Hi everyone,

Until now, I haven't publicly said much about the topic, but I feel it's time for an update. Recently the personalized (or "pimped") profiles have become increasingly popular, with members adding animated backgrounds, flash widgets, stylized fonts, etc. I never planned this functionality, and it originally started as a bug in the profile which permitted these modifications... almost a hack of sorts. At first, the profiles were harmless and the members seemed to be enjoying themselves, so I overlooked it and purposely didn't patch the hole.

This is nearing an end however. Earlier this morning I discovered a malicious profile exploiting this hole to automatically redirect visitors to a pharmaceutical spam website. The security implications become immediately apparent.

Additionally, I have received a few reports of over-cluttered profiles overloading older computers and causing them to crash. In fact Vanyel, one of our moderators, has personally reported issues loading a couple of the busy profiles.

There is an up-side however. For the past month or so, I have been quietly working on a massive renovation to Desktop Nexus, and part of this includes a completely new member profile. The profile's coding has become all but forgotten, receiving very little attention since the inception of the site over two and a half years ago. It's time for renovations. I'm don't want to give everything away yet, but I will say the new system is MUCH improved, with a plethora of new functionality (such as an Ignore Member function and an Invisible Login mode [where your name doesn't show up on the 'Currently Online Members' list, nor any 'Recently Spotted Members' blocks]).

The new system is still a week or two out; there is still a lot of development and testing to be done. When it is complete and ready for its public unveiling, the personalized profiles will be disabled. I just wanted to warn everyone far enough ahead of time as to what will happen. I really hate to remove something that a number of you seem to enjoy so much, but I hope you understand it's to allow our site to move forward with uniformity and security in mind. Consider the profiles on this site to have the clean "Facebook" uniformity, rather than the "MySpace" chaos.

I have duct-taped the gaping security hole I discovered in the existing profiles, but I've left it open enough to allow personalizations to continue for the time being. Just keep in mind they are temporary, so don't invest too much time in them for the next few weeks. I felt it was best to give you all a heads up on this, rather than being such a shock later.

I'm really excited about the coming changes. I truly believe it'll take Desktop Nexus to the next level of social interaction and, well, addictiveness. We'll see.

I openly welcome your feedback on this.

I look forward to the new changes and I agree that security is top priority at all times. Do you recommend that we go ahead and remove our "extras" now so that we do not risk having some odd occurence take place on our pages when you "flip the switch"?

It doesn't matter either way. For the time being everything should be safe, so there's nothing to worry about. When I flip the switch, it'll zap any modifications across the entire system automatically. If you want to keep playing with the designs for the next week or two, feel free.

Also, I've developed a migration script, so when the new profiles go live, any existing data you've entered (Favorite Movies, etc) WILL be saved. You won't have to re-enter anything. I'm trying to make the transition as seamless as possible.

No, backgrounds? Oh, I kinda liked my dark one. But I'm still looking forward to the changes you are about to make. Indeed, some members need help with styling their profiles and it really often enough looks like a bomb exploded there.

Arg, this forgetting is getting a habit. >.<

I forgot to say that I like that new emblem of Desktop Nexus Happy Halloween.


I agree!

For the forgetfulness in all of us...

@Komodo:
Oh, how did you stroke that button with yellow so nicely? Anyways, yeah I actually should have used it but believe it or not a had a foolish reason not to use.

It was just a 4-5px stroke effect in Photoshop on a cutout overlay of the button.