Well, that was a very interesting 36 hours!!!!
Google shut down my account while I was sleeping and I awoke to find I could no longer access my email, my blogs, my Google+ stream or my Picasa albums ... all of which were associated with my google account. Apparently somebody out there was messing with my account ... what is wrong with these people?
Anyway, it seems everything is back to normal ... well for now anyway. I was suffering from some serious withdrawal symptoms for a while. But I can once again participate in the online gardening world. Happy days!
Apologies to those who've already read this post on my other blog. I'm being a little bit lazy and just posting the exact same thing on both my blogs.
Good to have you back! That's not good news though about Google because we all have so much stuff on there now and it could happen to anyone.
ReplyDeleteG'day Shirley. Your comment about Google is exactly what I was thinking when I realised my account had been locked down. I've had absolutely no real explanation as to why it occurred, and I've pretty well had to figure out how to get it back all on my own as I couldn't even access the Help section without signing in. Nightmare stuff!
DeleteYou are the second person I know of who has experienced this. @ Pondside also became a victim of this very recently. Her experience sounded so similar to yours. It is very disconcerting knowing that nothing is sacred. Our blogs are personal journals. Of what value are they to anyone else?
ReplyDeleteDesiree, including Pondside, I've now heard of four of us that have experienced this just recently. I'm not sure if the hackers actually hacked into my blogs or my Goggle account ... that's unclear at this point. It does seem though, that Google immediately closing down my account, and everything associated with it, might have protected me somewhat. I'm not sure what hackers get out of all this.
DeleteSo, this is awful. Should we be trying to find some way to back up our files? You are not the only I have read who has lost her blog. Glad to see that your are back in fine shape and I am looking forward to seeing your garden again.
ReplyDeleteHi Ann. Yes backing up does sound like a good option to me now. I hadn't bothered with it before. In my case though, backing up wouldn't have done much good, as I couldn't sign in to my goggle account at all! It was my account that was closed down, not just my blogs. That was Google's response to some apparently suspicious behaviour happening on my google email address. The whole thing has woken me up to the fact that keeping one password for ages is not good. We all need to change our passwords every now and then.
DeleteBernie - I had an absolute panic attack! I was going to reference your blog in my post today, and it was gone! Then I went to your other blog, and *poof* - gone too! Just now I was looking at my blog roll and I saw your post. SO glad to know you are back in action; thank goodness you have the presence of mind and tech savvy to get back online.
ReplyDeleteShyrlene, you weren't the only one having a panic attack. The whole thing took me completely by surprise. As for tech savvy, lol, I'm far from it. But I did figure out that signing up for a new Google email address would mean I would lose my blogs forever. Thank goodness everything seems to be working the way it should.
DeleteShyrlene
ReplyDeleteI am glad you are online again.
Since your accounts and blog is located somewhere on Google's mainframe. If your data is lost or compromised, it is gone. I am using Picasa and my fear is that all my web albums can disappear. We backup our own pictures, but I can't do the same with collages and added info. We really depend on Google in many ways.
Gisela
guild-rez - You should be able to copy and paste or "save as" your collages onto your computer where it can be backed up. I also posted my collages and best photos onto Photobucket and Facebook. This gives me several locations to save my best stuff.
DeleteSo glad to see you're back. How scary that must have been - and frustrating! I don't understand what hackers want, either. My computer has been acting oddly for a couple of days. It's always worrisome that someone else may be messing with things. Hopefully with you, Google caught everything in time to safe you from harm, and even though it must have been exasperating, maybe it was the best thing for them to do. I hate that google is so interlinked. It must be great for their brand, but when everything's connected, it is much more frustrating when things don't work.
ReplyDeleteHolleyGarden, so far it looks as if everything is now safe and sound. It is great that Google got onto it straight away, but it was downright annoying that everything associated with my account was closed down as well.
DeleteGlad it all worked out. Praise the Google back up servers!!!
ReplyDeleteYes thankfully everything seems to be OK now. Thanks Donna.
DeleteWell welcome back!!
ReplyDeleteVery pleased to be here, Darla!
DeleteI had a similar thing happen when I went away and used another computer. well that set off all of googles alarm bells! Somehow or other it affected my templates and for the life of me I can't get it back the way it was. How many times do we read "save your templates, change your password"! Funny now that it has all passed, but it was also pretty nervrewracking for a while. glad to see you back
ReplyDeleteAfricanaussie, sorry to hear that your templates were altered and can't be reversed. I know I've read the suggested warnings about saving templates, backing up and changing passwords, but have largely ignored them until now. I've certainly learned my lesson.
DeleteHi Bernie, glad you were able to retrieve them. I went through that in November as a birthday present, actually posted it also titled "I got a heart attack at midnight". It happened also with Autumn Belle, but i didn't bother to back up because i am not good following computer instructions, when it happened to me I nervously asked people to teach me backing up. Francisca painstakingly taught me how to do things, and i think Solitude Rising read it and also read panic so backed up too. I hope it wont happen again to us.
ReplyDeleteWelcome back! I wondered what had happened. It's good to see Google acting so quickly, although not much fun when you're at the centre of it. Time for me to change all my passwords, I think!
ReplyDeleteYou didn't explain how you got your blog back. I recently backed up the blog and the template but one worries. I want to change my password and I suppose you do that in your Google account.
ReplyDeleteLuckily you got back your blog!
ReplyDeleteWelcome back!
What a hassle. I hate when this kind of stuff happens.
ReplyDelete