Blogatar

Blogatar Usage

Joe Dolan — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:05:06 +0000

It has been awhile since any work has been done on Blogatar, but I am willing to start adding features again or tweaking anything users would like to see. Before I do this though, I would love to see if anyone is actually using Blogatar, and if so, how and where! Please leave a comment with what you are doing with Blogatar!

Custom default avatars

Joe Dolan — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 03:21:07 +0000

I have been looking at the default avatar that I have for people to use, and decided that I really do not like it! I know that I will create a better one in the future, but I figured I would allow any user to be able to use their own. All you have to do is append “&default=URL to Default Image“. The URL you enter is the direct link to the default image and should only be a .jpg, .gif, or .png. Other images will not show correctly. The size of the image will not be changed, so make sure your default image is the size that you want. For a quick example of the default avatar, view the following link [NOTE: spaces were added to the link to allow for correct viewing on the page. The URL actually has NO spaces]:

http://www.blogatar.com/?email=7cda6d72dea143444196485cb8fc6b2c1 &size=20 &default=http://nalod.com/images/defaultExample.jpg

How about we recap the link again? The “email=” value is the email address you are looking to view after it is hashed using md5 (with a blank seed). The “size=” can be 20, 40, 60, 80, or 100. It is the size of the avatar that you are downloading. The only time this size does not work is when a default avatar URL is specified in the link. If you use the generic default image for emails addresses without an avatar, the sizing will work. Last, we have the ability to use your own default avatar instead of the generic one. Just add “default=” and the URL to the image and it will be the default image for your site.

One last note. Since I am not good at design, if anyone creates a great Default Avatar and would not mind others using it, I would love to see it. Leave a link to the image in the comments below. The best image that I see will be changed into the new default Avatar for Blogatar!

Security Update

Joe Dolan — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 06:09:37 +0000

I noticed today that passing the email address through the URL could be a bad idea. It would leave all of the email addresses exposed for anyone viewing your weblog’s source code. To fix this issue, I have decided that email addresses must be hashed (md5) before getting passed in. If you are not familiar with md5 hashing, please read what PHP.net has to say about it. I am going to go back to my last post that explained how to retrieve avatar images and show the new changes throughout the post.

How do you retrieve avatars?

Joe Dolan — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 07:08:35 +0000

The retrieval of avatars is quite simple right now. All you have to do is type in the URL “http://www.blogatar.com?email=yourEmail“. ***ADDITION*** The yourEmail portion of the URL must now be md5 hashed. This has been added to better secure email addresses of your readers. If you are not familiar with md5 hashing, I suggest you take a look at PHP.net and read up on what it is and how you can do it. ***END ADDITION*** Every avatar comes in multiple sizes. To specify a size, add “&size=selectedSize“. The sizes you can specify are 100 (image of 100px x 100px), 80 (80px x 80px), 60 (60px x 60px), 40 (40px x 40px), and 20 (20px x 20px). If you do not specify a size or specify an incorrect size, the size will default to 60. If an incorrect email address is entered or the email address does not have an avatar, the default avatar will be given. Here is an example link to get an avatar (which is my avatar) [NOTE: spaces were added to the link to allow for correct viewing on the page. The URL actually has NO spaces]:

http://www.blogatar.com?email=7cda6d72dea143444196485cb8fc6b2c &size=100

Eric Willis has already showed interest in creating a WordPress plugin for Blogatar. I am highly thankful for this. I know that it is things like this that will help make Blogatar successful! I am going to look into how to make a Movable Type plugin. I do not know Perl, but if I can make it in php I will start working on it. If anyone else is interested in helping out by making a plugin or suggesting a product that a plugin would be nice to have, leave a comment.

It has finally arrived!

Joe Dolan — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 05:24:27 +0000

I have been very interested in a service allowing people to show an avatar image next to their comments that they leave on weblogs. It added a nice personal effect to the comment. When I finally found out where to upload an image of myself I found out that they are not accepting new users…what gives?

This is where Blogatar comes into play. Blogatar gives weblog authors (or any type of web author) an easy way to retrieve images for people commenting on their site. Non-weblog authors will love to have their image on file for when they comment on weblogs that are using Blogatar.

Even though Blogatar is designed for weblog use, I am sure there are a million other reasons to use it and I am excited to see what direction it goes! Any comments, questions, or suggestions are highly appreciated.