so google penalized me, I'm sure...but it's been a while since I understood this, and removed links... now what do I do? how do I get my PR back?
If you get dropped to a PR0 it can be very dificult to get it back. I guess getting some really authoritative links may help - although these are hard to find. If you have been banned from Google completely you may also need to file for reinclusion
If you're talking about the links in your signature, then you're not penalized. You're still indexed in google. You're also ranked 26th for "digital photography" with that site. The PR dropping to 0 doesn't mean anything really. Sometimes the toolbar is messed up. "digital photography" gets searched about 85,699 times a month which is pretty good. If you build some more backlinks you can probably get to the first page.
Its the only solution and even then, you may never see it again , or for that matter get a response... laterz malcolm