WordPress security

There's a new blog called Wordprezzie that looks like a wonderful resource for WordPress users. This post on security and hacking prevention is a great read even if you aren't using WordPress. It provides valuable tips on securing directories, using SFTP, and more.


This Post was written by Annie from Bon Appegeek

Blogger Keeps Shrinking My Photos to 400 px wide

I create my images at 500 px wide, then upload them to be 420 px on the post (because I am planning to change my column width to accommodate the 500 px wide image later), but Blogger resizes the photo to 400 when I upload. Does anyone know how I can bypass their re-sizing and keep the original image size?


This Post was written by Sarah from TheDeliciousLife

Email Privacy?

In the previous post I pointed you towards a blog post which published an email exchange that had been conducted in private. This caused me to ponder the implications of publishing a private exchange, in public, on the internet, for all the world to see. Is it ethical? Is it legal or is it not? I decided to do some research to try and find the answer. Here is some of the information I came across:


Copyright on the Internet by Franklin Pierce Law Center:
"Notice on individual email messages (if blanket notice is not provided, say, in a welcome message) may also be useful. Something as straight-forward as "Please do not forward this message without permission" should be legally adequate as well as honored by most recipients. It is hard to see much advantage to traditional notices."

5 Rules of Forwarding Emails by netm@nners.com
"keep in mind that if you are forwarding a private email that was sent to you, you must get the sender's permission to forward it on to others (or post it publicly). Emails are copyright protected by their authors. Not only that, common courtesy dictates that you should ask the author first if the email sent for your eyes only can be forwarded to strangers or others for which it was not originally intended."

Forward an email, get sued? by Overlawyered.
"The mere act of forwarding an email or posting an exchange to a website is grounds for legal action, according to University of Arkansas law professor Ned Snow. In a paper to be published in the Kansas Law Review this summer, Snow contends that one of the most common acts of the digital age is a violation of privacy and warns that our courts are running headlong into this issue."

E-mail is not copyright protected once it is sent by netm@nners.com
"E-mail is a written work that once created is copyright protected by the author. This means you cannot post publicly an e-mail sent to you privately. You cannot post private e-mails to your site, to message boards or to your blog without the author’s specific permission to do so.
Just because an e-mail was sent to you as a private communication does not mean you then own it and can do with it what you like. In addition, e-mail that is posted to a group of people, on a mailing list or Newsgroup does not make the e-mail available for reposting, copying, or any other use - not without the express and written consent of the author."

A Copyright Conundrum: Protecting Email Privacy by Social Science Research Network
"Beginning over two-hundred-fifty years ago, courts recognized that authors of personal correspondence hold property rights in their expression. Under common-law copyright, authors held a right to control whether their correspondence was published to third parties. This common-law protection of private expression was nearly absolute, immune from any defense of “fair use.” Accordingly, the routine practice of email forwarding would violate principles of common-law copyright"

Who owns email copyright? by ask metafilter
"You own the copyright on anything you write. But it will be very hard to claim damages (that is, how much money have you lost because the email was made public).
I suspect that you are more upset about the information in the email (or the fact that you said these things) becoming public, rather than the specific wording of the email. Copyright does not protect you against this type of revelation. If you did not have a confidentiality agreement with the recipient of the e-mail, then they are free to reveal this information.
Unless the e-mail contained something you planned to publish, and now you have lost potential income, then I don't think the copyright approach will work out for you."

Fair Use by Citizen Media Law Project
"Fair use, which is now a part of the Copyright Act itself, is defined in the Act as follows:
[T]he fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. "

Clear as mud?!

This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

Illegal or Not?

One blogger’s account of the furor that ensued after she modified and published a Cook's Country recipe online…


This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh who found it via David Lebovitz on Facebook.

Plans for a Tribute to Sher from What Did You Eat

By now many food bloggers have probably heard the devastating news that Sher from What Did You Eat died suddenly from a heart attack on Sunday, July 20. Many of her food blogging friends are planning to cook one of the recipes from her blog this week, and then post the recipe on their own blog on Sunday, July 27, as a tribute to Sher. Anyone who wishes to do so is invited to join this activity; it is also fine to simply post a tribute or memory of Sher on that day for people who don't want to make a recipe.

I've just learned that Sher's friend Glenna from A Fridge Full of Food has offered to link the tribute posts to her tribute to Sher in order that Sher's family and friends can find them. Bloggers who would like their tribute linked can send it to marie9949 (at) sbcglobal (dot) net.

I personally have been amazed and very moved by the way the idea to cook one of Sher's recipes as a tribute to her seemed to spring from so many places at once; I see this as an indication of how people in the food blogging community are so mentally and emotionally connected. I'm sure it would mean a lot to Sher to know that so many people are choosing to remember her in this way.

This post written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen.

Yet More Content Theft

Hello all,

This site http://www.fukien.net.cn/ has now nicked three of my posts -

http://www.fukien.net.cn/?p=823
http://www.fukien.net.cn/?p=870
http://www.fukien.net.cn/?p=871

There is a note at the bottom of the site to say that a link is provided leading back to the original content - apparently you get there by clicking the 'original text' link. There is no link.

