CoolChaser Blog

We are sorry to announce that we have decided to discontinue our MySpace CoolChaser Widget. Many of our loyal fans have been asking us when they can get the widget back and that they miss it so we tried VERY HARD to get our app unsuspended. But the conditions MySpace gave us were too strict.

They told us that nothing from the app can link to our CoolChaser.com site – which means, even if you would like your friend to preview the layouts and themes you’ve created, there is no way they can preview it or use the layout – cause it doesn’t link anywhere!!

Why are they treating CoolChaser like a swine flu? LOL Like we mentioned before, they claim that they found lots of inappropriate materials on our site. I tell you, MySpace content review team knows more curse/sick words than anybody on this planet! Since the CoolChaser developers are all dorks, we were like “I can’t find that thing they mentioned!! How did they find it!” LOL

We don’t want any of our users to promote hate, violence, and porn (just enjoy porn elsewhere!) on our site which I know 99% of our users don’t. But like somebody said, “it only takes one @$$hole to ruin your day”. Especially if you deliberately look for one!

Thanks for your understanding and we would really like to thank all of our loyal fans for supporting us! We are working hard to improve our site (hey do you like the auto insert thing? Isn’t it cool?) Like always, please feel free to leave us comments/suggetion/feedbacks

Hey guys, remember we had that very convenient feature that lets you update your MySpace layouts automatically in seconds? And when we had to take it down, lots of people got mad? LOL (251 comments!!) Well, guess what, we got that feature back!! Woo Hoo!

This feature is offered through our shiny new toolbar so all you need to do is to install it (Installing is super easy btw!) and that’s it! You can change your layouts literally in seconds – we even detect what profile your are on (1.0 or 2.0) so even if you aren’t paying attention (like how I am all the time!) you still get an amazing layout at the end Of course, we replace your old CoolChaser layout automatically too so no need to delete it beforehand

Also, let us assure you that our toolbar is 100% safe with no spyware or obtrusive ads and is 100% free! You can uninstall it anytime also so give it a try, you’ll like it

As always, we would love to hear your feedback/suggestions/bugs too so feel free to leave comments!

As some of you may have noticed, our CoolChaser widget installed on some of your MySpace profiles has the “CoolChaser is currently down for maintenance.” message. MySpace suspended our app because they found inappropriate materials on our site that was created by some of our users. We are working to resolve this problem with MySpace’s help and hopefully get the app back soon but we aren’t sure exactly when.

We are terribly sorry for the inconvenience!

UPDATE – 4.15.09: Yes, the Auto Insert feature IS BACK! It’s still in super BETA and only for Firefox users though. But IE people, don’t despair, you can still try it out the following steps! (btw, we ARE planning to have an IE version soon so if it is too complicated, you can sit back and relax until we release the IE version )

How to use this extension (especially for IE users)

1. Download & Install Firefox

2. Go to your user homepage and you should see a BIG SHINY Auto Insert button!

3. Not just yet! Download & Install the CoolChaser Extension first to use this button! (you will be prompted to do so right there)

4. Restart Firefox and click that install button like you’ve never clicked anything before.

5. Done, you got a new layout!

What’s so great about this extension:

1. It will automatically detect what profile you are using (1.0 or 2.0) so you don’t even have to be on the right tab!

2. It will replace the old CoolChaser layout code so no need to look for it!

3. IT’S SUPER FAST, I was able to update my layout 5 times in one minute!! (from my history)

Couple of things to note:

1) Like I already mentioned, this extension is still in Super Beta mode, and as we are planning to ship out the IE compatible one, you WILL need to reinstall a newer version later. (but this should be a piece of cake)

2. There is a known bug that you’ll see a tiny frame on top of your browser when updating your layout. This disappears after you update your layout and is not permanent. We are looking into the fix.

Those who have tried this feature out, please let us know what you think

Update: Mar 16 2pm PDT We’re back up – sorry for the inconvenience.

Sorry, we’re experiencing a slowdown due to the deployment of a new CoolChaser release. The site may not be operational for many of you. Please check this log for updates. We’re hoping to be back up in the next few hours.

Thanks for your patience!

Hey guys! Sorry that we didn’t notice for a while, but we just found out that the background image doesn’t show up for Profile 2.0. (If you are using Profile 1.0 and the background isn’t showing, that’s a different problem so you can ignore this post!)

We will have a fix soon but here’s how to fix it manually.

1) Go to the MySpace Profile Editor by clicking here or log in to your Myspace account and click “Customize Profile” under the “Profile” top nav button.

2) In the CSS part where you paste the code, DELETE everything before the word “body”

We are so sorry that we didn’t notice this earlier! And let me know if the above method doesn’t work.

So MySpace didn’t like the auto insert functionality from gigya for some security reason so we had to take that very convenient feature out. They told us to use their “Post It” tool and we tried it but it SUCKS for layouts. Have you guys tried this “Post It” tool? I think it works great for graphics or videos to embed on your profile. But for layouts, it just doesn’t make sense.

