So far I am holding to the original - classical- non-customized view. I am sure if I stay long enough, it will be as precious, as the original Coke bottle.

Brad, this is great, especially for all the newbies, to add that personal touch to their pages.

man, Jorgen is quite the supah stah... Check him out! Kuddos to AR and crew for always looking to improve.

Brad - as always the improvements are welcome. I assume we need do nothing with our custome blog unless we want, but the change will be easier to deal with. And yes, we saw the tag change - I wrote about it this morning since "my tags are gone." LOL

Jeff

I noticed the drop down...I like it...and glad to see the customizer back running strong!

Brad,

Looks like I will have to take a look.

Thanks for the updates as usual!

Tom Davis

World Class Delaware Realtor

Nice I'll have to check it out. Love the Chihuahua pic btw, its great;p

Great, Brad, my new partner and AR member will love this post.  Thanks also to Jorgen for the cleanup - No I didn't notice it.

Nice to see this integrated with our My Home page. What are the dimensions and file size limits for the header and background images?

Thanks for all the tag clean-up Jorgen Hahn! And thanks, Brad, for keeping all these gears turning in front of us.

Brad - I noticed the tag change earlier today.  Will this affect SEO for our blogs?  I was just wondering how Google or other search engines view dropdown menus.

I used to have a skylne and the AR logo on my header... but at some point the AR logo disappeared.  I can't figure out how to have both... I suppose I have to do something to make the two images one picture file... I am not good at that kind of stuff.

Brad - it was probably covered somewhere, but what are the proper dimension for the header? I am trying to create my own. Thanks ~Rita

Jason- read Bob's post on tags...they are now set as no-follow to push traffic to the channels

Thanks Brad - this is great that we can customize right from within the Rain now :)   Thanks again!

Jon - that's ok to do, I know many here who like the "Original Coke" bottle and there's nothing wrong with sticking to what works for you and what you like.  It's your Blog, and it's always nice to have your comments here on mine.  Thanks.  :-)

Gary - it is nice to allow folks the option to have that unique and personal touch if they choose. :-)

Nick - great to hear from you buddy, you're kinda a Supah Star too these days, how's everything going with the Rail Life stuff.  I See you around a bit more now, hope you and the family are all well. :-)

Jeff - they are not gone, just placed nicely in a box.  This will not affect anything other than you won't have a mile long list of tagwords scrolling out the door on your sidebar.  :-) LOL~

Brad - I love the tag clean up-I started working on it myself and got overwhelmed!  And I just notice the custom blog button - today - so much simpler, except the reason I went looking for it was because I now have a double header on mine and I don't know how it got there or how to get rid of it!  :-)  

Jason - Bob Stewart did do a great post andvideo explaining the thought process and concept behind this. I spent some time on the phone with Bill Gassett as well showing how the "tags" were not showing up in searches as much as title, topics and groups.  Check out Bob's post, it's very informative. Call me if you have any questions.  :-)

  I just customized my blog, i love the new look, it  rocks ! Thank you AR for your ongoing efforts. Now how do i customize my right side bar?

DJ - glad you liked the Blog... I mean Dog! lol~  He just has that YEAH look about him so I thought he was appropriate for this post. haha  The customizer was down for a couple weeks so YEAH was certainly in order.

Virginia - congrats on your new partner!  I hope he likes what you can do using the new customizer.  No more passwords, logging in etc.  Just click and go!  Hope all is well in your side of the world.  :-)

John, thanks for the reminder, I went back in and edited the post to include the dimensions now.  Hope that helps you with your header and background images.  :-)

Mara - the gears need oil once in a while eh?  Jorgen does a great job keeping the machine running and up to speed.  Poor guy has been dealing with the dreaded Proxy Errors for a few days now, just like us.  Hopefully some of that great oil will get into those gears of AR soon too.  LOL~  :-)

Maureen - AR removed the logo from the right side of the screen and moved it over to the left.  In doing so, it left many of our headers and banners with a spot or empty space.  In some cases it blew out the headers all-together.  Then if you went into the AR Customizer, it said the site was temporarily unavailable.  Now that it's moved over from the Dakno servers and on the AR servers, we'll have a lot more opportunity to enhance and keep making it better.  Try using some of the photo editing apps on the web to create your new skyline or whatever banner/header you want on your Blog.  Have fun with it.  :-)

Kenna - the dimensions are listed in the post above. :-)

Kara - I agree.  Brad Carroll from Dakno Marketing was kind enough to help create the original AR Customizer and allowed us to host it on his comany server.  We just got too big too quick taking up all the space on his server.  Now we can access it from our AR server with a click instead of havng to leave AR, login with ID and Password, and now we don't have the logo or image on the sidebars of Blogs anymore. 

It is and will just keep getting better here, this I know for sure.  Thanks.  :-)

Mike - congrats, now I have to come check out your Blog you got so excited!  To customize your sidebar, you'll have to read the post I wrote that's included on the "Getting Started" link on AR's main front page.  If you still need some help with this, don't hesitate to let me know. Thanks.  :-)

Brad:  Hopefully I will be able to make some sense of this version of your Blog Customizer.  I am very non-techie... and tried to make the last version work perhaps five or six times, and never could figure it out.  Hopefully this time I will have an easier time.  Thanks so much for sharing.

