Change avatar on the forum

Hi Some people have nice pictures as Avatars how do you that ?.

I’m not sure you can. I don’t know whether you ever could – I may have put my pic on when I first opened the account, I don’t remember, and that might be the only time you can.

Set one up at gravatar.com I believe

Set one up at gravatar.com I believe.

Anyone confirm that? Or, better still, is there any way to do it just for this forum?

I can confirm. Gravatar.com.

Yes it’s as simple as setting up an avatar at gravatar.com. Use the same email address as you used to register at ROOL. You’ll need a WordPress account as well (but that’s easily set up).

I’ve now changed from my red micro dragon to the latest rendering of my fizzog, like Clive and various Stuarts. I hope you are all happy now.

Mine isn’t exactly “latest” – I’ve apparently been on here since 2014, and I’ve not changed it since them. I’m not sure when that pic was taken, but it probably wasn’t very recent in 2014.

And of course we’re happy David!

Thanks that worked as you can see. I took an Avatar appropriate for this forum ;-)

Yes it’s as simple as setting up an avatar at gravatar.com. You’ll need a WordPress account as well.

Simple, maybe. But yet more internet accounts.

So, disappointing, really.

Unfortunately now it’s not as easy to spot my own posts, as it just looks like some bloke in a suit.

Don’t worry, you’re very distinct from any of the rest of us.

What? A bloke in s suit??? 8~)

I had no problem with the red mini dragon.

I’m wondering whether to change mine to my (very different) dragon… it’s my Facebook avatar, and the cover of one of my books.

Edit: probably not, since people recognize me, and at this size the dragon’s not very clear.

The bloke in a suit is a professional picture in formal attire taken for my LinkedIn profile – just as everybody starts going informal for working from home.

But I still wore a suit for the first video interview even if no one else did, a shirt for the second video interview, and now I’ve got the job a t-shirt and jeans. By the end of the month I’ll probably be in a string vest and pants.

8~)

I have a suit – bought it for our wedding, in 1984. I’m lucky in that it still fits me. I’ve worn it quite a few times – our own wedding, a few other weddings, a couple of funerals, and a few interviews.

Actually, I oversimplify: I’ve also got a gold coloured bandgala, which you might call a suit, although it looks very exotic in a UK setting. I’ve worn that a few times too.

Just noticed Steve Drain’s Nessie-smoking-a-joint.

Brilliant! 👍

I have a suit. I wore it once, to a funeral, many many years ago. Hated it. The only part I liked was the tie – navy with light blue cartoon computers on it (mom found that). Funny thing is, five years of boarding school and bloody church every Sunday…and I still can’t competently tie the thing. Always looks lop sided. [assuming I even remember how to these days]

But, then, I’m the kind of person that would run from a tidy shiny computer shop with staff in identikit suits like the place was a fetid plague box.
Give me a guy with a fuzzy jumper, a soldering iron tucked behind an ear (that you hope isn’t on) and a pile of unidentifiable bits of hardware on a desk, something of which is hooked to a ‘scope for the purpose of making the trace wiggle in interesting ways. That’s the guy to fix a computer problem. Somebody who actually knows the difference between ISA and IRQ. Who understands that IDE and SCSI (back in the day) are not interchangeable. And who realises that if your SIMM doesn’t fit, pushing it harder isn’t a viable solution.

[as for the rest, well, I’ll save you the words and instead just ask you to imagine somewhere like PC World (are they still a thing, even?)]

Nessie-smoking-a-joint.

That’s Hissing Sid. ;-)

I have a suit. I wore it once, to a funeral

I wore casual clothes, with as much red¹ as possible to the West Midlands Police Commissioners funeral.
Attended after a lengthy pub crawl² from the station.

¹ Bob was Labour through and through

Thumbs up to Hissing Sid!

Maybe I really should change mine to my dragon, Vinhaassa (which is a bilingual pun in two imaginary languages, but you’ll have to read Birgom’s Diary if you want to know more about that).

I’m the kind of person that would run from a tidy shiny computer shop with staff in identikit suits like the place was a fetid plague box.

Me too.

Give me a guy with a fuzzy jumper, a soldering iron tucked behind an ear

That was me, but I’m afraid my competences might not meet your needs 8~(

My brain is getting decidedly slow these days. But, I have just realised that gravatar.com is really just another internet cross-site tracking algorithm – whether we have a gravatar set or not!

To block this, I have set an entry in my hosts file, currently to route the request to a non existent server on my LAN.

My intention is to edit a local TCP/IP server to return an appropiately sized image to replace the Alt text.

Does any body have an better ideas? other than suggesting that ROOL stop using gravatar.com.

My brain is getting decidedly slow these days. But, I have just realised that gravatar.com is really just another internet cross-site tracking algorithm – whether we have a gravatar set or not!

Well I did comment about that frippery in the forum quite a while back, and got dismissed as being churlish.

To block this, I have set an entry in my hosts file, currently to route the request to a non existent server on my LAN.

That might be slowing things down for you, check with the Inspect of Firefox or Chrome and select the Network tab to see the load times of the objects.

My intention is to edit a local TCP/IP server to return an appropiately sized image to replace the Alt text.

Tricky – the image element will obviously be different for each distict user image

Does any body have an better ideas? other than suggesting that ROOL stop using gravatar.com.

Well not using an image at all seems nice, but given the low number of users total and the even lower number of users availing themselves of the pretty picture embellishment it would seem reasonable for the forum server to hold a copy.

I tried adding a line

img[src*="www.gravatar.com"],

to !NetSurf.Resources.AdBlock but it didn’t do anything :-( (Hide advertisements ticked in choices).

That might be slowing things down for you.

Not really. The forum generates HTML with the image width and height set so the page loads quickly and then the Alt text fills in a second or so later.

Tricky – the image element will obviously be different for each distict user image

I was not thinking of a different image for each user. Why would I do that when most users don’t have an avatar. A transparent 32×32 imgage will do nicely. Because I have my own TCP/IP (not HTTP) server, I do not need to parse the full https request. [Damn! I have just realised the request is https, which will probably cause me grief. I might just stick with the non-existant server. The speed is very usable.]