Brandon Frohs

Have you ever noticed how you have to upload a new display picture for every forum and blog you create an account at? Well, there has been a system in place for a while now to make this no longer a problem. It is called Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatars). Gravatar allows you to upload a display picture on their site (up to 512×512). This Gravatar is then used on any site that uses the gravatar system (all you have to do is use the same email!). There will also be an option to change the default Gravatar icon to that of Identicons, MonsterIDs, Wavatars, or your own custom image! The Gravatar system also allows each theme to use a different size of display picture without ruining the look of the entire site.

Other Benefits

The use of Gravatars also make the application more secure as there is no need to upload a display picture. All uploads are done on the Gravatar website. There is also less server space taken up as well as less server load (all images hosted, resized, and served up by Gravatar).

Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremony for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing was absolutely stunning. If you had a chance to catch any part of it, you understand where I’m coming from. I was unable to watch it during the broadcast, but thanks to Google, I was able to find some pictures from the performance.

Along with the pictures, I was able to find a few videos of the performance even though the majority of the ’2008 Olympic Opening Ceremony’ videos aren’t related to the opening ceremony at all. It’s a tragedy really. But either way, I’d like to thank Google for monopolizing the web once again. Seriously, how were they allowed to purchase YouTube? Well, I guess it’s no worse than Adobe purchasing Macromedia. Okay, I take that back. Adobe buying Macromedia did something positive for me. Who doesn’t love the ability to import PSD files into Flash?

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