This is great!  I am looking forward to using the new tools to personalize my blog. I had a difficult time with the other version (user error I am sure).

Great job, I will go in and change the color of my descriptions so folks don't have to squint to find where to go next. I like the tags being hidden, much sharper look, cleaner. Thanks Jorgen!

I just noticed this earlier this morning.  I will play with it today and, hopefully, not destroy my Blog.  Design has never been my thing ;)

You know I saw it the other day and I went to update it and it already had my banner, but the banner didn't show up on the blog, but once I went back and it saved, even though it was there already is when it showed up! Thanks, but I have been trying for a couple of weeks to get that banner up!

Thanks for the easy instructions. I will bookmark this post and may use it some day.

This feature will be enjoyed by all. Thank you activerain once again for making it easy for non techies like myself.

I am looking forward to trying the new customizer. Thanks for the info.

Thanks Brad. I was wondering where my banner was yesterday and new something had to be in the works:)

Glad to hear it - I have a seasonal background and was going to change it to Fall - thsi will make it easy.

Brad I saw this yesterday and noticed the cloud clean up as well.  Jorgen is rockin and rollin' cool - I was so busy I didn't have a second to comment but I saw it and am having trouble keeping up what with twitter , facebook and getting rid of my customizer widget :-)  Thanks

Brad, I  think I need to get you a mighty mouse t shirt...you saved the day yet again.

I tried fixing mine and got nothing, and had to change it to something I didn't like.

And no wonder there were proxy server issues....all makes sense.

Thank you for continuing to keep us posted on the changes to the AR site.  It is always helpful to read you posts for tips and updates.  I like the new pic by the way.

Thanks Brad.  I will look for Bob's post on this.  It sounds like Bill Gassett had the same question that I did.  Have a good one -

Hi Brad, I did notice all the great changes and figured great things were happening this past weekend since I get getting those error messages - but it was worth it.  Love your changes too - nice pic!  The other pic was mysterious and tough - I like this one!  Hope you get a chance to see my thank you to you in my blog on Friendship ball.  Have a great week.  ~Anne Marie

Wow Brad, we having 4th of July in September!  I like your new profile pic too man!

Nice new backdrop..........although I used to keep trying to find my photo on the other one (never did, lol).......and nice new personal photo!

While the tags are in the drop down, there is no "Tag Cloud" to see AT A GLANCE what tags are used most.  What does "no follow" mean?  Are the tags no longer valuable for SEO?

Brad,

I'm so excited to check out these new customized features. You must enjoy watching AR's changes over time and watching it grow!  As you guessed I'll be leaving here and going over to the new blog customizer! ;0) Thanks!

I see you did a seasonal as well - I like the pumpkins - cheerful

Lynn - Bob did a great post with a video that explains the tags, the SEO, and more. Here's a link to it.
http://activerain.com/blogsview/710576/ActiveRain-Using-no-index

Karen - this is really easy to use, just follow the 5 steps, then let me know how it works for you, also let me know if you need any help. :-)

Rebecca - you were not alone, there were many of us that had some technical difficulties with version 1.0, but like everything here, we learn, we fix, we grow, and we move on.  :-)

Jeannette - if you need any help getting that banner up there, you just let me know, I'll help you out anyway I can. 

Nancy - I don't have a mighty mouse shirt, but Christine Bohn sent me a "Gators" shirt from Florida yesterday, hope that will do! lol~  Thanks Christine, love it, and will sport it around the office today. :-)

John - thanks, I was due for a new photo I guess, my son took that one this summer so it's more current.  I was going to use the one this morning that my other son took when I just woke up, but that would have scared off and lost a lot of subscribers and associates!!  LOL~

Brad - Hey man. Just used the new customizer and yay it worked. Now my blog is seasonal like your's. My only question is that jeff t posted a tutorial saying the header had to be 950x115? Is it back to 950x125 now? Just curious. Thanks for the update. BobH

Thanks for keeping us in the loop Brad!

This is great news.  It is incredible how far things have come and it really adds a lot to the blogs to have the customizer.  Thanks and I look forward to using this tool.

Jason - here's a link for you, I also edited the post and added it at the end. Thanks.

http://activerain.com/blogsview/710576/ActiveRain-Using-no-index

Brad, this is AWESOME!  I'm off to try it out after I read your last post that I missed!  I DID notice the tag pull-down menu and am probably the HAPPIEST AR member about that--if you never noticed, I think I've listed 1000 tags!  (not really...then again, I really don't know how many there are).  I've been trying to clear them out but, just have not had the time to get to all of the posts!

Thanks again!

Anne - Mysterious and tough?  It was the only current picture I had at the time, so I used it, then forgot about it.  When I saw another members post with 10 or so member photos, I was the only one wearing the "Maui Jim" shades.  Also wearing an affliction shirt from the UFC,  So this seemed like a great time to change it, especially since this one is more recent.  Glad you like it. 

Now I have to go see what you said about me in your post, I hope you didn't use my old photo..haha.

