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ActiveRain gives the "Green Light" on Customizing - ActiveRainCustomizer.com

ActiveRain Customizer Update

For the past week, I have been working with ActiveRain to move the ActiveRain Customizer from Dakno's servers to ActiveRain's servers. The ActiveRain Customizer website has been temporally disabled until the move is 100% complete. Rest assured that all blogs that have been "customized" will continue to maintain their design during this transition. Don't worry, the ActiveRain Customizer isn't going away. If anything, this move will allow us to offer even more tools to enhance your ActiveRain Blog (My Company is already cooking up a few new ideas). The AR gods tell me that they expect the Customizer to be down only a few more days. Stay tuned!

It’s here. Version Two of the Active Rain Blog Customizer - complete with ActiveRain's approval.

As many of you may know, I recently found a way to customize ActiveRain blogs. The original approach required knowledge of CSS and HTML. This led me to create the ActiveRain Custom Blog Generator. It gave users the flexibility to create customized ActiveRain blogs without having to edit CSS. While it did make things easier, it still wasn’t "Realtor proof." Incorporating images was cumbersome and there was no way to preview the new look of your blog. At first, I didn’t really think much about it. After all, this was just a side program I wrote over the weekend. And, trust me, I am not a programmer! But, the comments kept pouring in and more and more people were contacting me with questions – including the guys from ActiveRain. I called them back, nervous that they would be sending me a C & D. Their response was quite the opposite. ActiveRain loved the concept so much they wanted to partner on the project.

If You’re Going to Do It - Do It Right

Now that I had the okay from ActiveRain, I quickly began to think about how I could really make this a valuable tool. I reviewed all the feedback and suggestions from my blog and started developing Version Two of the Custom Blog Generator. Keep in mind, this new website is still in Beta. But, feel free to use it and give us your feedback. Below are a few new features that you will notice with the new version.

Your Own Control Panel

You now have the ability to "save" your design theme. This means if you want to make an edit to the design of your ActiveRain blog, you just login to your Customizer Control Panel and make the change. Your existing design settings are automatically loaded. When you have completed your edits, you simply click save. You no longer have to paste the updated code snippet into your ActiveRain Blog!

Image Uploading

One of the most requested features was the ability to upload images. The ActiveRain Customizer now does exactly that. You select a graphic from your computer and the system handles the rest!

Blog Color Preview

The ActiveRain Blog Customizer also gives you a real time color preview of your blog. This means that you can design your blog without having to continually go back and forth between your blog and the Control Panel. And remember, even if you decide to change a color later on, you can login and make the change. Your ActiveRain blog will instantly update with the new color – without having to paste in a new code snippet.

Let Me Know What You Think

I would love to get your feedback on the new version. In the coming weeks, we will be wrapping this project up and handing it off to ActiveRain. They liked it so much; they want to make this an official ActiveRain feature!

We are still calling this a "beta" version so let me know if you encounter any problems. And remember, if you want to stay updated concerning enhancements to the New ActiveRain Customizer, just click here to subscribe to my ActiveRain blog.

Thanks,
Brad

h2 { color:#356D9E!important; font-family:Trebuchet MS,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:24px!important; font-size-adjust:none; font-stretch:normal; font-style:normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:0pt; line-height:24px; margin:9pt 0pt 0px; padding:6px 0pt 0px; } h3 { color:#356D9E!important; font-family:Trebuchet MS,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:20px!important; font-size-adjust:none; font-stretch:normal; font-style:normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:0pt; line-height:24px; margin:9pt 0pt 0px; padding:6px 0pt 0px; } a { color:#356D9E; text-decoration:underline; } p{ margin-top:2px!important;} a:hover { color:#ffffff; text-decoration:none; background:#356D9E; border 1px solid #DDA603 }

Posted by Brad Carroll - Real Estate Web Designer on 04/11/2008 12:56 AM

Comments (339)

real estate web design, real estate blog design, activerain customizer

Post is included in group: Active Rain Newbies
Post is included in group: Blogging & SEO
Post is included in group: HELP/FAQ (Read 'Purpose Statement' Carefully!)
Post is included in group: Tech Corner
Post is included in group: The Art Of Marketing You

339 Comments on ActiveRain gives the "Green Light" on Customizing - ActiveRainCustomizer.com

APR

2008

Hey Brad,

That is great! Now if we could just figure out how to do it.

