5 EASY STEPS:

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~

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.  :-)

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.  :-)

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~

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

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.  :-) 

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

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

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...   :-))

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. 

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.

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

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~

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. 

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. 

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! :-)

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. :-)

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~

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.  :-))

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

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. :-)

Tara - have fun and enjoy!! 

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