I wanted to alert everyone as they may have stolen content from your sites also. I need to look into what action to take about this - it is driving me crazy. I've tried e-mailing the author but had no response and also tried leaving a comment, to which they responded by nicking another of my posts literally minutes later. Grrrr.


This Post was written by Helen from Food Stories

helping you build better blog designs

I just stumbled upon this blog about blog design which at first glance looks like it has some very interesting tips.


This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

TasteSpotting: Your Opinions Appreciated

hey fbs'coolers...it's sarah, just about to fall over from putting tastespotting v2 back up. *whew*

first, thank you to everyone who has shared very honest (the "*ouch* that hurt me, but i needed it" kind of honest) opinions and feelings in the comments of previous posts about tastespotting. that, plus the emails, IMs, and blog posts around the foodweb from everyone have been a tremendous help in refining tastespotting's future. there is still much left to do!

which brings me to the second...we just did a redesign on the site, and while the functionality is about the same (with the addition of being able to crop photos on the site and see a preview) and there will be more to come, it's fairly dramatic change in color scheme/look and feel. i would SO VERY MUCH appreciate it if you could share your opinions about it.

does the dark background behind the pictures make the food (*smack* me for using this term) POP? does minimal color (black white and gray) let the food stand out? does it feel clean? or is it too dark? drab? someone actually called it "scary."

thanks so much to everyone in advance for any opinions you have...if you'd rather share your opinions with me privately, you can also email me: sarah[at]tastespotting[dot]com

i'm going to go eat a cupcake now. they've been showing up all over the site.

This Post was written by Sarah from TasteSpotting

BlogHer '08 in San Francisco: Meet-ups for Attendees and S.F. Food Bloggers

The BlogHer conference will be in San Francisco July 18-20, and there are a couple of food blogger meet-ups during the conference that I wanted to let people know about.

There will also be an informal get-together planned by Amy and I where we're hoping San Francisco bloggers and BlogHer attendees can hang out together. That will be held at the Americano (on the patio) starting at 1:00 on Sunday, July 20.

There's more information at the link above for those who are interested. Hope to meet some new people, plus see some friends again!


This post is by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen.

Reviewer vs Reviewee

I loved this very astute post from Lovescool.


This Post was written by Sam from Becks&Posh

Tastespotting: Your Opinions Wanted

I'm new to Tastespotting (I know, I know, where have I been?) but I see a lot of familiar food bloggers over there. I realize it's just changed hands (and I did read the recent post and comments on fbs re its disappearance), but I'm wondering what you think about the site, if you see a lot of traffic to your blog from the photos you post there, your experiences, etc.

My main question, though, is this:

How long does it take from when you upload a photo to when it appears?

I did manage to register, and it told me my first photo sucessfully uploaded, but that was several hours ago and there's no sign of it yet. They don't tell you if that's normal. Actually they don't tell you much of anything anywhere. I can't find a Help section, though one was mentioned in Nika's post on fbs last year about Tastespotting.

I also read on her post that the photos need to be cropped to 250x250. Am I just missing the page where it tells you all this stuff? Maybe that's why my photo didn't get published, because it was the wrong size?

It also looks like they've taken down the language regarding all submitted photos becoming public domain.

Your thoughts and help greatly appreciated!

7/1/08 UPDATE:
After I put up this post, I received a very nice email message from Sarah at TasteSpotting which included the following:

we're working on the site, and are heads down trying to get features smoothed out before we do stuff like the About an the FAQs pages (which we are working on right now), etc. :)As for "How long does it take from when you upload a photo to when it appears?" it could take anywhere from RIGHT NOW to up to 24 HOURS. however, as we are getting back up and running, it might actually take a little bit longer, since we have a limited number of people doing everything for the site right now. please be patient with us. :)

you don't HAVE to crop the photo, as there is a cropping tool on the site. however, the cropping tool isn't perfect and because it goes off a formula, it doesn't necessarily leave in the best part of the picture; so, if you want your photo to appear in a particular way, it's best to crop it to a square first (250 x 250) before uploading. we are working on features that will make it easier for the whole submission process anyway :)

In the meantime, I had already resubmitted my photo, this time cropped to 250 x 250 and it was published that same night.

I noticed today that there is now an ABOUT page on TS, and there are FAQ, etc. pages under construction.

I also came across this interview with Sarah which answers a number of questions including why/how submissions are chosen/not chosen, etc.

Then my ever helpful pal Beth (aka kitchenMage) alerted me to this site created by Jean at Notcot, founder of the original TasteSpotting.For the record, I did have quite a few visitors come to my blog via my photo on TasteSpotting.And for those of you who can't get enough food porn, FoodieView (which is a recipe search engine, restaurant guide, publisher of the weekly Recipe Roundups written by food bloggers, etc.) is about to launch "Foodie Views of the Day." You can read a little more about it here.

And thanks to all of you who left helpful comments about your experiences with TasteSpotting and beyond here in this post.

This Post was written by Susan from Farmgirl Fare