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Unofficial new ActiveRain blog customizer

So word on the street is that someone was able to hijack the AR code base and they are now making it possible for ActiveRainers to 'myspace' their ActiveRain blog.

I am dying to see what our members have done with this new ability, but since this type of activity has not been officially sanctioned I cannot make a directory featuring all of the creative Rainers that have taken advantage of this new discovery.

So the only option I have left is to create an ActiveRain Blacklist; a list of all of the most aggressive rule benders in our network. These are the type of people that are always on the cutting edge, always finding some way to capitalize on a new technology to make more money. These are the type of people that we really need to watch closely.

This blog post will serve to become the official ActiveRain Blacklist and will show the first 25 custom ActiveRain blogs that are submitted to me, or I find through my own research. (Please note: my personal research will include the use of my super secret agent police force.)

Depending on which direction we formally take regarding these custom ActiveRain blogs, the members exposed on this list will either be permanently banned from ActiveRain, or given a few hundred bonus points.

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Before I get to the list, I would like to draw attention to the type of custom design that will not receive bonus points under any circumstance!

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The ActiveRain Blacklist:

1. Brad Carroll (the linchpin of this revolution)

2. Bobby Carroll (the linchpin's father)

3. Nicole Nicolay

4. Brad Andersohn

5. Jonathan Washburn (I have been notified that someone has apparently hacked into my account too!)

11. Gina Kay Landis

12. Maureen Henry

13. Jeff Turner

14. Kris Wales

15. Dorene Shirley

16. Steven Odierno

17. Veena Grover

18. Leslie Prest

19. Anthony Clark

20. Miriam Berstein

More to come...

P.S. Thank you Jason for being one of my top informers.

Posted by Jonathan Washburn on 04/08/2008 05:08 PM

Comments (64)

activeraincustomizer

Originally posted at: jonwashburn: Unofficial new ActiveRain blog customizer

64 Comments on Unofficial new ActiveRain blog customizer

APR

2008

Jonathan - I love your background, and need to learn how to do this! One issue I see, though - when I click on the links and look at the blog at full screen, the text "bleeds" to the left, and is hard to read because some of it is sitting outside of the white box, over the border. Is anyone else seeing this problem? Not sure if this is a bug with the new coding.

Thanks Penny! What operating system and browser do you use? We will look into it.

Jonathan, I have XP and when I use IE there is a shifting of the text but with one "refresh" it corrects - when I use FF it is fine. Jason Todd made a post with several others and they are amazing!

Jon - I was hoping to go with the Coyote Ugly theme, but couldn't get it to all fit in the banner! LOL!~
I chose doctors and nurses under the pretense that mine is still just "A Practice!"

BTW - love the van and the see through windows, nice!! :-)

I did it ! I did it! Check me out! Very cool!

Jo, Thanks for filling us in with more details. We will work on it.

Brad, The Coyote Ugly theme was my original background but Bob made me take it down. What a dictator! ;)

Courtney, You have been added to the blacklist. Good work!

I love being one of the cool kids!

http://activerain.com/blogs/anthonyclark

Anthony that red in your header looks great! Thanks for the heads up.

Me too, http://activerain.com/blogs/maxwell

Just love the way this looks,

Hi Jonathan,
I have been good and followed the rules and request to wait.....so what now?

Miriam, Great job!

Cynthia, Somethings coming for sure....

Nothing is secret in the Rain! Congrats to Brad and the blacklisted pioneers - and AR for officially unoffically maybe endorsing this.

Ok - here is mine for now - that was fun - sort of!!

http://activerain.com/blogs/jososs

Wow! Totally cool and Amazing......jeez, more homework assignments !!

I love it..up and looking good!

http:www.activerain.com/blogs/midori

I read Brad's post on how to do it, but my brain was telling me it didn't want to think that hard. Guess I'll give it another try. I wanna be cool too.

How did Kevin move his A|R logo to the other side and how did Nicole get curved edges???

Here's my first attempt: http://activerain.com/blogs/spengel

Wow, at 40+ I had given up on being one of the cool kids, I guess it may never be too late. :)

Is there any chance that the first 20 will get flip video cameras from AR?????? :)

I'm in - but I need to keep working on my animated background image.

Maybe I'll settle for a static one. I think my image is so big I should be banned forever!

http://activerain.com/blogs/mikemueller

Still working on it

It looks ok here

I like what I see - this is the 2nd one I noticed. Give me a day or two and I'll be there.

PS - is that really your time machine with the canoe on top?

Jon - I hope the customs are here to stay. Although, I think some of the people above need to take a design class or some because..... well I will be nice and not say it. I was working on my custom design today, but I had to run out on an appointment and didn't get finished. The whole selling real estate thing is really getting in the way of my blog again ;-)

APR

2008

Love the look of yours Jonathan! The VW bus is way cool :-) (Ooops, I'm on the blacklist - does that mean I shouldn't have commented?)

I did it! I am a rebel!!!! I have already changed it about 5 times and still trying to get something funky but still AR worthy!

Well, I am going to be a reverse rebel, and leave mine just like it is.

After a few months when everyone is dizzy from the flashy colors, and tired of waiting for some of the slow loads times, they'll be asking me where my clean and simple design came from! Did you notice some of the new hacked pages with particularly complex backgrounds do load a little slowly?

I looks good but it does take a bit longer to load I hope it doesn't slow the system down if everyone does it?

