The new background is part of a site-wide promotion for Ballston Green, a new luxury townhome community near Ballston. The new background will be in place for the rest of the week, after which time we’ll revert to the old background.

ARLnow.com might host similar marketing campaigns in the future, but we wanted to give readers a heads up on this one to answer any questions the changes might have prompted.

Like the current campaign, we’ll make sure the backgrounds used for future promotions are attractive and relatively unobtrusive.

We’re currently making some changes to the site. Please be patient as we work to improve your user experience. Some site features may not work today (Saturday).

If you continue to experience issues on Sunday, please email us at arlingtonnews[at]gmail.com and let us know what’s happening. Please provide as much detailed information as feasible.

Thank you!

The ARLnow.com Team

Each week, we’ll pick a new “Arlington Pet of the Week.” From dogs, cats, birds, fish and everything in between, the feature will include photos and an explanation of what makes that week’s pet so special. The owner of each Pet of the Week will receive a gift card to a local pet store, in addition to the recognition of just how awesome his or her pet is.

If you think your little guy should be a contender for Arlington Pet of the Week, email one or more photos of and a 2-3 paragraph write-up about your pet to steph@arlnow.com. Please also include your name and the neighborhood you live in. All material sent to ARLnow.com may be used for publication.

File photo

As we approach the new year, we have a sincere wish for 2013. We have noted with disappointment the increasingly negative tenor of some comments on the site, and we hope that in 2013 those commenting here keep in mind that while the people on this site may be using online aliases, they are our neighbors in this relatively tiny, 26 square mile county.

ARLnow.com staff has been doing our best to actively remove comments that contain personal insults, racially or ethnically insensitive remarks, or even vitriol directed at children who are part of a news story. We will continue to do so to make sure ARLnow.com is a safe place for a robust but respectful community discourse. We also hope that readers understand that the moderation of comments is an imperfect process, and refrain from cursing at or berating our staff who are making an honest effort to prevent discussions from degrading to the the level of discourse found on some other, popular news websites.

On a happier note, we expect to continue to expand the scope of our local coverage and our business operations in 2013. We owe a very big thank you to our readers and our clients for helping to make that happen.

Best wishes for a Merry Christmas. We’ll bring you three additional days of news coverage starting on Wednesday, before going on a brief New Years hiatus.

We hope you like what we’ve done with the place. We’ve changed the look of the site, added image uploads to the comment section, and revamped the forums and the event calendar, among other changes.

As with any web site redesign, there are bound to be some technical glitches. Here are the problems we’re aware of and working to fix:

• New user registration is not currently working
• The user profile edit page is still being tweaked
• The email newsletter subscription link at the bottom left doesn’t work

One change you’ll notice that is intentional is the removal of the crime map page. We hope you’ll continue to follow our weekly crime report posts for the most up-to-date listing of crimes in the area.

Please use the comment form on this article to let us know about any bugs you find as you browse the new site. We’ll add them to the list above and will work to resolve them as soon as possible. Please also let us know what you think of the redesign — good or bad.

Thank your for your continued readership and support of ARLnow.com.

Bethesda Now will provide the same standard of up-to-the-minute, original news coverage for Bethesda and Chevy Chase, Maryland that ARLnow.com provides for Arlington. The site will seek to report on important community issues, interesting local stories, and breaking news that impacts the daily lives of those who live and work in the area. Bethesda Now will exclusively focus on Bethesda, Chevy Chase and parts of Potomac — not on other parts of Montgomery County.

BethesdaNow.com is up and running now, but we’re only just getting started. Readers can expect even more news, reported for and by Bethesda area residents, in the coming months. Plus, both ARLnow.com and BethesdaNow.com will be undergoing a site redesign this fall.

Know someone who lives or works in Bethesda or Chevy Chase? Tell them to follow Bethesda Now via Twitter, Facebook or email newsletter.

For the month ending Friday, May 4, ARLnow.com readers viewed a total of 1,000,721 pages on the site, excluding the new real estate section. That’s the first time the monthly pageview count has exceeded 1,000,000 since we launched in January 2010.

ARLnow.com thanks our loyal readers for helping to propel us to web traffic statistics not typically seen for a “hyperlocal” website focused exclusively on a single community. We look forward to continuing to serve you and our advertisers for years to come.

ARLnow.com is an independent, locally-owned news website serving more than 125,000 unique visitors per month.* Our original journalism and photojournalism is produced by Arlington residents, often with the help of emails and anonymous tips from the community.

* Directly-measured web traffic statistics provided by Google Analytics

Unlike national real estate websites, our real estate section is focused exclusively on Arlington, and is searchable by more than three dozen popular local neighborhoods. You can can also search for sales or rentals by price, zip code, address, number of bedrooms, open houses, new construction, sale by owner, etc.

Currently, we have more than 700 house and condo sales listed and more than 200 house, condo and apartment rentals listed.

In addition to the standard listings, real estate agents are in the process of adding featured listings and open houses to an interactive map on the front real estate page.

We’re still working out some minor kinks and quirks with our technology partner, but please let us know what you think of the real estate section so far in the comments.

Articles and the home page were inaccessible from 6:30 until about 10:00 p.m. As of 10:25 p.m., we have restored most of the site, but we’re still trying to recover articles, comments and forum posts from the past 24 hours. Please be aware that there’s a risk that comments posted between tonight and tomorrow morning may be lost as we work to recover data.

We apologize to our readers for the inconvenience and promise to do our very best make sure technical problems like this don’t happen again.

Update at 8:15 a.m. – It appears that comments and forums posts from yesterday morning to yesterday evening have unfortunately been lost. We sincerely apologize for this.

Update at 9:20 a.m. — We have temporarily taken down the “Latest Top Stories” section of the homepage. It will hopefully return later today.

Whether you’re celebrating the holiday in Arlington or out of town, ARLnow.com wishes you and your family a very happy, abundant and safe Thanksgiving.

We’ll be back on Friday with a special Black Friday edition of the Morning Notes, followed by normal coverage on Monday. And, of course, we’ll be here should any significant breaking news happen over the holiday weekend.