Sunday 18 November 2007

How just a little bit of code makes the internet a safer place :-), and Prince Edward County's 4H Awards Night

#navbar-iframe {
height:0px;
visibility:hidden;
display:none
}

Yup. That's all it took.

I was checking out the blog last week, and hit the "next blog" bar at the top. A year ago, this was a relatively safe thing to do. Blogger has a feature where surfers can "flag" inappropriate blogs, and 99% of the time the next blog would be neutral or of some interest. It used to be fun, since there are blogs from all over the world and if one actually had the time, it would be informative.

However, last week, I realized that the p*rn-meisters have hacked their way happily into blogland. After "flagging" three blogs, I realized that I no longer wanted the "next blog" feature available on our site. These weren't sites where an individual had posted inappropriate content; these were sites designed and developed specifically to spread p*rn. Sigh.

Thanks to my trusty homeschool message board, which STILL hasn't let my membership expire despite a warning I received in April (insert dancing figure here!), I discovered this site.
And here at this site, it showed me the above code, and where to insert it into the html for our blog. I've actually linked to that page in the archives, for those of you who are also interested in modifying your blogs.

* * * * *

Friday night was the Prince Edward County 2007 Awards Night. It was awesome; much more organized this year and the evening just flowed right along. We stayed right through for the dance; there are not many opportunities for "family" dances these days, and not many opportunities for me to put my old two-stepping shoes back on (thank you, Aggies at the University of Guelph!). This year even Iain wanted to dance, so I spent a good hour teaching my 10 year old how to two-step! The rest of the family also spent lots of time on the dance floor. My favourite moment of the evening was Alison and Iain having a blast trying to two-step together; somewhere in the county is a digital camera with a photo of this moment, which I will upload here when it gets sent on to me!

The Ontario head of 4H once again attended this event; he was full of praise for our club, which apparently is one of the most active and "spirited" clubs right now.

Great group of kids, awesome leaders, and committed families ... this is what 4H is made of.

2 comments:

Lona said...

Karen,

I've not been brave enough ever to push that "next blog" button. Today, after weeks of worrying that some unsuspecting blog reader might push that button and be forever scarred, I modified my blog, as well. Yuck.

kkaci said...

It used to be fun to explore blogs, although I never did it as much here as I did at HomeschoolBlogger. That was fun! However, that was such a frustrating/slow/awkward host site I didn't last long :-).