Since we have the same last name could we call on you for some help if we need it? : )

Patty & Scott Carroll - RE/MAX Equity Group Vancouver WA

Brad, you are without a doubt, THE MAN!!! You've got everyone rushing out to change and it's great and was needed. Thanks for your hard work.

Brad, you are awesome! I'm off to check out the new version. Thanks for all your hard work.

Brad, this is great stuff. Now I need to learn how to do it right. Practice, practice, practice.

Very cool. I look forward to working with it. Thanks for all your effort.

You are my hero. Thanks so much.

Brad~This is fantastic and this new feature is much easier. The only question I have is, do I need to go back in and reload the picts I have on my blog to the new customizer to save it or can I leave it as is for now and if I want to update use the customizer? You're the best! Thanks for all your hard work in putting this great tool together.

I'm not surprised the A/R guys chose to embrace rather than shun the change. I'll be rushing over to check it out...

Thanks Brad - Not sure I totally understand the ABC's you are talking about. My good friend Candace Robinson will tell you I have a hard time getting past good old black and white venturing out!

Hi Brad - I am technology impaired but am going to try it. I will volunteer to be the impaired guinea pig. If I can do it, any idiot can. I will let you know.

Brad, Okay, I'm trying it again. I'll report back and let you know any feedback.......thanks as always for sharing.

Okay, I'm back with feedback. It was pretty easy to use; although I'm not quite sure how to get more than one photo at the top as I've seen others do unless they are using Photoshop. I only have Photoshop Elements, and a bunch of other stuff. This is much easier to use - though - than the last version.

My only issue is that it is so narrow. When using postlets - at least that's all I've noticed so far - it cuts off the side of the post. Is there anyway to make it more flexible with size?

Thanks again Brad..lots of fun.

Nice job on the design of the Customizer Web site. Clean and professional.

Brad, my header has some problems looking quite elongated but will try it again and see if I can make it work.

Marchel - Try using the new Customizer Website. It may solve your problems.

Brad,

I don't understand the "full path" for the header picture. I always just upload pictures on my computer and the do not have htpp/www. in the name. Consequently my header photo never showed up.

Thanks

Fran: Go to http://www.activeraincustomizer.com You no longer need a full path. You can simply upload the image from your computer.

Brad you are incredible! Thanks so much for all the work you've done!

Thank you. I love it and look forward to the possibilities. It's catching on fast.

Yay! i guess content is the most important, but I believe a more professional look will also lend more credibility to us as agents.

Brad - I just did the header colors and uploaded background and header pictures, saved it , now how does it get on my blog?

Brad,

I feel like a ding-a-ling. My picture is showing up in the header picture box, but not in the preview box and when I put the code in the Blog description box, it moved everything around, but didn't put my picture in.

Hi Brad~ Totally awesome, I gave it a whirl and it only took a few tries...another toy..(sigh) It rocks, thanks!

code? there's a code?

Brad-Thank you so much for all of your hard work and for making this real estate agent proof! Amazing! By the way, John said that week 3 of your Blogging Boot Camp today was incredible! It is amazing watching a battered 30 year cop learn new tricks on the Internet. I can't shut him up about it. We are both so happy we found you and your wonderful team at Dakno. You are making a difference in our business and our lives. Thanks a million!

Brad, thanks for all your efforts. Something new to learn.

Fran: Take a look at your ActiveRain Blog again :-)

Virginia: The first time you use the Customizer, you have to put the code in your AR blog (blog settings) but after that, any change you make will automatically save.

Brad, I went to the new format and set it up as before but then it said with errors and it wouldn't let me preview so then wasn't sure what it would do when I put the html in so stopped.

Hi Marchel, I just messaged you.

Brad - I did it and it worked. It is idiot proof! If I can do it anybody can. Thank you - I love it - you are a genius! I am so confident now, I may try to add a widget again.

Brad, very cool stuff, am going to give it a try. Thanks for your incredible effort.

Denise: Thanks so much for the kind words. I really enjoy those calls. We are going to turn John into the SEO guru of AR!

Totally amazing! I had went and resized all of my pics using Jeff's tutorial so they were ready and wow this made it really easy!! love it!! Thanks again!!

you are so tech savvvvy.....it makes my head spin....i love it ..your awesome

very cool stuff....took a little bit of time, but im liking the results so far!

