I have met some amazing girls. I try not to think about the bad things but sometimes you have to protect your fam. But please don't stop blogging!! I would miss you! :)

Jena Webber said...

Sweet photos of your family! I used to worry about the security issues. I guess with photoshopping anything is possible. Anyway, thanks for being such a regular of my blog also!

Jen said...

I have thought about that as well and I don't really have answers. I try to be careful about not putting identifying info on things but I know I slip from time to time. I guess I always try to think the best of people... hoping I can continue to do so. Good luck... your children are adorable!

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