Holy smokes, that would have rattled me seriously. I hate the venom that spews forth from behind the cowardly hiding place of the computer monitor. For what it's worth, your blog didn't take too long to load. Perhaps some of the theives are surreptitiously returning the stolen bandwidth. :)

Don't you just adore Petticoat? I have one sock that looks startlingly like yours - I too decided to go with the simple pattern to show off the yarn. Now I have to finish the second one! I suppose it would help if I cast on....

Cheers!

I would totally go for the p*rn pic. They'll drop you real fast. Or not. Never can tell with "Christians" these days. ;)

I'm sorry I'm so late with this comment.
We can't assume a person in a Christian Chat room is a Christian. :( After all many visit those places just to give us a hard time...
God bless and don't be hurt. People who speak out in hate are somehow afflicted. We may never know what is really bothering her.
P.S. I TOTALLY LOVE your socks!!!!!!
Cher

Lemme at her, lemme at her! I'm in a good mood to kick some fanny....

No WONDER your site has been so slow for me lately!! Hope this chick takes the tip and makes the correction!
xxoo

Oh.My.Gosh. ignore the typo in my previous comment please. For some reason I clicked when I should have not. Just shoot me.

Love your sockage :o)

Regarding the 'other' matter - this person obviously has no clue what they're talking about. I like Julia's idea *grin* and I have Photoshop and soe lovely ideas if you need some assistance making the photo ;o)

If you get no joy from the forum moderators, change the picture. If changing the picture gets you more impudence, I think it's time we found out just who this person is, at least online. Public censure is about the only weapon we have against jerks.

Rudesters and bullies depend on their ability to make nice people shake. It's the secret of their success.

I was wondering why your blog over the last few months has taken increasing longer to download. It has been 10 minutes and your blog is still not fully loaded. Hope you get this straighten out. I wish that people would not get all bend out of shape when you are just trying to get your bandwidth back.

Man. What a complete IDIOT.

First of all, it is NOT ok to just take pictures off of people's sites and use them however you wish. You need to have permission first. This is why a lot of people place copyright disclaimers on their footers.

The Internet is NOT a free-for-all where you can just steal things.

Secondly, this idiot clearly has NO CLUE what bandwidth IS just from the unbelievably stupid remarks that were made.

Essentially, he/she is piggy-backing on your account without permission. Like a LEACH! (Leech?).

I would definitely contact the forum moderator. And, if this person actually copies your images, I would send a cease-and-desist. I know you probably don't care aboout that, but this persons' wagon doesn't just need to be fixed (hehe...LOVE that expression) but possibly broken . ;-)

Sorry you had to experience th nastiness of the Internet community.

just because someone is religious doesn't mean they are good. just look at the news and you will see.

Opal is so pretty. Self-righteous ignorance - not so pretty. I don't care what religion you follow. Hope you get it fixed up quick.

WOW - I'm at a loss for words. It amazes me how people can be so righteous and so mena at the same time. You took the high road and should be proud!
Love the Opal - soooo pretty.

Gobsmacked!

Beyond rude imho, however, and I am just askin' so don't jump but is it possible that this person (still rude btw) doesn't u.n.d.e.r.s.t.a.n.d. about actually lifting the picture and saving it to their own servers as opposed to just lazily hotlinking to yours?????? as in perhaps they are a real ludite and don't want to admit it...(kinda like they don't know they are rude either....?)

Oh! OH! Oh! Oh!.....I'm sorry, I can't stop saying "Oh!" I'm ..... Oh!

However, I also can't stop laughing at Jo of Boston's "well, isn't that special?" That is one of my favorite phrases! ;-D

I'm a total numbskull about all those things people are mentioning like changing the name, changing the image, etc. I have to learn, though, because my bandwidth is out of control again. Every time I put those tutorials and pdf's up....there must be some huge group that is hotlinking and I can't figure out who. Because when I take them down, it goes down again. But some bunches of people inevitably ask for it again....presumably people who were using it in those groups or lists, I suppose. Crikey, it's enough to make me cranky. Not that it takes much.

Ignorance is one thing, rudeness is another. But the two together - annoying.
Li

*growl* apparently said "christian" (and no i'm not christian bashing either...my mama raised me better than that) has no clue what the difference is between taking a picture off someone else's site (which is, unfortunately very difficult to stop, especially if someone wants the picture badly enough--no i won't say how here, but there is almost always a way to get a pic, and the 'disable right click' function doesn't stop anyone who knows how to get around it--which is extremely simple grr) and hotlinking...regardless, last time i knew, no provisos were made in the 8th commandment saying "it's ok to steal other people's property if it's online...and you can be snotty about it if you're caught"...

best solutions have already been posted it looks like: the no-hotlinking pic (myself i'd go with something obscene, but the 'i break the 8th commandment online' idea is great) & reporting this to the owners of the forums, ISP of the offender etc...one other thing you might wish to try is watermarking/copyright marking your photos. there are tutorials for doing this online, it's simple once you get the watermark itself created, and if you place it in a good place (across a complicated area of the photo so it cannot be photoshopped out), it's difficult to remove without destroying the original.

am sorry you had to deal with such a clod...but please don't let em cow you into not sharing your pics with us!