Here are the things we didn’t like about that tool.

1) Since it’s CSS code that we are inserting, they try to apply that CSS to that preview page itself and since it’s not compatible, the whole page looks all screwed up. (as you can see the sparkle background is appearing on random places.)

2) There are 3 choices to choose where to paste it, and 2 of them won’t work (the bulletin and blog).

3) It does NOT work for posting a Profile 2.0 layout!!

We thought this was way too confusing so decided not to use this tool.

We are pretty sure many people will miss this functionality as last time we were told to show only codes, lots of our users weren’t happy (58 comments!) I already see many people confused again because they are pasting the code in our shout box

All we can do now is to hope for MySpace Post It tool to work for layouts!! I don’t see why they wouldn’t want to make it compatible, because customizing layouts is what made MySpace popular, don’t you think??

Hey CoolChasers, we have just shipped out a new feature on our layout editor that lets you use animated gifs for your backgrounds! Huraaaay! This feature has been suggested by Lost John, our very loyal member on CoolChaser, who is fighting a battle against cancer – thus we would love to call this feature the “Lost John Feature”!

To celebrate this new feature, we created a layout dedicated to Lost John using animated gif as a background! (ok you can’t see on this picture, but the background is an animated gif!)

You can preview the layout here.

We would like other people to create layouts for Lost John using this feature to support him too! Please comment here on the blog or on the forum with the link to the layout.

Lost John, you are in our thoughts and prayers!!

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Update:
Hey, thanks Heathaaa! for creating one! I’m gonna keep adding the screenshots here as we get more!

Congratulations to 45Steve, winner of the CoolChaser Holiday Contest! We have selected 45Steve’s Sparkling New Years Party Theme as the winner for it’s dynamic use of space and great sense of style!

Here’s an interview with the winner!

Congratulations 45Steve, and you will be receiving a brand new 8GB iPod Touch as a prize – you totally deserve it!

Happy New Year!! Hope you guys enjoyed the Holiday Contest – we had 556 entries! Wow! We would like to thank every single person who entered their themes. Now we are at the final stage to choose the winner to the 8GB iPod Touch! Here are the top 10 most used themes from the Holiday Contest!

1 Christmas Glitter by 45Steve (512)

2 starry christmas tree by stacey (282)

3 Sparkling New Years Party by 45Steve (260)


4 New Years Gold 45Steve by (250)

5 Neon New Year by 45Steve (176)

6 Blue Christmas by 45Steve (175)

7 Red Sparkle New Year by 45Steve (162)

8 New Year 2009 by 45Steve (129)

9 Champagne New Year by 45Steve (119)

10 Blue Starburst Christmas by Xina (114)

Amazingly, 8 out of these 10 themes were all created by one person – the incredible 45Steve! Super Duper! That’s quite an accomplishment!

Anyway, we are going to pick the best theme among these top 10 according to the following criteria:

a) use of color
b) use of creative graphics
c) use of space
d) sense of style
e) accurate representation of the Holiday/Festivity spirit

and then we will announce the winner on January 10th! (or sooner!) Thanks again to all of you for creating so many beautiful themes!

UPDATE 12.22.08 – Looks like there aren’t gonna be any changes for now so CoolChaser should continue to work as is! Phew!

(original content below)

We aren’t 100% sure yet at this moment, but the tool we are using for people to update their MySpace profile (called Gigya) might not work tomorrow as MySpace is undergoing some changes. We don’t have much information yet but just wanted to let you guys know just in case! If that does happen, we will try to fix the problem as soon as we can – though, our engineer is on vacation now so we might have to wait until he comes back. Thanks for your understanding in advance!

Hey people, thanks for entering the holiday contest and for leaving comments on the holiday contest blog. We wish we can give everybody an iPod Touch, but there is going to be only one winner! So what’s your chance of winning that prize? Now we have a ranking page that shows the number of layouts that was created from the entries since Dec 12 so go check it out! Here’s the link!

http://www.coolchaser.com/user/holiday_rankings

We will continue counting until Jan 3rd, 2009 so keep coming back to check how well your theme is doing

As of today, Dec 19, looks like 45Steve’s Christmas Glitter is totally kicking ass! But remember, the finalists are the top 10, and among them, the CoolChase team will select the winner from the criteria that we listed on the contest blog so anybody still has a chance!

Also, we have a new feature to let your friends know about your themes so TELL TELL TELL your friends and have ALL OF THEM use your contest theme!! Go to your themes page (http:www.coolchaser.com/user/themes) and you’ll notice a link “share.” From their, you can post a bulletin to notify all your friends on MySpace about your new creation.

There are so many beautiful themes in the contest which aren’t used as much. Why? Cause people don’t know about it! So we hope you find this new feature useful