Blogger silently made a change in the layout section

Edit: Everything turned back to normal a while ago. Don't know when, just checked it.

Today, I tried to make some changes on one of my blog's layout on blogspot. I noticed that it was not possible to put something under the header. First, I thought that this was a weakness in my hand-brain coordination. Only a couple of seconds later I realized that I am healthy but there was a change in the layout drag and drop functionality.

I am trying to guess the reasons for that change. Maybe this functionality is abused by some bloggers, who knows? Being able to put something under the header is a good way to bring a different aura to your blog. You could add additional navigation, flickr streams, etc.

On the other hand, when you do this, your blog looks like different than a blog on the first look. Let's confess, blogs do not aim to replace websites. They simply are weblogs.

Anyway, I am not going to defend this decline in functionality. This is a downgrade, a step back in blogger layouts. Maybe this is something temporary. We'll see.

Placing adsense code manually into new blogger layout

There is a problem with placing some third party code into the new blogger layout. If your adsense code doesn't look right when you place it manually, then you have to use escape characters to make it right.

Here is how it is done:

Trick to Add AdSense, AdBrite and Other JavaScript Ad Code Directly to Blogger HTML Template

Edit: Another Link which is more useful. A small online application to convert your code: http://www.eblogtemplates.com/blogger-ad-code-converter/