TURN A PICTURE ON YOUR COMPUTER INTO YOUR AVATAR

[gnatcatcher]

The avatar is the little picture that appears below your name whenever you post to these forums. If no picture appears now, that is because you haven't chosen one. These forums supply some ready-made avatars from which you can select one. But you might prefer to have a "custom avatar."

If you want to turn a favorite photo or graphic into your avatar, here is how:
1. Make a version of your picture that is no larger than 120 pixels wide by 120 pixels high. If you don't own software that can do this, you can let TinyPic do it during step 6.
2. In your browser, go to tinypic.com and look for the orange Upload Images & Videos section heading.
3. Next to the word File: click on the Choose File button. Use the customary navigation techniques on your computer to show TinyPic where your picture is located. The picture's filename will now appear to the right of the Choose File button.
4. You can leave the Tags: field blank. TinyPic makes your picture available to others (that's the price of using the free program), so not entering any tags makes it harder for others to know your picture is stored on TinyPic.
5. File Type: should have a black dot inside the Image circle. If not, click that circle to move the black dot there.
6. If you have already resized your picture to 120x120 pixels or smaller, leave Resize: at Default. Otherwise, put your mouse pointer on the up/down arrows and slide down, releasing your mouse when Avatar (100x75) is selected (has a dark blue background). TinyPic will now make a version of your picture that is small enough to become your hep forums avatar. It will be rectangular, not square (TinyPic does not give you a choice of shape).
7. Click the green UPLOAD NOW! button. TinyPic will make you type something to prove that you are a human being rather than a machine, then it will present you with four versions of computerese gobbledygook. You don't want the one with the word URL in it. You want the gobbledygook in the fourth box -- the one that follows the words Direct Link for Layouts:. Use your mouse to copy the gobbledygook in that box -- it is the magic URL you are going to need. (You may want to paste it into a file in case you need it again in the future.)
8. Now go to the hep forums. On the heading that says Home  Forum  Help  Search  Profile  My Messages  Members  Logout click the word Profile. On the bottom line of the Welcome section put your mouse pointer on Modify Profile and slide down and click Forum Profile.
9. Under Personalized Picture are three circles. Click the one next to the words Specify avatar by URL. A white box will appear on the right. Paste the gobbledygook TinyPic gave you into that box. Then scroll down and click on the bottommost Change profile button.

You're done! Your chosen picture will now be your avatar appearing below your name on all your previous and future posts.

[Mugwump]

I figured out why a small pic of the right size from google sources does not work. Many forum software configurations expect the link to end with the file type request. And because google no longer creates a link that ends in .jpg or .png or .ico the file link is instantly rejected by the forum software. I will try tiny url it most likely works simply because it follows the old standard of ending a link with the content type suffex. I guess the changes that they made to the way google photos serves up images have messed up many people who have used it in the past successfully the way I did.

Thanks gnatcatcher for the info that tiny url still hosts small jpeg content for non registered users, I remember them from a long time ago but have not used the service in years for posting links to remote content! I hope it is not region specific like many other free hosting services have become.

Eric

[gnatcatcher]

Eric, the free software I used is called TinyPic, not tiny url. I haven't looked for or tried the latter.

I think you may be right about these hep forums requiring the file format suffix.

Gnatty

[Mugwump]

Eric, the free software I used is called TinyPic, not tiny url. I haven't looked for or tried the latter.

I think you may be right about these hep forums requiring the file format suffix.

Gnatty

Thanks got it. TinyUrl is useful for legitimate domain redirect links though, good to see there is no domain blocking going on like some of the sites that offer web content services.

I can't say as I blame the admins here though for trying to block injection attacks through offsite content though. I have seen one hack in the past that messed up a fishing forum I have used in the past so I guess that is what they are trying to prevent.

Turns out the hack was really coming through old spoofed links to old hotmail bounced content links that hacked the vBulletin software. This site uses better software security than that though, so I doubt that they will see the ugly redirect hack happen that happened to many of the vBulletin sites!

[KimInTheForest]

Thank you sooooo much Gnatty for sharing these instructions. I doubt I would have gotten my new profile pic uploaded without it. I love this forum!

kim

[gnatcatcher]

Nice to see you, Kim, and to learn, via your link, of your rich, creative life off these forums. Haibun, eh? I love your phrase "a brain wrapped in cotton candy" and think your blog post is a well-written invitation for people to make their own journeys out of Heplandia (to borrow Tommy's word). Best of luck with the book distribution.

[lporterrn]

Thanks Gnatty - I lost my avatar when HEP's new site went live, and I forgot how to do it. This was helpful, and I let my ego choose a photo that showed I am much more ego-driven than I care to admit. (Actually, I thought I'd be able to find my messages more easily so I could recall what I said)

[KimInTheForest]

Nice Avatar, Lucinda!

kim

[gnatcatcher]

Yes, Lucinda, your new avatar is nice, but I've got to admit that your previous avatar gave me the feeling that you could wave your magic wand and make everything all better

[pansy]

Thank you, Gnatty, for the avatar info!

 

pansy

[gnatcatcher]

I'm glad it's proving useful. Pansy, your avatar is lovely.