Written By:
lprent - Date published:
12:12 am, May 7th, 2008 - 33 comments
Categories: admin -
Tags: authentication, gravatar, upgrades
The latest tweak on the system are Gravatar/Identicons. Read about it on this site in the Gravatar menu item. Apart from the graphics, it does have a serious purpose. That is to provide some level of personal trust/authentication for those who wish to take advantage of it.
This post is to provide a thread to discuss/help on how to use it. It is a support thread. Please leave the sniping outside.
Lynn
r0b: “Lynn, can I suggest a new thread just for testing this?”
I’m not going to have a lot of time to help during the day until the weekend, I have code to write and test. But leave any comments, suggestions, problems and (if you really have to) gripes. I’ll read and respond when I have time. Share anything you discover.
If you need old e-mail addresses fixed, then e-mail me and I’ll run a batch during the weekend against the database.
The other upgrade is in the registration system. I’m just reorganising the registrations at present to exclude the spammers. That will provide the second part of the trust/authentication system.
I found that I didn’t need to enter my email to register for Gravatar (in fact I couldn’t, Gravatar said it was already in use). I only needed to log in – it seemed to pick up my details from my Kiwiblogblog WordPress login.
Once logged in the process is easy to follow.
r0b: “Hmmm – it takes a wee while to pick up a new image.”
Thats because it is caching the old image on your client browser. The expiry is set from the gravatar server when you pick up the image.
r0b: “Also, somehow gravitar signup already had me as a known user from my wordpress login on Kiwiblogblog? Instead of entering my email address for the first time i just had to select login.”
The gravatar website probably stashed a cookie in your browser, so when you came back it just needed a confirmation password.
The same thing happens here if you’ve been logged in – your browser remembers who you are and auto-logs you in. If you don’t login, then it stores a cookie with your last psuedonym and e-mail address. But that is the only info stored on our cookies, and we don’t store incoming cookie data.
You’d have to set the cookie policy on your browser to give more privacy for those who want it.
The biggest hassle I’ve seen with gravatar so far is that it doesn’t do transparency (damnit)
so when you came back it just needed a confirmation password.
It was the very first time I visited the Gravatar site. I couldn’t enter my email as a new address, but I could log in with it and my WordPress password.
Once logged in it showed me as user r0b2 which is my WordPress / Kiwiblogblog account. I never at any time got a confirmation email.
The biggest hassle I’ve seen with gravatar so far is that it doesn’t do transparency (damnit)
As a workaround you could fill your Gravatar image background with the same grey that is used for logged in comments.
I believe that they do cross authentication with wordpress – the joys of the net. The wordpress avatars are available on gravatar. WordPress in version 2.5 have shifted to using gravatar.
That solution (background color) isn’t all hot. It is meant to be a global identifier. So what happens when I go to a white or tan background site rather than grey. The best solution is transparency, and that is available in png’s and gifs. It isn’t even that hard to code – it is in pnglib which is available on virtually every OS.
I believe that they do cross authentication with wordpress – the joys of the net.
Ok, that would explain it!
That solution (background color) isn’t all hot. It is meant to be a global identifier. So what happens when I go to a white or tan background site tather than grey.
Ahh, of course. I don’t post anywhere else – so many sites, so little time!
[lprent – done]
oops sorry for the inadvertent duplication, you could delete that last paragraph…
just testing my sign up, it seams to use any existing wordpress account sign up emails & user names
just testing to see if my picture is correct
I thought it might. But the pages on the web were a bit unclear
Test new avatar. It will probably take a while to come through.
Cheers Lynn, looks good.
Test
Oh. Billy. Just for me?
Well, I’m hoping that’s not for me!
Just testing mine…
Very nice, well done Lynn!
Billy and the ‘sod – I refuse to make any comment. A match made in….
[lprent: no sniping, smack smack]
test
test2
[lprent: no sniping, smack smack]
Stop it Lynn, “no sense of humour”, remember?
Captcha is appropriate for this thread – “it blessings” – which I choose to read as “IT blessings”!
Testing new piccy
🙂
test
Itrubsthelotiononitsskin
And again
Grr.
Not sure if it’s IE6 or there’s just nothing there but I can’t see avatars next to my second post, or a few of the other posts – liky toyrs, lynn, Steve’s, R0b’s, Patrick’s…
In this and other threads.
See if it work this time…
It is likely to be client side caching.
The first time you do it on a page of comments there are a lot of links to gravatr. If there is a constraint on the number of connections, you could get what you describe.
Try refreshing the page a few times.
Steve mentioned (another thread, (hand up, not hand out)) that it might be the browser. Not sure if he’s IE6, but it might have something to do with it. Anyway, no biggie – and apparently it’s actually there, even if I can’t see it.
IE7?
[lprent: Internet Explorer 7. An inferior free browser from microsoft that provides good access for viruses and other malware. Try Safari or Firefox.]
Test – I’m already signed up to Gravatar, so hopefully this will work.
[lprent: did on my screen]