Aussie Bloggers

One of the hidden features of the particular theme in use here is the ability to have your picture show up next to your comment, as I have done here (click on any image to view it in a larger size) -

You might be thinking that this is only because I’m a registered user on the blog, but that is not the case. I’m only taking advantage of a site which enables this called Gravatar.

Put simply, a Gravatar is, as it is put on their site, a globally recognised avatar. Just think of it like you having an avatar that is associated to you when commenting on blogs, just like when you have on on a forum.

It’s dead simple to set up an avatar on the site – all you need to do is sign up. You can do that from the gravatar home page, using the Sign up now! link. You’ll be asked for an email address, and an email will be sent out to you when you click the Signup button.

There will be a confirmation screen reminding you that you will get an email, and how to get support if you don’t receive it (of course, be sure to check out your spam folder just in case)

When you get the email, simply click on the link that is in there, and your account will be created, and you’ll need to put in a password for yourself – remembering the standard security information.

Next, you’ll have the opportunity to sign up for the Gravatar newsletter, and links to their blog and RSS feed.

Now, you’ll be able to upload your avatar to the site and and associate it with your email address. Simply click the lower add a new one link, and you’ll have the chance to upload it to the site.

The next screen is self-explanatory; simply tell them where you have your image hosted, whether it’s on your computer or on your site. For the purposes of this demonstration, I’m going to go with a locally-stored file.

Now, you can upload your image. If it is larger than 80 x 80, you will be able to crop it after finishing the upload.

This is the crop screen – you can use the slider at the bottom to choose how much of the image you want to crop out, and use the selector box in the centre to decide what you want to have for your avatar. If you pull the selector slider all the way to the left, that will keep the whole image, and simply resize it. When you’re satisfied with the cropping, click the Crop button to move forward.

The next step is to set a rating for your avatar. These ratings are used by individual bloggers to restrict the images that appear in their comments section to those that they choose. Since my avatar is of a gopher in grass, it’s rated G.

That’s it – now your gravatar is uploaded, and you can associate it with your email account!

You’ll be returned to the My Gravatars page, where you can associate the gravatar to your email address just by clicking on it. Also, if you hover, two extra buttons come up – one to adjust the ratings and the other to delete the gravatar.

When you click on the avatar you want to use, you’ll be asked to confirm the association of that avatar to your email address. Generally, you’ll just click Confirm unless you have more than one avatar available.

With that, you now have a gravatar, and your avatar will appear next to comments on Gravatar-enabled sites when you use that email in the comments field, such as Aussie Bloggers, other sites that use this theme, and any other site that mentions it being available!

If you have other email addresses that you use for commenting on blogs with, it’s as simple as using the “add a new one” link for email that you see on the gravatar homepage.