Brad,

How cool is that. I can see I have to mess with it a little, but hey that's great. I love your background graphic and it would look soooo nice with my ocean theme. Can I get that too?

Brad - That is so cool. You guys really jumped on this new niche. Nice work. I just came across this on Twitter.

Brad,

I made a change, I didn't repaste the code, and now the pictures gone. Does it take some time before the code gets implemented?

Thank you Brad. I just found the first? one and now I see there is a new one. LOL I updated within a couple of hours of adding it. Now to find an image to use...

Fran: It looks like you are not filling in all of the colors. Make sure you select a color for each area and then hit save.

Hi Brad,

Thanks for sharing the info. Have a nice week. Michael A. Caruso

Brad.....this is great stuff. ok, now I need to see if I can make it work for me.

APR

2008

Brad, You've started such a wonderful group project here in the Rain! I DO wish that I had the time to do this--I am absolutely slammed and have actually missed a couple of days of even READING any blog posts! I do see that you're getting alot of response from your first post and have seen other's new looks and LOVE it! One of these days...

Wow,

Let's play with it. I always enjoy your posts, and judging by the comments, I am not the only one.

Thanks

An upgraded version already. I just found the other version. Thanks for your hard work. I just love being able to customize my page. Thanks Activerain for embracing it.

Thank you Brad I look forward to trying it.

Brad - I love it but still have the BUG.

See: I found a bug!

It wipes out my Links and my Tags for IE and Safari - (Not FF)

Brad - Seriously you rock! You hit the jackpot here! I'm totally loving the new designs here! Lets just cross our fingers that it won't be too open customized like myspace is and seeing all the bling and flashing lights :P

This is AWESOME thank you!

Hi Mike, I think it may be an issue with one of your other widgets. I checked this in IE on a few other members and everything seemed to work fine.

Ashley: You wanted to be cutting edge right? :-) Just trying to help you out. The nice thing about this version is that we can now make upgrades and enhancements with you guys having to keep chasing down new features.

Nice work! I tried it, and I think I figured it out. Check out my blog site - maybe it works! You do rock.

I'm going to have to give it a whirl and try it out soon! Great Job!

Tom Davis [Delaware Realtor]

Brad - I flagged this for a Pimp your blog feature - can I say that?

It only takes about 5 minutes to completely change your look. Thanks again!

Brad: Jeez Louise ! What a great post. Now all I have to do if figure out what to do with it. Brad... just how much trouble will I get into if I start messing with my blog ? If I screw up trying to "customize" it... will the whole thing flush itself down the cyberspace toilet ? Perhaps a blog post for people more minimal understand of all of this ? Is there such a thing as a very basic, watered down, hold-my-hand way of doing this ?

If I am unsure... and you say this is a "Beta"... meaning it is in the process of modification as it goes along (I think that's what beta means ?)... would it be better to just wait a few weeks to do it, or does it really not make much difference ? Help ! I really don't like feeling this "dumb !" LOL.

Congrats, you must thrilled with the popularity of your new toy! I was working on mine the other day but couldn't load pictures, yeah so excited about your upgrades, thanks

After a few disastrous tries I came up with something that looks like it was done on purpose! Thanks for the new tool!

IMPORTANT INFO..............THANKS FOR SHARING.

DUANE HOSEK IN THE BLACK HILLS OF SOUTH DAKOTA AND ELLSWORTH, AFB

I have the same questions as Karen Ann. Want to try it so bad that I can taste it. Am afraid that it might give me heart burn. LOL I can't even get logged in. Doesn't like my email addy and PW. :-(

Tried again - DUH - I thought I needed my AR ID and PW... Nope. Needed to create and ID and PW for the customizer. Geeze... if I'm this confused before getting logged in.... what the heck will happed when I finally do try to customize. HAHA

Brad, when I gets some time, I will have to try it. Thanks!

Brad, I for one really appreciate your time and effort in this endevaor. I will definitely use it after I figure out the graphics. aj

Brad - thanks for this! It was so easy. I just need to play with the pictures a bit more, but it looks so much better already!

Brad, Is it just the area or what???? A lot of software programs tend to get written in Raleigh, NC. The SoftPro system that most real estate attorneys use was written in Raleigh. It is one tech saavy place to live.