Jeremy - I'm still experimenting...fireworks are gone, now that the customizer is working and so smoothly, I am setting up all kinds of seasonal backgrounds of photos I have taken over the years.  I find that I am having to resize each one to different dimensions to get them to look just the way I want.  You will probably see more changes over the next few days to my Blog as I test each background image to see how they look. 

The pumpkins are obviously the ones I'll be using for this month, but from now on, they will change each month.  This should keep my blog interesting and always changing.  :-) 

Can anyone tell me how to add a photo into the text area of my blog posts?  I've noticed others doing that and it looks great.

Thanks in advance.

I guess you'd be the one to complain to and perhaps get things fixed.  When I clicked on your blog, all I saw was pumpkins for a long time.  Then when I put this comment in, I saw pumpkins for a long time again.  How do you get rid of the over exposure of the background?  Time is too valuable to have to look at backgrounds for so long.

Cathy - the pumpkins are fitting for this month, gonna be hard to get a "Turkey" or "Ham" on here next month! lol~

Brad, do you guys ever sleep...always coming up with just the best for each of the members and making yourselves available to help.

Hey, KUDOS to Jorgen! It's hard to work with all these perfectionists but WOW what powerful outcomes we all get when you do. Thank you.

Bob - 115 or 125, which ever looks best.  Rich told me yesterday that Jorgen said 125, but 115 will work too.  Just look at it closely after you load it to see how it looks.  I did 125 on my banner above and you can see a touch of white going across the bottom.  135 might be better for mine in this case.

Liz thanks, your photo was in there somewhere, just covered up by my BIG BLOG! lol~  I'll bring that background back sometime, it will change much more often now...    All depends on my mood and the season. haha.. Thanks for the compliments, love getting those anytime!  :-))

Debe - I think mine was worse than yours, mine had 2000 and rolled right out my front door 300 ft away! LOL

Hey Brad, Love your pumpkins!! Thanks for all your work on this. Thanks to Jorgen too!! I will be leaving here to look at mine. Again, thanks guys!! 

Sandpoint Sothebys - you will find the instructions in the "Getting Started" link on the AR main page.  It's right under the channels area in the "More Information" box.  You'll be using the little tree image on your edit tool bar to add new photos to a post or to comments.  :-)

Barabara - I know they are working on the network right now trying to correct some of the proxy errors, It just happened to me as well, but this won't always be the case.  Just a temporary glitch in the network right now.  We'll get it smoothed out shortly.  :-)

Teresa - thanks.  The customizer makes it so much easier to add photos like this, it allows each member to make their Blog unique and stand out from the crowd.  It's kinda fun too...   :-))

BRad thanks you so much, very helpful information, I have already made changes!

Gena - did you say sleep???  ROFL  :-))

Barbara - I also just noticed that it's only doing that in the Internet Explorer browser, not in the Firefox browser.  I'm sure they are looking into it right now.  Let me know if that's happening on any of the other members customized Blogs. 

Thats great that they've come up with a blog customizer! i forgot my password to my other one and couldnt get a new one sent to me! I didnt even recoginze you with the new pic! oh and i love the pumpkins! Wonderful

Patt

Brad, it does it on a lot of the member's blogs.  I find it so annoying I just quit going to the blog at all.  And it has been that way for a long time on other blogs.  Please figure out what is wrong and announce it.

HI Brad, My old AR customizer was made fo rme and now it is gone. And of course I don't know how to get it back. What do I do? TLW's "Craporama" is the same way...gone. HELP!!!!!!

Patt - I never remembered mine either...haha, and yes, that's really me in the picture. 

Barbara - I get a lot of requests and help tickets, but I haven't heard this from others, especially when you say for a long time.  My suggestion for now is to see if it's your browser by trying the Firefox Browser.  We can't fix and announce what we don't know, we need to find out if this is an isolated incident or if all members are having an issue.

Broker B - let me wrap up a couple things and a few other tickets, and I'll be calling you.  Help is on it's way! :-))  I'll call your number listed on your profile.

Brad-Thanks for letting us know, I will certainly check it out.

Joe

Hey, Brad.  This is cool.  I'm wondering if we can fix the "skinny" on our localism pages and our outside blog pages.  They look a little anorexic.  I'm sorry if you've already addressed this and I missed it.

Thank you , thank you , thank you!  I now can catch up with the rest with the customized look!

Yippie! I love easy and have been frustrated with updating my page's look.  THANK YOU! As for the drop down on the TAGS that's great as they did look a mess. I'm still not so sure about the other things, but one step/blog at a time I guess.

Brad,

That makes it so much easier to customize. Thank you so much for the update.

Brad,

This is great! Thanks so much for explaining how to use this and also bringing us up to date on the tag clouds.....

Jo

Thank you and everyone at AR for a job well done. I was wondering when I could get my blog customized and here is a new feature that makes life much easier.

I've been meaning to try to find out how everyone was doing this (I must have missed it the first time around).  I wasn't sure if these were all custom blogs but looking at the urls it didn't look like it.

Absolutely terrific with great instructions! I'll start right away, thanks Brad.  You know what I do notice is that the page load sometimes takes forever.  Background 1st, then the blog itself, you sometimes wonder if it's gonna connect.

