Category: Site Updates

I should probably warn everybody that I’m about to upgrade the look of the Malleus Maleficarum web site. Generally speaking, the idea is to improve the functionality of the web site. What you’ll immediately notice is that most of the stuff you’re looking for will now be more easily accessible from the main menu bar up top with drop-down menus. No more digging for information.

The blog will soon be folded into the main web site, and will be accessible from the main page. Updates and other information will be the first thing you come to. It’s going to be done in an unobtrusive way, though. So don’t freak out. The information most people seek will always be the first thing you come to on the web site.

I’m also going to install a mobile version of the Malleus Maleficarum. This, of course, is long overdue. Especially considering that most of the users of this web site are college students who access much of their information through cell phones and tablets.

Anyway, I’m just giving you guys a heads-up. However much I might plan ahead, no transition is ever entirely smooth. But once the change is underway, it will happen quickly. I expect to inconvenience you for no more than an afternoon, and then we can all be on our merry way. Thanks ahead of time for your patience and understanding.

~ Wicasta Lovelace

I’ve decided to pull down the web store on the Malleus Maleficarum web site. It’s just too much work, and it’s not bringing in the results we expected. For some reason the people who bought so many books through our Amazon.com affiliate links aren’t interested in buying those same books directly from us. So… why keep headbutting the wall?

I’ve restored the Amazon.com affiliate links on the main pages, and have converted the existing store link to an Amazon.com based e-Store on-site. That’ll make it easy for people who want to purchase copies of the Malleus Maleficarum and other related works to do so, and will hopefully resolve the trust issue which some people had over ordering from the web store. It’ll also be a lot less work for me. That’s a good thing these days. There are already too many projects on the table.

In closing, I just want to address some of the people who dismissed our efforts to provide an on-site web store as an attempt to “cash in” on the Malleus Maleficarum. This web site has now been in operation for over a decade. All related expenses have always been paid out of my pocket, even as I watched people steal our PDF files and sell CD-ROM copies of them on eBay, re-post the entire work on their web sites without any credit to us whatsoever, and avail themselves of our free downloads by providing uncredited links to them on their own pages. All I’d hoped to do with the web store was try to off-set some of the costs of maintaining this decade long project so that we might continue to provide these services to the community. It was never my intention to “cash in”. Anyone who believes you can get rich on a web site that’s mostly frequented by college students is delusional. But I had hoped that, perhaps, among the 1,000 plus people who visit this web site every day, there might be a handful who wanted to chip in and help support the effort. But I  always  have expected too much of people.

To that one person who posted a link to this web site and derided it as “one stop shopping”, I would like to advise you that as you move forward in life you’ll realize that nothing is free. Nothing springs from the ether. Everything is the product of someone else’s labor. Sooner or later you’re going to have to stop doing nothing but take from the world around you and pitch something into the pot.

I hope the new Amazon.com e-Store functions suit the needs of our users better. Please let me know if there’s anything that you think should be added to the store. I’ll get it right up right away.

Walk in light and peace.

~ Wicasta Lovelace

September 19th is National Talk Like A Pirate Day. For that day, the Malleus Maleficarum will be converted to Pirate speak. So don’t be surprised if you go there and find that the entire text of this diabolical work suddenly has been invested with an extra swagger that it didn’t have before. Hopefully we won’t ruffle too many feathers by injecting a little random humor into the web site. But we figure if we have, and you’re one of those people, you can walk the plank. But don’t fear, everything will be back to normal tomorrow.

You may have noticed that we added a store to the Malleus Maleficarum Online web site. This was done only after long deliberation. We’ve never wanted to be seen as capitalizing on our work here (although quite a few others have had no qualms about selling our work for themselves). The unpleasant reality, however, is that it costs money to maintain the server that the Malleus Maleficarum Online project lives upon. Our annually paid server fees will be due again on October 1st, and the money just isn’t there. After over a decade in existence, we are finally going to be forced to ask for the help of the community that uses this web site. It would seem that a web site which receives 35,000 to 40,000 visits per month should be able to find a way to survive.

We will not be placing random items in the store. You’ll find no plasma televisions or sports memorabilia. What you will find are products which our users have shown an interest in while using our old Amazon.com links (yes, Amazon.com has told us quite a bit about you scallywags). These may be in the form of books, DVDs and even relevant clothing (college kids need swag, too), but they will always stay close to the theme and subject of this web site and related subjects such as Demonology, modern witchcraft and WIcca, as well as some relevant Christian writing on these subjects. Our aim will be to provide access to the many different viewpoints surround the Malleus Maleficarum and its related subject matter.  As ever, we leave you to make up your own mind and simply hope to make the information available.

You may have noticed that the Malleus Maleficarum has risen from the ashes. We’ve tentatively put our files back on the server, gambling that the issues that faced us in the last few months with the root access server hacks have finally been corrected by our host provider. The server has been hack free for several weeks now, following some over-due security hardening by our host provider, so we thought we would get our toes and wet and see how things went.

I want to personally apologize for the Malleus Maleficarum being offline for so long. We had expected to simply move to a new server, but with money being short and the economy being what it is, that just wasn’t in the cards. That’s the one thing we learned rather quickly. While thousands of people are quick to avail themselves of free resources, no one is willing to help support the effort. And why should they, really? Our PDF files have been widely distributed across the Internet, and many webmasters have no moral problem with illegally mirroring our web site and claiming the work as their own. My point is that while perhaps this web site has more functionality that most of the other available (legal or otherwise) resources, the material is out there if you know where to look. In the interim, when money was short and there was no material support from users to speak of, we simply did what we could when we could.

I assure you that we haven’t forgotten that our host provider maintained laughable security protocols and dismissed our complaints as the whining of clueless administrators who didn’t have the sense to change their own passwords. We don’t have much confidence in their assurances that security protocols have (finally) been addressed and the server has been hardened. Therefore, we are still setting up a new server and moving ahead with our plans to find a more permanent home for the Malleus Maleficarum online project.

Now if we can just figure out all this Linux stuff.

– Wicasta Lovelace

You may have noticed while doing Google searches pertaining to the Malleus that Google has flagged our domain with the warning; “This site may harm your computer.” Well, that’s just not true, so you can stop worrying about it.

What happened was that someone found an exploit in a WordPress theme that we were using and was forcing an iFrame HTML snippet into our theme, which led to a known virus spreading web site. We immediately pounced upon the offending code when it came to our attention, and found it necessary to change our theme (which is why the web site has enjoyed a recent upgrade). Since we’ve changed themes, we’ve had no further problems with the malicious code.

Google, thus far, has been unimpressed. We’ve petitioned to have the warning removed from our listing, but have only been told be Google that they will “review the issue”, promising only that “it may take up to two weeks or more to process your request”. In the meantime, we’re flagged as having malicious code that we do not have, and this leading up into the new semester.

Rest assured that the malicious code which led Google to flag our domains has long since been removed. As well, we are checking our theme installation daily for suspicious changes. We are doing all we can to ensure that your visit to this web site is pleasurable, easy to navigate, and virus free. Hopefully Google will soon stop alarming our visitors and let us all be on our way.

Walk in light and peace.

– Wicasta Lovelace

We’ve tracked down and removed the malicious code that some loser managed to slip into our main WordPress files. The loser in question found a way to insert an iframe tag that linked to something that was posted at web-analizer.net. If you got a virus from our web site, it was through this malicious code. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience.

We are currently working with Google to ensure that our entire web site is free of this code, and hope to have the warning flags dropped from our web site soon. Rest assured that we have located the cause of the problem, and are taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

– Wicasta Lovelace