Brad, thanks for your willingnes to share your knowledge with us. It is great to be able to costumize our blog the way we want to. Hopefully I'll figure out how to do it.

Brad - This is the coolest thing since slice bread in my world!! I have attempted your banner customization and it has worked, however I lost some of my own work done on some of my posts and on my side bar. I have not lost it, it just seems to be hidden in the background I am guessing. If I remove the code in "my settings" it will reappear again. Can you help me with this? www.activerain.com/blogs/azhelpusell

thank you in advance!! I am so loving this, keep it coming! Did I read it correctly we will be able to store graphics in a file folder online through AR too? I would love that! Hint..Hint!!

Woo hoo!!!! I'm thrilled. This has answered all of my questions!!

Nancy and Karen Ann: Just give it a try. I think you will be surprised at how easy it is. Even though it is still in Beta. It's pretty stable. Let me know how it turns out. Yes, unfortunalty, we had to have a seperate login, but AR plans to roll this under their one login system soon.

Brad, great job and thanks to AR for supporting it too.

10000000 million points for you. Thanks.

Brad -- I was using the first link off your your Dad's blog when i wrote the last comment! I have since found the newest site and re-enter my generated code a few times making adjustments here and there. I am still having issues with some of my posts that use black font's and background colors. (I use FrontPage to write my posts, mostly). Is there some way to modify my code once it's generated to not mask the text in my post? ie; if you go to the last post I wrote, you will notice the word "All" all by itself, well if you attempt to highlight next to it you will find other text hidden, this text is black and being masked over! Any help at all on this and a few posts prior I did a flyer style posting, again using Frontpage and the background is black and the text, which is white is missing. Help, Help Please! Otherwise I will have to remove the banner and would hate too!

Fantastic! I'll give it a shot.

Love the idea. Did not get it to work yet, but I will keep trying.

Left you a 'contact me' message on your site. Look forward to talking to you.

I was able to get to the part where I clicked to get the snippet and then was told to paste it in the text. It did not copy and therefore did not paste. I tried to go back in and my username and password do not work. I tried to signup again and my e-mail is already in the database so it will not let me in. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Thanks

Thanks for the great stuff. I love it and I will be using it. Unbelievable

Hi again

I reopened the blog generator page and was able to get in. I pasted the snippet in my blog description box and clicked update. It said it was successful. I did not see any changes. What have I done wrong? Another Realtor is having the same problem.

This new customizer is great and so are improvements. Thank you so much for developing and sharing this. Active Rain is taking on a whole new look as you go site to site. (what's with the above post?) Also, I see large lettering with shadows on a couple blogs can someone tell me what tool was used to do that? (lenn, BB)

Brad Carroll and ActiveRain.

The Dynamic Duo of the Domain for Daring Document Design.

BC,

You`ve just changed the way our blog presentation will be in the future.

Great product.

Thank You!

Brad this is fantastic! Thanks for making this so easy and getting everybody at AR on board with it.

Two things, this was posted at 12:30 and already 80 comments !

This is so wonderful for you to share you talents with all of us here, for FREE !

Such a generous community, thanks so much, Brad !!

I really like the new looks of everyone blogs, I think it totally makes Active Rain stand out now. This should go in the newbies section and the "How to" section !!

I will bookmark this post and try it soon. Thanks for all your great posts.

I'm nodding, and bowing a little, I'd shake your hand if I could.

Brad,

I wish I had time to play with this already but I'm a bit busy with RE and don't have the patience to start playing with this but I really want to find the background that will suit my needs.

Brad, I had mine customized a few days ago and I LOVE it!!! It really give ActiveRain and whole different feel. Excellent!!

Thanks Brad!
Now that is what I needed! You are the best.

Brad,

I'm looking forward to spending some time over the weekend with the new version. BTW, I wanted to compliment you on the new Charter I website--Looks great!

Hi Brad,

This is really cool, I love how we can see everyone's personality a little more now! Thanks for sharing and I will remember to hit the subscribe button on the way out. :)

You are an awesome guy,Brad. These kind of customization tools are really cool. Thank You !

Brad - thanks for Version II - this is great. It is so cool to see what everyone is doing with their blogs - some pretty cool ones out there!

WooHoo...this osunds like fun! I can't wait to try it out! Thank you for all of your hard work!

