Avatars, and how to get one on your FISO account?

[Tacalabala]

I don't know whether it's just me, but I do get annoyed when people don't have avatars - it makes it hard to instantly recognise who is who on a thread, and makes the forum look a bit boring.

Now, I appreciate that some people might not know how to get an avatar (they are those little pictures under your username in threads), so here is a quick guide:

1) On any FISO page, go to the top of the page and click Profile (it's that little person logo)

2) On the next screen, on the left under the Options column, there will be a link called Edit avatar

3) You should get the following screen:

Editavatarscreen.png

You have the following options -

• Upload from your machine: Upload an image directly from your computer. This is the best option to use.
• Upload from a URL: if you find an image on another website that you'd like to use, simple copy and paste the URL of the image (that is, it's web address, ie. http://www.something.com/something.png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). A good alternative to the above.
• Link off-site: this is the same as the upload option, but the different if the other website removes the image, you lose your avater. I wouldn't use this unless you control the other website.
• Avatar dimensions: You can change the size of the image you want to use. I personally wouldn't touch this.
• Local gallery: You can select from a pre-set list of avatar made available by FISO. I wouldn't use this because loads of other people might have the same avatar.

4) I will concentrate on the Upload from your machine option. You should be able to find whatever kind of image you're after on the internet, although even a photograph can work just as well. The image generally, though, should be bold and/or irreverent - it's just a bit of fun. Once you find a image that you like, you will need to make sure that, a) it's no bigger than 135 x 135 pixels in size, and b) it's no bigger than 48kb in data. I've found that the following programs work best for getting an image fit to upload (there are other available):

• Microsoft Office Picture Manager or Microsoft Live Picture Gallery: both of these programs offer a resizing feature.
• Imagicon: this program converts images from one format to another. Changing an image to PNG should reduce the data size to below 48KB easily.

So, I hope that helps and we see more avatars.