Gravatars are Globally Recognized Avatars. An avatar is an icon, or representation, of a user in a shared virtual reality, such as a forum, chat, website, or any other form of online community in which the user(s) wish to have something displayed to distinguish themselves from other users. Gravatars make it possible for a person to have one avatar image that is used across the entire web, or at least on any gravatar-enabled website.

Our blog comments use gravatars like this...

How to create your free gravatar...

Step One: Prepare your image(s)

Gravatars are displayed in comments made to 492nd blogs at 40px by 40px, although other websites may display them at 60 x 60 or even 100 x 100. Therefore, the image(s) that you will create to upload to gravatar.com should be approximately 100px by 100px (at a resolution of 72 pixels per inch) for best results. The end result should be saved in .jpg, .png or .gif format.

As the examples above show, your gravatars can merely be photos cropped to your liking or simple graphical images or even complex hybrids of photos overlayed on graphics. It's entirely up to you. If you don't have the expertise with Photoshop, iPhoto or whatever, ask your teenage relative for help. Someone you know will be able to produce a gravatar to your liking.

Keep in mind that if your image is produced with a transparent background (.gif or .png), it will ultimately be flattened onto a white background when you upload it to gravatar.com (next step).

Step Two: Open an account with Gravatar.com

Yes, this means yet another password to have to remember, but at least it's free, right? Go to...

www.gravatar.com

...and find and click on the "Sign Up" link along the top in the blue bar.

You'll first enter the e-mail address you want to use as your primary address for your Gravatar account. Later, you'll be able to add additional e-mail addresses (if you have others).

Next, an e-mail will be sent to the e-mail address you entered. Check your e-mail (it may go into your spam folder) and click the link there to complete your sign up process.

Step Three: Upload your image(s) to your Gravatar.com account

When you upload your images, you'll be able to crop and resize them there, if you haven't already. Then you'll give your gravatars a rating of either G, PG, R or X. Although there are websites out there that will do otherwise, only G rated gravatars will be accepted for use on this website.

At this point, you'll be able to add other e-mail addresses to your account and to associate a particular image with a particular e-mail address. That's pretty much it.

Step Four: Comment on one of our 492nd blogs

Or comment on a comment to one of our 492nd blogs. First time commenters will experience an e-mail verification process before their comment is made public, but your gravatar will appear, assuming you entered your e-mail address correctly.