Brad, I'm so happy I subscribed to you! I wouldn't have wanted to miss this. Thank you for putting this together. I feel we do get poo poo'd by outside bloggers some times and this will certainly improve our image. Now, do you have a content generator!? Just kidding!

Brad, OK I guess I'm the only idiot. I did everything and it worked. I didn't like my header so I went back into my microsoft digital image suite and added text to it. saved and went through the entire process again. Now I have nothing. The original AR header is there. any thoughts?

This is incredible! I just wasted too much time getting it set up, but it was worth it! Thank you!

Great work! I see a lot of wasted time on the horizon, "tweaking" the look of my blog, but I'm sure it'll be worth it (and without me totally screwing things up with amateurish CSS efforts!). Thx!

Just one party-pooper comment. Does anyone else notice some people are using background images that are so intense they are a bit difficult to look at for any length of time ?? Or am I just a cranky old lady?...... And the really honkin' big background images do seem to take longer to load.

Brad, I just set up an account. Thanks for sharing.

Great Post!

Now your banner is real cool. I think it just went pass over my head. Nevertheless, you're awesome.

Brad: YOU are amazing! Amazing! Amazing! Amazing! Did I say "Amazing?" AMAZING!

Brad - This is terrific info. I have bookmarked this post, and I will play around with this customizer soon. Have a great weekend!

When you joined AR I knew you were destined for greatness! You are indeed an AR god...now they just need to actually hire you and upgrade you to a God!

Brad,

Great stuff

--Zoltan
RealBird.com

Brad, thank you once again for making this so easy! I was able to put the header on my page and this is even easier than your last instructions. I've included a link to this blog on my page. Thanks!!!

HI Brad, do you know what my tiling issue is? Is the image too small? Please let me know, on my smaller laptop screen it all looks perfect, but on large screens it is tiled..... with many thanks!!!

Hey I just signed up for this and I love it! Was able to ad my company banner to the top and it looks so much better. Many thanks!

Brad, thank you for sharing this with all of us and AR for allowing it. It's really fun to see what everyone is doing. But....

I'm playing with it but mine is broken! I'll keep trying and see if I can get it to stop kicking me out.

Awesome stuff! Thanks!

Colleen: I think you have some old code still in there. Remove all other CSS and previous versions of the customizer.

I LOVE new toys!

I already got my blog here all newly "staged." but I gotta admit I ran across quite a few bugs.

The most annoying was it was hard to get a header picture to load... you must ALSO pick a color background.

AND it kept bouncing me out to the login screen once I accepted the changes.

BUT... thank you.

Craig

Brad: I can't wait to try this... the only thing holding me back is fear.

The new generator is great, and SOOO easy to implement. But how can we make ours look as good as yours? Or is that a secret :)?

Fantastic! I hadn't stumbled across the former version, so I am glad I found this blog today. I have been meaning to e-mail other users to find out how they made their blogs look so nice, but never got around too it!

Hi Brad - This is amazing. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge. The fact that you were able to write something like this in a weekend is unreal!

This sounds very interesting, Brad. I bookmarked it so I can try it later.

Definitely need to check this out ~ thanks for the info!

Wow Brad - I saw Julie Neerings and a few other rainers new looks to their Blogs and was directed here - hope it's simple enoughLOL - going to try it out - thanks for developing this! awesome.

Sincerely,

Grace

Brad,

So simple and so sweet! What a great gift to the ActiveRain communty! I love the new look of my blog!

Great stuff...it appears to me that AR needs to change their logo to include some whitespace in order to accomodate the new colors, etc.

great work.

Thanks Brad, very simple to use. I made my this morning. Maybe still a work in progress.

I'm more convinced of the talent on Activerain everyday! What is more flattering is the folks at Activerain are not haters, but supporters when you present them with ideas. That attitude will take any company a long way.

Joey A. Yeah, we are working with them to make it possible to push the AR logo in the sidebar instead of the header.

Steven O. For full disclosure, I built the original Blog Builder over the weekend. Version 2 was the work of my programmers at Dakno. I used the heavy hitters for Version 2 :)

Susan Milner: You can't expect me to give all my secrets’ can you? After all, I have to save something for myself and my clients. :)

Craig: Thanks for your feedback. I will check the logout issue. It may be the session timeout is set to low. Yes, in order for the stylesheet to work, you have to still include the colors.