Sandy - You know who to call - I'm more than happy to quickly take care of this problem.

:) Just email me and I'll fix it all up for ya!

I like Rebekkah's 8th Commandment suggestion--effective AND funny! (And, that's okay, I know all the Commandments, but I couldn't tell you which is which, either--I figure they're all important, it's not so much that I need to know the sequence.)

My bandwidth is beyond what it should be and I can't find the problem. You should change the pictures or maybe just chnage it to p*rn so they'll drop you and the picture;-)

Don't you just LOVE Petticoat!!?

One word - UNbelieveable!

Well, I totally agree with the other Donna up there *waves* - the internet is not free and I would totally put up a "you're stealing my bandwidth, you bandwidth stealer" picture (Photoshop is handy for adding those kinds of messages). Here is what I would do if you feel like fixing this and can FTP files to your server, or have someone help you:

Put a wee file in your public directory (public_html or www) called an htaccess file - it's actually named .htaccess, complete with period in front. This tutorial http://altlab.com/htaccess_tutorial.html gives an excellent explanation of the simple steps to follow - you'll probably spend more time making your "nohotlink" image than making this file. Good luck! I'm averting my eyes from how great the Opal Petticoat socks look - they're super, but I don't need to add to my stash!

What an idiot!!

According to Daniel, the standard operating procedure is to change the pictures to... well... maybe you should email to find out. He swears it's done all the time to stop hotlinkers.

Ok, so it sounds like that person has no idea what he/she's talking about. I'm guessing it wouldn't bother you if someone showed a picture, as long as your bandwith isn't being used. I can understand how angry you must be, but I'd choose to feel sorry this "Christian" who seems to be so hostile and is really just "flaunting their ignorance" as my mom used to say.

The sock looks great!

My suggestion would be to add a little change to your code, and add a right click disabling code as well as changing the name of the pic.

I'm with everyone else. Change that pic! That'll show 'em. Thing is, if they had just saved the pic to their own server they wouldn't have to deal with the pic change. You would be ignorant to the use of the pic and that would be that. Pain.In.The.Neck.

How are you? Hope all is well. Can you come to knitting tomorrow night? I think you need to get away!

I was just wondering where you got that yarn. I tried doing a google search for opal yarn but couldn't find that one. It is beautiful!

Have you considered contacting the moderators of the forums? They would have the authority to fix the problem. Whether or not they are willing is a totally different story. If they still don't get it I go with everyone else, and suggest changing the picture to something silly with text about why there's inappropriate pictures displaying. As a christian, let me appologize. Even if this is a pure case of raging ignorance, there is no way that responding with insults in a public forum reflects at all the attitude Christ has for every person believer or not.

You can't budge a rock brain like that. All you can do is what people said. Now I'm worried about how to tell if my bandwidth is being swiped. And by whom.

Ditto the others, you can change the images to other things that they're not going to want on their site. You can also find their IP addresses and report them to their ISP's. Snarky snooty ingnorant booty!

... pretty petticoat.

LOL! What a complete moron! I agree with Rebekkah. I would upload some other embarassing pic and then see what they think about photo/bandwidth theft!

i'm sorry you've had a run in with some not so kind people. that retort sounds like they think they know what they're talking about but really don't. maybe you should send them some links about bandwith stealing etc...to educate them! i really only have a small inkling of knowledge about it and i save to my puter then upload with my own upload tool then link back to the site.. is that the right way to do it? anyways sorry that this had to happen to you! i'd say replace what they stole with a different pix about bandwith stealing. oh and not all christians are bad. don't write us all off b/c of someone who's not so kind and loving as we should be.
big hugs...

Oh that sock is beautiful. I'll bet it's a pleasure to knit.
I agree with Julia. Change the picture to something about bandwidth theft. I'm sorry that person made you feel badly. That behavior wasn't very Christian of them.

Hmmm.. hubby had the same problem, but he was naughty ;)
He changed the pic to a rude picture that the person most definitely did *not* want associated with his name ;) That guy stopped using DH's picture pretty quick after that!

Wow. How ignorant and mean spirited. My suggestion is to fight fire with fire. Upload a pic to the same URL that says something they wouldn't like. (Such as "I break the 8th commandment, but that's okay, because it's the internet!")

And yes, I had to Google the 10 Commandments to find out which number is the one about stealing. I'm a total heathen. ;-)

WHAT??!! I can hardly believe that retort! Sheesh.
(Heading to check my bandwidth stats posthaste.)

How awful! I have had similar things happen to me and it always makes my blood boil. So sorry that it has happened to you too!

Helena Handbasket. What a snarky little do-gooder that person is! That's awful, Sandy.

That forum person must be a moron. A moron going to heaven, but a moron nonetheless.

(Oh, no. Did I just escalate that?)

What a wretched attitude! You can fix their wagon. Replace the image they are poaching with one the same size and name that says something unkind about people who steal bandwidth and ignore copyright. Be as creative and/or caustic as you like. Trust me, if it's offensive enough, they will unlink pretty quick or have to answer to their sunday school class or something.

Well, isn't that special! So much for loving your neighbor and turning the other cheek!
I love that Opal. I see some in my future. My immediate future.