Hi Brad,  I've been working on this today and just can't get the photo to span the entire header.  I changed the size to 950 X 125, then doubled it, then changed the logo... How does one 'TILE'?!  You've got your entire header filled (and it looks GREAT by-the-way!) but, how do I accomplish those same results?

Thanks so much for your help!

HEY BRAD,

It just keeps on getting better in the rain!!  I'm officially addicted!

looks better then ever now...and a whole lot easier...thanks for listening to your constituents

thanks Brad - I noticed the tags were now in a 'pull down'.  I like the clean look, thanks again. :)              

Yeah... Great info and I love the tag cloud resolution!  That was a BIG one in my book.  HOWEVER, itlooks great on my AR blog, but it is still there on my AR outside blog - I'm more worried about how that one looks....???  Any word on that?

Thanks Brad,

Amber Gardner

Brad

Thank you - I've been waiting for this to happen.  Now, how did you do your pumpkin background?  Whatever photo I use always "tiles." 

Thanks,

Margaret Goss

Brad

Thank you - I've been waiting for this to happen.  Now, how did you do your pumpkin background?  Whatever photo I use always "tiles." 

Thanks,

Margaret Goss

Thank you much.  I love the tags menu as well.

Very cool, much easier to use too!

Ahhh, this makes sense now as to why some agents were "not found" and others were -- guess the ones with the customized sites were not available during the transition.Thanks for all the good work you guys do.

Oh how we appreciate all the hard work from.... You, Brad Anderson for the Rain,  Brad Carroll for helping customize the Rain and Jorgen Hahn for helping this most recent completely cool, user friendly makeover reality on the rain.  Love it! 

Wow...that's a cool update.  Sounds really easy to do.  Thanks

Brad - I did notice the drop down yesterday - AR just keeps on getting better and better - I just wish they could do something about the load speed - but I will wait patiently and enjoy all the other changes that are taking place.

Brad,

Thanks for supplying us with the opportunity to access the customizer straight from our profile

Thanks for the pumpkins so we can get in a festive mood for halloween.

and thanks..... for changing your picture.... (eg. means i gotta go change your picture from my lists ;|

Brad, What will you all think of next?  Thanks so much for taking care of all of us!  I almost didn't know who "active brad" was...the new picture threw me off!  I like!  Now, to tackle the new version...

Jason and Amber - Yes, we'll be doing the tag box for outside blogs eventually. :-)

I just pulled it up at home and the pumpkins didn't hang.  You must have fixed it.  The browsers are the same.  Now figure out what you didn and tell all the others.  : )

Hurray!  This is great because I just tried to change mine recently and it was not available!  You must be a mind reader.  This is very much appreciated.  Cheers, Harley

Awesome!  Not that I had problems with version 1.0, but newer and more amped up is always better.  Thanks!

This totally rocks of course, I noticed this too recently and I was like oh when did they implement that? So much has changed since the very 1st customizer!  Keep up the great inovative work AR staff!

Oh Brad, thank all of you AR Guys for making it simpler.  I have had a "picture" in my head of how I want my blog to look, but have been too busy to get it done.  Now, that's it's easier and I have more time, I'll be able to mark it off my list of "more AR things to do".

Brad,

Awesome info as always!  I did notice the new "button" on the left.  My pictures have issues.  I have to resize.

Thank you. 

Ann

HI Brad!
I couldn't figure out why I kept getting the "unavailable" message...but, boy, was it worth waiting for! Thanks!

Paula

Brad, love the festive holiday background...and like your new photo...(didn't know if I could trust the man who wouldn't show his eyes)...LOL! Your a handsome young man..Flaunt it!  Great Feature! So much easier to use. Now if I can get AR to allow me to Group my Groups...I'd be really excited! (hint...hint...)

I may have to play with it some more... I really want more options on the "Outside Blog"....

Brad-I love the new enhancements and really appreciate the tag cloud gone! :)

Thanks to all involved for these improvements.  They are appreciated.  I was a little distracted by some of those long tag clouds.

Brad ... thanks for this article. When I get time away from our real estate business, I will check out the new customizer ... probably a good thing.  But I will never want to be a hard corps techie. Best wishes. Harrison

Brad,

Just went over to thank Jorgen for a job well done! I'll play with the new customizer after I get some sleep! Think I might use one of new aspen photos from the weekend trip...If you get a minute, take a look at the elk photos I posted!

Debi

Oh yeah!!!!! Thank goodness its back. :) I will have to change things around tomorrow. woohoo!!!

Brad, I have gone and made changes and found it very easy to do.  Thank you for the change sir.

Wow, I go out of town for a few days and !!!BOOM!!!, you move my cheese. Thanks to the AR team for the continued improvements.

Broker Bryant - left you a message last night, call me today if you can. Thanks. :-)

Hey, Brad. This is cool. I'm wondering if we can fix the "skinny" on our localism pages and our outside blog pages. They look a little anorexic. I'm sorry if you've already addressed this and I missed it.