Janie: The stylesheet is set to tile the background. I did this for people who wanted to upload a texture. If you don't want the photo to tile, make it larger or make a graphic with a solid background with the photo positioned where you would like it to show.

Dane: Thanks! You're too kind.

Kathy: Stop it. My head will get so big, I won't be able to get out of my office. :-)

Diane: Thanks!

Jason: Thanks man. And nice work on the "Spilled the paint" post.

Aaron: HAHA thanks i will take them

Okay, I am going to try to write a FAQ to help answer some questions. For everyone who has contacted me with Questions. I would please ask for your patience. I am going to talk to AR to see how we can best get everyone's questions answered quickly. I just have to find some time to do this between doing the stuff that pays the bills :-)

Thanks again for everyone's great feedback. I wish I had the time to respond personally to each of you. I will update this blog with the FAQs and other details soon.

This is just awesome Brad, I finally got it working for my blog looking forward to new version

WOW!! Great job Brad!! I can't wait to give it a try. Thanks for taking the time to do this for us all. I, for one, know I really appreciate it!

Brad, you literally have changed the face of AR. Kudos to you! I'll drink an adult beverage in your honor tonight!

Finally got it to work on my blog, Brad. Thanks a million! It will be fun to watch as folks roll out their own customized blogs. By the way, wasn't it nice of ActiveRain to make their logo the same color scheme as my Black-eyed Susans (Maryland's state flower)?

This is good stuff. You are a talented guy. Thanks for doing this. Now if only i can get the time to really read it through and check it out .

Coming the father of the linchpin who started the customization revolution, I for one would recommend you add Margret's AR blog to the Design Inspiration Gallery on the RE Web Gallery! She did a great job!

im happy to have found this post. i must say i like i like. now im going to play around with it. im excited to go learn a lil html (how can a girl so net savy not know html basics?) guess i'm not as savy as i thought. anywho. im off to play....one more thing though, i uploaded a photo from my header and i don't see it in my blog. can you help me with that?

I love it! I think colors and special designs make a blog stand out! Standing out is what we are all trying to do!

Brad, like you need another comment, but way to go. This is awesome. Great creative genius.

It took a couple of tries ... but ahhh ... success.

Thanks Brad!

BRAD:

Suggestion question for you FAQ section. I've uploaded photos for the Background and Headers (after changing the height to 115 pxls). It does not show up in the snippet nor does it show up on my blog.

Any suggestions in your FAQ would be very helpful. Thanks for all the great work.

Lisa

Hi Brad - I read through this twice, and checked out all the sites that those who commented said they'd set up. Looks great, and sounds like even I can give this a whirl. I intend to do just that over the weekend - too tired right now and I'm sure I'd mess it up if I didn't have a fresh mindset.

Thanks for putting this together for us, looking forward to making mine stand out a little like everyone else has!

Ann

Brad, I suspect you know this, but - as I mentioned and so did Candace - the pages are so narrow (In IE) that it cuts off some of the words. When I use Firefox it is fine. Just an FYI. ;-) OR is it the other way around! ;-)

Brad- I have a suggestion, someway that we could type text into the header would be great. I tried to build a banner to place there but it was too difficult for me. I could probably play with it and figure it out. But it might make a nice feature. If you get a chance check mine out. I placed a photo of my son surfing!

Thanks so much for posting this. I did my blog today. Easy!

Thank you Brad and like a lot of the others say You Da MAN. :-)

Don R.

Howdy Brad

Every blog that I been to that is useing this

looks so very good.

I am going to have to start useing it also.

Thank ya for this fine tool to use,

Have a good one Dale

Hi Brad,

I really like this customization of the blog page. I just tried it but I seem to be struggling with the header, can you help?

Brad,
Great job! Looks like you have a hit on your hands!

Brilliant. Woww.......how cool is that. I cant wait to try it....I just gotta pencil in time to do that. lol

Thank you so much Brad. I just used this updated version and it worked perfectly. I love it. Although, I may be changing my blog look every week now. I go crazy!

Wow! I'm so excited. Thanks so much for the great information and I can't wait to try!

Brad you are awesome. For someone like my self who could write any code - none - nada - this is wonderful. I would love to learn more. I thank you for all your time and for sharing.

very cool. Thanks for making this so nice. You are very creative.... and I love your design work.

