TotSites

Many parents are concerned about privacy and security when it comes to their children and their TotSite. To help you with this goal, we have consolidated all “security” related features that you can enable/disable into a new section of your TotSite admin panel. You can find the link to the “Security Center” at the bottom of every page once you are logged in to your TotSite. There are several other precautions we take to ensure your privacy but these are the additional items you can choose to enable / disable depending on your preferences.

Here is the list of available security features with a brief description that you can currently modify:

• Add or change a site password: (default: disabled)
  You can choose to force visitors to enter a site password before they can view your TotSite. This is extremely useful if you want to restrict who has access to your site. Another added benefit to including a site password will ensure your TotSite never shows up on search results within Google, MSN, Yahoo and other popular search engines.    

  NOTE: Your site will only show up in search engine results if you place links to your TotSite in public areas such as forums or blogs without a site password. TotSites does not publish your personalized URL. My wife and I have had our daughter’s TotSite online for nearly 3 years now (*without* a site password) and it is not listed in the search engines since we never posted links in public forums. If you would like to post your site URL in forum signatures, that is fine, but you might consider adding a site password to your TotSite if you *do not* want your site in search engine results. It really comes down to your personal preferences. Many parents prefer their site to be listed in search results so friends and family can find it easier!
  

• Enable the password to be included in weekly alerts and site invitations: (default: disabled)
  If you have a site password enabled, it might be a good idea to share this password in the weekly alert emails and invitations. Otherwise your friends and family will need to contact you directly to obtain the password.
  
• Add / Remove your site from the public “Tot” directory: (default: enabled)
  The Tot Directory is a way for visitors to search for your TotSite. Visitors will be able to use your first name, last name or totname to search for your TotSite. It will make people finding your TotSite much easier.
  
• Turn on / off the “image verification”: (default: enabled)
  When visitors go to sign your guestbook or signup for alerts, they will be required to enter a “image verification check” if this option is enabled. We highly recommend this feature if you post links to your TotSite in public areas such as forums or blogs, as it *greatly* reduces the amount of spam you will receive. Here is an example image we display:         

  
  

• Prevent Photo Copying: (default: disabled)
  To prevent users from right clicking to copy your photos, enable this feature. It will prevent most visitors from viewing the source code of your site.

As many of you know, we store the IP address of each and every visitor to your site. In most cases the IP address will give you the general geographical location of your visitors. We are looking to add a new lookup tool that will give you an overview of your visitors locations. For those of you with friends and family abroad it will give you a good indication of who was visiting and when!

Here are a couple other recent changes at TotSites:

- Added the ability to sort your address book.
- The “Prevent Photo Copying” feature was added
- Floating flowers have been added to Easter 1

What is next? We are working on a new feature will allow you to choose a general “Links” section instead of a “gift registry” for your TotSite. It should be ready in the next couple weeks!

Brian

This entry was posted on Friday, March 23rd, 2007 at 1:34 pm and is filed under What's Happening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.