Natalie -I mentioned this to the programmers, I think it's a great idea.  They should all be the same width skinny or not, all the same.  :-)

Lyn - I noticed that happens when using Internet Explorer, not Firefox browser.  I see it's much better today. Let me know how it's working for you.  Sometimes it could be your computer, here's what Barbara Duncan had to say, "I just pulled it up at home and the pumpkins didn't hang. You must have fixed it." I didn't fix or do anything, it may be her network at the other computer, security settings, RAM or Video card memory etc.

Hi Brad, I've been working on this today and just can't get the photo to span the entire header. I changed the size to 950 X 125, then doubled it, then changed the logo... How does one 'TILE'?! You've got your entire header filled (and it looks GREAT by-the-way!) but, how do I accomplish those same results?

Debe - you just have to keep working with resizing until you get it exactly how you want it.  Those dimensions are just a standard width and height.  The tiling happens automatically if the image is too small.  If you make a small image large for the background, be careful, it could go blurry on ya.  Some work and some don't.  It's all about experimenting to see what works best for you. :-)

Margaret - the pumpkin photo was large to begin with, I resized it down to 950x800 and viola!!  It's actually tiled in the background, you just can't see it because my Blob Blog covers it! lol~

Sherry - contrary to popular belief, you can trust a guy in sunglasses with a mustache! haha, thanks for the compliment, I won't let it go to my head...well...maybe just a little...  lol~

So glad the customizer is up and running. I couldn't find it for my office page on Monday. We use Dakno Marketing for our office website as well, so I am very glad to know they are behind this as well!

Thanks so much.... I will work on it tonight....and pay it forward.

Any way to revert back to previous settings in case we're playing around and really screw something up?  Believe me, seems to happen to me all the time.  It's how I "learn".  LOL

Erika - Dakno did a great job getting this setup for us in the beginning.  Now that it is hosted here on AR, we should be able to keep improving on what they started.

Tim - paying it forward it what AR is all about. :-)  Have fun customizing your Blog. 

Terri - you can always set it back to the default style and then start over.  There is no way to go back to a previous setup once you hit that "Save" button. 

Great!  I've been looking for an easier way to recreate my banner as mine currently is plain and dull and boring...

Hi Brad ... Thanks.  The changes are appreciated.  The whole process flows much better now.  And as soon as the new version came alive, my logo and background (which I thought I had deleted) came back.  Nice Work!

Wow!  I love this new feature, what a great way to spice up the blogs!

Hi Brad

I  love your blog.  You teach me so much in your posts. However, it seems to take for ever for your blog or posts to load onto my computer screen.  Often I will get that "proxy error" thing.  I am assuming this is because of all of the videos and widgets and graphics you use to spif things up.

If you keep writing, I keep trying to get through.  Thanks.

Donna - you should have fun creating your new look and feel on your Blog, look forward to seeing it.

Marie - that's great news and I agree Donna, it's much easier to use now too. :-)

Christine - Have at it, custom creations are fun and they keep our Blogs changing and looking different, if you want them to that is. 

Marlene - thanks, I do take a lot of credit and sometimes blame for breaking things around here, but the "proxy error", that one is not my doing. (a least I hope not! LOL)  Jorgen did a post about the errors that was featured yesterday, take a look, it explains a bit more why they are happening.  Thanks again for being patient, for reading my Blog, and for taking the time to wait and to comment. 

MAN...I STOP BLOGGING FOR A FEW DAYS AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENS!!

The customizer is perfect for those of us who are just learning about blogging. The easier things are, the more likely we will explore and try new things.

Thanks again Brad for helping with many questions I had!  I didn't read all of the comments but I have to ask what happend to your sunglasses and leather coat??  No big deal just wondered...

Brad: I did change my blog.. but I didn't like it so I went back in to change the color to the header and page... It wont let me... so I think I'll try it again another day... I love your look of putting the words on the header... butI'm not sure how to do that.... not sure if I should change my tags they are so long.....

Thanks so much for all your head work...

Looks like another nice improvement and easy to use. My biggest concern is with all the enhancements will it continue to slow down the system and get the proxy server errors?

i am going to go try it right now, thanks for the tutorial

chris the implementer

Chris and Maria - NOTE TO SELF: Don't stop Blogging!!  :-)

JoLynn - the sun went down, and I don't own a leather jacket!  haha  :-)

Brad: I did change my blog.. but I didn't like it so I went back in to change the color to the header and page... It wont let me... so I think I'll try it again another day... I love your look of putting the words on the header... butI'm not sure how to do that.... not sure if I should change my tags they are so long.....

Donna - Marti did my banner for me, I just added the additional text.  AR & Community Builder.  You don't need to worry about tags, they are all contained in a nice neat little pull-down box now.  :-)

Terry - the customizer on AR has no affect on the speed of the system, if someone uploads a 10 megabyte photo as a background it might, but AR won't allow files of that size.  You should already be seeing an improvement in speed issues an proxy errors, I know I have.  None today so far.  :-)  (That's why I'm finally commenting back...LOL)

Chris - have fun implementing! :-)

Brad - Excellent NEW Feature!   Thanks for "simplifying" the custom header.  I love mine (thanks Marty) but now I can make some "seasonal" headers too !  I see this posted on 9/30 and I am just getting around to "catching up" on the posts this week!  :)

This is great info. I am looking forward to actually using it.