It seems the rebellion is in full swing. Me thinks I need to write a blog design 101 post for those among us who have been living on MySpace to long absorbing to many freaky page designs. :>)

Here are some examples of good designs that mimic their websites:

Betty Cutler

Meg Zoller

Just finished my header but will work on a better one once I know AR is not going to pull the plug on these(so I don't spend too much time on something I wont be able to use for long).

http://activerain.com/blogs/kansascityrealestate

Yippie......I finally got mine working. Take a peak and you can add me to the BLACK LIST

http://activerain.com/blogs/gainesvillehomes

Jonathan, I'm on the bandwagon, besides I like to play with cool stuff. I just need to center mine and I think I know the code to do that. Here you go - http://activerain.com/blogs/mgrossfl

Great tool:) I am having the same viewing issue as JO on IE - refreshing does fix it...

Okay...

You got me...

<CLICK OVER>

And decide whether to laugh or toss me out of the Rain :)

TLW...ROAR!

And now we are laughing here... I didn't read your post :) I was just showing you what I did with the help of a mutual friend :) TLW...ROAR!

I love it!!!! Here's mine.

http://activerain.com/blogs/tutas

Now I think you may need to really scrutinize TLW's new Crap-A-Rama Blog.

Did someone say there was a full-fledged rebellion happening here at AR? Count me in! Sunny Isles Beach Blog

APR

2008

Hi Jon, as one of the rule benders I've decided it was time to turn myself in.

Here's a link to the evidence... The Art Of Marketing You blog

Nice blog header BTW!

I wonder if this is having an effect on the painful slowness of the blog pages to load? Or is something else causing the technical difficulties today?

I never noticed this before the upgrade, but since the upgrade it seems the individual posts get scrunched up a lot more than the total blog (not enough horizontal space). Was this an issue before? It's bugging the hell out of me, and trying to get my posts to behave is a real pain..... : )

I'm turning myself in. I did it. I messed with the code... But Brad MADE me. The opportunity to put cars on my blog was too tempting.

APR

2008

What's next? First widgets, now wallpaper! I often click on a blog that I want to read, wait and then say "uh-oh", widgets. Wait a bit more wondering how many widgets they have. Wait a bit more and then abandon (click back). I'd rather see a faster load in Active Rain than slower.

I tried it - I liked it. Then I didn't like it, so I went back to plain vanilla. I don't like how it makes my blog all squeezed together and messes with the layout - I guess I'm just too picky about that. I'll wait for the 2.0 version.

This is so cool. I like seeing all the different colors and themes going on. I don't like the really busy ones because they detract from the message. Remember our blogs are for consumers too. Also, is the load time slower when you start pimpin' your blogs? Has anyone checked the load time for dial up? There are a ton of consumers out there who are still on dial up and if they have to wait more than 28 seconds they are gone! Katerina

I have bent the rules all the way then. At least they didn't break! Myrtle Beach Blog

I think visitors will find it confusing to see so many formats used. They may wonder which one is THE Active Rain. Many scams these days are run by using mirror, or just plain fake sites, and some may suspect thats whats happened.

APR

2008

Here's a thought ---- How about setting it up so people can use one design on Localism, and a different design on Active Rain.

Interesting...Will look over and see what others have done and tag what I like. Then I may try it. I haven't gotten to SEO, widgets, etc This site will keep me busy in all the best ways for the rest of my career. Yeah!!

Well, I'm surely not in the first 25, but I have cracked the code with help from Brad and Jeff. Take a look. By the way, thank you for making the ActiveRain logo in my colors - it was very thoughtful of you!

I love this. You guys have a great sense of humor.

http://activerain.com/blogs/missycaulk

Probably didn't make first 25 but I was one, missed the post. :(

Jonathan,

I had a funny feeling Jason was a 'plant'!!! LOL Thanks, Fran

Jonathan - I put mine up on the 7th but it alterd some of the colour in my posts so I took it back down till I can get it figured out. I noticed that it plays havoc with the active|rain logo as to colour on several of those that are out there.

APR

2008

Geeze, I'm gone for a little while and all this coolness breaks out without me. I promise to never leave again. I'm in!

uh oh, what about me?

Jonathan - had fun with mine too - thanks to Brad Carroll for making it so easy! Thanks for the list to check out.

These are so cool...I am undeserving of being on this list at this time because I am still learning so much but am in awe of those that are...wow!

ooohh blacklist me :)

We got some really creative people around here. Maybe if a play around in the Rain long enough some of it will rub off!! LOL

What, no coyote ugly? Why not? How bout a nice background with Brad Pitt holding a real estate sign? The best of both worlds right? LOL

APR

2008

don't want to be left out.... wow how cool is this.

Sweet! I've never been blacklisted! (At least not to my knowledge!) Before becoming a teacher....I was always the teacher's pet. But, at least I'm using my Super Tech Power for good....focusing solely on benefits for agents!

Thanks for the mention Jonathan...I'm proud to be on your list and will continue to share helpful tech and marketing insight with the AR community!

Hey! I wanna be black-listed too! I'm in too!

And here's my counterpart....the supertech guru himself, Reggie Nicolay's AR blog: http://activerain.com/blogs/renicolay

APR

2008

Johnathan - I've got my active rain blog customized! Put me on the list! I'm working on it now, trying to make it even better. I'd like to add a few tools I see on Nik Niks' right side bar like feedburner feed, etc. but not sure yet how to do it. I'll stay up all night if I have to!!! http://activerain.com/blogs/blue60

Sooooo cool to be able to dress the blog area up!!!!

APR

2008

My blog looks much better all dressed up, kewl new toy!

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