I did try it on my blog... but there are a couple of things that seem off for me. I'm not sure if I need a different header size or what. For example on the page that has the summaries for all my blogs the active rain logo seems in the wrong place - http://activerain.com/blogs/angiev But when you go to a blog detail page it fits into place nicely - http://activerain.com/blogsview/449111/Squidoo-Fun. I don't see that happening on your blog - any ideas what I did differently?

Brad, great job. I cant believe how fast you have got everything put together.

Brad - I think I must have changed mine ten times over. I think I may stick with what I have now. I've also done it for some of my less techie friends that were afraid to try it. I wonder if I could go into a side business as a BLOG STAGER - do color consults, help people with photo choices etc. hmmmmm....

Thanks Brad. Looks like I have more technical stuff to learn. Thanks.

Brad,

Thank you so much for making this easier for me!!! You are my hero!

Tina in Virginia

Now that is good news! I was wondering if something like this would be possible. Thanks a million!

This is fabulous, but I have a mini-problem! I tried a photo that I'm not happy with and it won't let me change it. I can delete it or I can have it, but I cannot delete it and add a different one (it keeps ending up with the first one)... what am I doing wrong?

Brad,

First of all "Thank You" for all your wonderful contributions.

Now, please tell me what I'm doing wrong. My page no longer fits in the screen. I tried it on my other computer, thinking it's a monitor issue, but I still have the same problem. I'm so dying to play with creating a great custom page, but just can't get the page to look centered, like yours.

Help!

Sandy

Thanks again, I'm so glad you were able to accomplish getting this done. I just need to figure out the header part.

Nice work on this, Brad! I took a quick look at the Customizer and found it very easy to use. Only suggestion I have is that it would be great to have a transparent ActiveRain logo, or maybe a light color and dark color version, so that it fit better with custom header images. Also, for any KW agents, you can find the official KW web colors in the Marketing section of the intranet.

APR

2008

Brad you da man, you da man, you da man, you da man, you da man.

This kid is simply amazing! Thank you!

I do not have time at the moment to try this out but plan to get to it in a day or so. The idea is great and should help with the professional look but also to individualize your look to coordinate with other branding efforts. Thanks

Hi Brad. Thanks for sharing the update! Keep them coming.

Thank you so much for doing this. I have the perfect photo I just took, too. Great timing!

One question... the last field to fill in on the Generator is "user name". Which is that?

Hi Brad - I just want to give you a little feedback - AWESOME! I tried the first rendition on your blog about a week ago (revised the style sheet) which was quickly updated and the newest version is incredible! Best things are the ability to select background and header images, text and menu colors and even preview your selections. You've started a revolution my friend really...and it is ActiveRain terrific! Thanks

Great fun Brad, thank you for making things that are Realtor proof.

Love it but it's not working for me. I'm using the new version which, as I understand it, will automatically paste the needed code into your settings. However, nothing changes. I went so far as to copy the code and then manually added it to settings in the blog description. I see it there but... nothing has changed on my blogs.

Kathy

This looks like a great tool to use to spice up the blogs. Thanks Active Rain for coming up with something like this.

Brad- Thank you so much for the plastic surgery- AR is looking awesome these days!

Holy Moly! Could you make this any easier? Thanks for all your continued suggestion and contributions! Now I just need to finally decide what I want my blog to look like!

Thank you. It was so easy to use!!

Wow! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Having the ability to personalize our AR blog with our own brand is awesome. Now I'm going to move ALL of my real estate related articles over to my AR blog and add a link to them from my other blog. I didn't use the AR blog so much because I wanted my own brand. Now thanks to you, I can do that with AR. How cool is that? <g>

This is a wonderful addition. I'm so glad that the AR Gods, saw the potential and embraced it.

Brad,

Another great addition that many user can use. Thanks again.

Brad ~~ Thank you for making this technology available! Awesome!

Love it, Love it. I am going to be performing a full customization using your new features soon. In the meantime a simple style change is very refreshing.

I have been seeing a lot of this lately...I was wondering what was going on... ;)

it doesn't work for all.

Now I've tried for 3 straight days and still nothing.

There is a problem. I've customerized 3 other people sites and works fine. However, Doesn't work on mine.

Why?

Must be a bug or something maybe it's a widget?

ANy help would be appreciated.

Thanks

OK, I'm convinced and I'm subscribing to your blog. Thanks for the good tips.

APR

2008