Hi Brad  Love it, love it, love it   I had so much fun doing my header Thanks bunches

I just used it a few days ago to update our blog header and background !  Before we were frozen as we had to old customizer but was patient knowing that some sort of update was coming soon.  Ours is very basic but it is an improvement !

Brad, I don't know how I missed this post. I must have been asleep! I opened a new tab and went right to My Home and added the wallpaper. That was so easy! Now I have to fix my header.  Thanks as always.

Thanks you guys, we are happy this is up and running now.  It's so easy to use, I may be changing my background once a week now, just because it is so easy and fast to do. 

The time I spend now is just finding which photos I've taken that I want to use and that look good as a background.  Gotta be careful that they aren't too busy or distracting, I suggest everyone take that same thought process when picking background photos and images. :-)

Brad - I'm trying to change the header, but when I upload a new one it's not showing up.  The old one is still there.  Thanks for your help!

Brad-thank you, thank you, thank you! I've been trying to get a background color (skin?) using Dakno but wasn't having much success. Now I'm nice and colorful. It took me a few times to realize you have to actually click on the color you want, not just move the color bar up and down.

Deidre - you can email it over to me if you like and I will try and upload it for you.  Let me know. :-)

Lisa - glad you like the new one, it seems much easier to get things done and much quicker.  Don't get me wrong, I loved the first one we had, I just kept forgetting my password, along with about 100 other members. LOL~

TODAY  - I am going to make myself use this!  I want a banner!!! Thanks!

I like the new tag cloud button and will check out the new customizer...thanks, Brad for all you do for us!

Norma - you'll love it, and it will make your blog personalized and unique.

Debra - I like it too!  I have to give the rest of the AR team and staff credit, without them, none of these things coulde or would happen.  Kudos to Jorgen and the rest of the behind the scenes staff at AR.  :-))

Brad,

Thanks for the post. I am late getting here, but the mundane has lost out and I am exploring a new look for the blog. This is helpful.

William - tear it up!!!  It's easy, it's fun. it effective, so have at it.  :-)

Brad

 Being new to AR by 2 days, can't say that I understood the button; now that you made it clear will definitely check it out. Thanks.

Thanks too, to Jorgen, without the tech cleaner-uppers, explainer-ers & all around good guys, I know that even with e-Pro training I would be very far behind in all of this.

Barb 

This is what I was looking for all morning, thank you.  Now, to customize!

Just wondering how to add things to the side bar on my custom AR blog? I have tried to figure it out and have searched for answers in blogs, but just can't seem to come with any answers. I tried adding the code to the description area, like with our regular AR blogs, but that doesn't appear to be correct either. My Oh MY!

thanks for posting this, I have already put it to use

Glad to see the tag drop-down. My tag list was pretty long!!!

Dee - if you click on my name below, you'll find all the tutorial posts I have written. Use the post that's titled, "How To Add Widgets" to your Blog. Let me know if you need additional help after that. :-)

Great Info, easy to understand, I have a customized blog but I still WANT MORE! Ha..on my way to add some color!

Thanks Brad, I'm a little late to the party, but have been wanting to add a custom header - thanks for the know-how.

Tara - have fun and enjoy!! 

Tim - you're never too late, the party goes 24/7/365!  Good luck, now go Rock your Blog!  :-)

Thanks for the tips and the link to Picknik.com ... it's so fun finding new websites.

Mighty cool!

This is what I get when I go to activeraincustomizer.com

Index of /

	images/	15-Sep-2008 12:54	-
	img/	15-Sep-2008 12:54	-

Please help.. maybe I am doing something not right?

I have tried to create a header at Picnik for my Blog page with the diminisions suggested of 950 X 125 and it looks so smashed that you cant read the text or see the picture.. Any suggestions ?  I want my page to look pretty like all the others :-)

Stanley - they were probably working on the servers when you tried.  Go to your my settings page and click on the "customize" link next to your blog and try again.  It should be working fine now.

Lori - whatever the image looks like in picnik is what it will look like on your Blog header.  You'll want to do all your resizing there and make sure it looks the way you want, then save it, and import it as your header on AR.  Hope that helps, sometimes you just have to experiment until you get it looking exactly how you want.

Thanks so much for the info Brad!  And the Picnik site is great too!  I just wanted text so I used one of their photos and cropped it so it was just a solid color.  Then blew that up so I had a solid color background that matched and put my words in!  Yeah!

Krista - tha makes you the pro and expert now....congrats!!  Have a great Holiday!  :-)

HI Brad

Don't know if this is the right place to ask this but I can't get my new banner accepted.

I deleted the old one I created with Publisher.

I have a new banner created with Adobe and saved as a jpeg. When I upload it nothing appears on the customizing page. When I go to my Blog I get a message in red that the customization has been accepted but when I log back in and view my Blog their is no banner old or new.

Merry Christmas

Bob

Thank you for the information. I especially like the picnic.com link.

Bob - let me know if you're still having trouble with this, I'll help you out if you need it.  :-)

Craig - picnik.com works great for those online editing tools you may need if they're not already on your computer.  Happy Holidays!  :-)

I'm overwhelmed,

Brady - and we're here to help if you need.  :-)

Brad,

I am trying to create a header for my Activerain blog. I went to Picnik.com and tried to change a picture into 960x130 but it came out distorted. Any customized header would be better than I have now  -- Nothing--

Mike - you should crop your images to the proper size, don't resize them till you have the section cropped that you want. 960x134 is the size you want for outside blog headers.  I think those will work with the AR customizer too.

Here's a few I made doing it this way:

Hope this helps!  :-)

My Home page doesn't have a customizer link on it.  Are there other sources I can use to create a custom background on Active Rain?

Edie - your "My Home" page does have a link to the customizer, it's to the right of your ActiveRain Blog link at the very top on the left hand side of the screen.  Make sure you are logged into AR first.  :-)

It will look like this:

Edie Israel - Prudential California Realty

• Blogs
  • ActiveRain (Customize)

Thank you, Brad.  I completely overlooked it.  You've been extremely helpful.  Thanks.

I notice that others have a different color bar that includes the search and different text colors on the search bar. How do we change these?

Your bar is a rust color.

Norma - this post was written some time ago and there have since been a couple changes.  To change your text colors and background bar, just go to "My Home" then click on the link "Customize" next to the ActiveRain link on your left sidebar.  This is where you totally customize your AR Blog with header, background images, text color and background colors. 

Hope this helps you to customize your Blog just the way you want it.  :-)

I just changed companies and want to take out my old banner and replace it with a new one with new company's name. However, when I go to "MY HOME" I don't see a "blog customizer" option in the choice of options.

Please advise.

Mahalo

Debra

Na Pali Properties, Inc (formerly with Vision Realty)

Hi Debra - if you go to your "My Home" link in the upper right corner, you'll see the "Customize" link at the top of your sidebar on the left.  It just says "customize" now.  :-)

Thank you Brad.

Hi Brad:-)   I do not know what happened but now my header is showing up behind some blog posts and I do not know how to fix it!  I played with the customize settings but it is still  there and makes it very hard to read.  Please help.  I do not even know how it happened because I did not go into customize until after I saw it was like this.

This is a great post for new bloggers.  I am sure this will definately help in business and relationship building.  I also feel blogs are a great way to market your listings, so I would like to offer some more advice on blogging.  Look at blogs as unique web pages.  The more you have the better your web exposure.  So,  check out vflyer.com and postlets.com.  These 2 sites will allow you to auto post your listings and give you greater exposure.  Good luck!

Sincerely,

CJ Harrington

CJ - thanks for the comment.  The one thing to be careful with when using other sites is that you select the proper layouts and formatting for your Blog posts or they can end up looking really off kilter.  If your page width is 650, and you embed a flyer or postlet that is 800 wide, you're going to have some issues.  Just a friendly headsup.  :-)

Slowly but surely I'm getting there with AR.  I can't believe now I'm customizing!  THANKS as always for your great tutorials.\

Linda

Linda - slow and steady is the way to go. You can learn almost anything and everything here and also grow your business and relationships here, but pace yourself or you'll become overwhelmed or even addicted!! :-) Always here if you need any assistance.

Debra - it looks like you have your Background image up fine, but I don't see a header or banner.  Call me and I'll try to walk you through getting this corrected. :-)

Brad - this all 'seems' very clear and I'm going to try it but I'm not quite sure if I've done this correctly - the idea of the 'background image' is kind of confusing and trying to size the header was quite the experience - even though I'm pretty good with Adobe............also, sorry that this isn't on the subject but why doesn't my picture come up when I leave responses or comments to people?

Anyway, as a very newbie, I really appreciate your help!

Hi Susan - the background image is what appears on the sides of the Blog, I just use a white blank image for mine.  Some use photos and other images, but it will only appear on the sides outside of the Blogs normal width.  Your picture will show up in the comments once you become a "rainmaker member" or reach 10,000 AR points.  If you need help understanding the benefits of a rainmaker account, just give me a ring anytime, I'd be happy to help you out.  Thanks. :-)

Glad I found this page! I was just working on my first AR blog post, but now I want to customize my blog a bit before its official grand opening. ;)

Leilani - looking forward to that "grand opening" so be sure to make a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT when you're ready.  If you need any help, just let me know...  BTW - we're neighbors, well... kinda.   :-)

I just customized mine.  Thanks Brad, I was wondering how to do this.  It was so simple.

Brad, can you help me?  I can't seem to get the dimensions of my header just right.  Sometimes when I view my blog there's lot of gray space left, and other times there's little.  How do I set it so that it's always flushed across the page?  Thanks, Tamara

Hi Tamara - depending on if you are viewing your overall Blog or just an individual Blog post, the header will vary slightly.  You'll need to adjust or tweek the header so it looks good in either view. Try increasing the width of your header in increments of 10 pixels and se if that helps. You may need to play with it a bit to get it just right.  :-)

Thanks Brad!  I'll keep tweaking it until there's not a lot of gray space on the sides.

Thank you...now I have to think of some creative ideas!  Great, clean, and easy to use. 

Thanks, this was really easy to use. 

Thanks, this was really easy to use. 

Thanks, this was really easy to use. 

That's the easy part but HOW do I customize the right vertical bar as I messed up code there & time to clean it up ... help.

That's the easy part but HOW do I customize the right vertical bar as I messed up code there & time to clean it up ... help.

Strange that your right column isn't part of customizing, but under settings?

The header size doesn't seem to work for me. Wahhh. Is there a conversion I am missing?

Tina  - yes, the sidebar of the blogs can be edited with widgest and imges etc by going to the settings link and adding the appropriate html  codes there.

M. Suzi - the header image must be exactly 930x130 or you will get an error message.

Thanks. This may sound like an imbecile--is it pixels, the px? By the way, do you know how to change the header in a blogspot blog? (Couldn't help asking)

M. Suzi - it is px. Regarding Blogspot headers, you'll need to use the CSS or HTML formating depending on which theme you have chosen.

Did ActiveRain change its blog settings? I went to post a new Blog today and the only visibility options I am being offered are : Drafts, Members Only or Associates Only. Public is not an option. Also, when I check the localism box, it used to give me the drop down box for the region, city, etc. I'm not getting that now. What am I doing wrong? It's only been a couple of months since my last post and the whole process seems different. Help would be appreciated!!!

Hi Donna - The public posts and Localism options will only appear if you're a rainmaker member, all the other options are still the same. If you want to become a rainmaker, just click on the link and you're in. http://arpromo.com/rainmakerdiscount

Donna, I took the liberty to look at your post, and it has been approximately 94 days since your last post on April 20, 2010.  Your new post is dated today, July 24, 2010.  Active Rain implemented a new policy semi-recently that said that if it has been more than ninety days since your last blog post... your "Rainmaker" membership may lapse. 

I am not fully sure of how it works, this may have something to do with it.  Either Bob Stewart or Brad put out a post on the change in policy, and those who were grandfathered or grandmothered.  You probably need to find that for reverence.

Sorry to butt in here, but I thought I might be able to help.  :)

Donna - Karen is correct.

After checking your AR Blog just now, it shows you joined AR before the new policy and rainmaker plan kicked in so you were automatically grandfathered in.  The AR CEO said any grandfathered members of AR would be Free rainmakers for life so I have reinstated your rainmaker membership.

Make sure you post something today so that the system will not reset back thinking you are no longer active. You will need to post something at least every quarter (90 days) or the system will reset your status back.  It's an automated process that was setup by the AR programmer. 

(I suggest posting 2-3 times a week for the best results)

If you need any additional help or have any questions, my email and number are over on the sidebar, don't hesitate to contact me anytime.

Donna - Karen is correct.

After checking your AR Blog just now, it shows you joined AR before the new policy and rainmaker plan kicked in so you were automatically grandfathered in.  The AR CEO said any grandfathered members of AR would be Free rainmakers for life so I have reinstated your rainmaker membership.

Make sure you post something today so that the system will not reset back thinking you are no longer active. You will need to post something at least every quarter (90 days) or the system will reset your status back.  It's an automated process that was setup by the AR programmer. 

(I suggest posting 2-3 times a week for the best results)

If you need any additional help or have any questions, my email and number are over on the sidebar, don't hesitate to contact me anytime.

Donna - Karen is correct.

After checking your AR Blog just now, it shows you joined AR before the new policy and rainmaker plan kicked in so you were automatically grandfathered in.  The AR CEO said any grandfathered members of AR would be Free rainmakers for life so I have reinstated your rainmaker membership.

Make sure you post something today so that the system will not reset back thinking you are no longer active. You will need to post something at least every quarter (90 days) or the system will reset your status back.  It's an automated process that was setup by the AR programmer. 

(I suggest posting 2-3 times a week for the best results)

If you need any additional help or have any questions, my email and number are over on the sidebar, don't hesitate to contact me anytime.

When it's easy to follow, and eay to use, I'm there.  Thanks for the instructions

you keep me running along....gallop apace my merry footed steed! 

Thanks so much

Lynne pope 

Lynne - I always love getting your comments, you make me feel so worthy and important!!  <BIG SMILE>

Thank you! I could not figure this out. (What can I say?)

Can I get bonus points for customizing my Active Rain blog?

Patti - that's not a bad idea!  We should have a contest for the "Best" and "Worst" looking customized AR Blogs.  Bonus points would be awarded to all entries but extra points to the two winners as voted by the AR membership.  Maybe you should run that idea by the AR staff at support@activerain.com???   :-))

As I've been reading others blogs I was always wondering how they created such interesting backgrounds and now I know.  Better yet, I think it actually possible for me to figure this out!!  Thanks.   

This was great info.  I uploaded my logo found that it wouldn't fit.  I went to Picnik, resized and reuploaded.  YAY!!!   Thanks!  :)

Thanks so MUCH for the help. Can't wait to fully customize my profile!

Hey Roberta - having the ability to customize your profile and make it unique will help you stand out above the crowd. Good luck and have fun!!  :-)