got a strange question for you.

How do you get those avatars that show each of your cats?
I'd love to have one of those but I am not good with computers and have no clue how to do that? can someone help me??
Thanks!!!!!!!

Hi Barb

I will be awaitng the answers eagerly so I can do it to LOL. Thanks for asking, hopefully we can work it out together.

HI! I'm glad I am not the only one who has this question.

LOL I think for every question there is always at least one other person that can do with the info. Do you mean the pictures at the side or the ones under your posts?

Me too! Me too!

...but no one told us how! So I went to User CP, to Edit Options.

And I poked around to figure out how to do it.

And I figured it out! Look! Look! I changed my avatar! That's Sheldon (Shelly). The picture isn't so good because our digital camera stinks.

But here's how I did it!

Once you're in the edit options, scroll down to where you chose the avatar to begin with - and click on that brown button that says Change Avatar (wait while it says Thank You for Updating Your Profile). It pulls up that list - and if you scroll below that, you can see where you can link to a website, or you can upload from your computer.

I uploaded my own. It says under the "Use Custom Avatar" box that the picture can be no bigger than 50 by 50 pixels or 20000 bytes, whichever is smaller.

So you have to go to whatever program you use for pictures. SOMEWHERE in your program will be an option to RESIZE your picture. I use Adobe 5.5, and it is under the "Help" pull-down bar. All I do is chose the option for resizing pictures for use online (as opposed to print) and type 50 pixels in the box that has the most amount of pixels in it. It automatically does the rest. I saved the file under a new name (I used Sheldon Avatar).

Then you go back to TCS, and hit the "browse" button in that section that says upload from computer.

And it worked!

It's not a great picture, and it looks teeny, but it's Shelly!

Yay!

Look - I figured out how, finally, thanks to adymarie in a different post, how to do other smilies!

I think if you want one that flashes the pictures of your kitties, you do the same thing Laurie said, only you make an animated image file. You have to have a pretty good photo program to do it, like Photoshop.

Oh, and I like the little Sheldon avatar, too Laurie!

Thanks! I just wish I could get one to be clearer.

ok you lost me? bundylee you get that? if you do.......HELP!!!!!!!
I go where how and why and then I do what? Oh my goodness I am so computer stupid!

OK, basically, for a single picture like most of us have, you choose your favorite pic, then crop it to a square of just what you want showing, and shrink it (image size) in a photo editing program to 50 x 50 pixels. Save it on your hard drive as a GIF or JPEG. In your User CP, where you would change your avatar, click on the Custom Avatar button and open your little image then follow the prompts. (As a reminder to those reading this, you have to have at least 100 posts to use a Custom Avatar.)

Is it clear as mud now? :tounge2:

Hi! Maybe I lost you at the very beginning? Just in case that's what you meant, and not a question about the picture, which Heidi addressed in some more detail, here goes:

1) To have an avatar of your own cat, you must start with a picture of your cat. If you do not have a digital camera, you can get them on a cd-rom when you take your pictures to get developed.

2) To use the picture as an avatar, it should be in a .jpeg or .gif type format (the file extension on the file name of the picture).

3) The picture must be very small. You have to have a program that allows you to "See" or "open" the picture. Then you have to resize the picture to make it small. Somewhere in your picture program will be a way to resize pictures.

4) When you resize a picture for on-line use, there will be a box that shows you how many pixels wide and how many pixels "high" your picture currently is. Whichever number is larger, go to that box and change the number to 50, for 50 pixels. The other box should automatically change to keep the relative size the same.

5) When you have resized the picture to be at most 50 pixels X 50 pixels (or 50 pixels by something smaller) in size, you probably have to resave or rename the picture. Do that, but make sure you are using "SAVE AS" so you can choose the "save as" a jpeg, gif a file type that ends in .jpg, .jpeg or .gif (I named my picture Sheldon Avatar )

6) If your program is like my program, if you are saving it as a .jpeg file, you will have to choose the level of quality before saving. I usually go with "medium" (or a 5), just because it makes the number of bytes in the file smaller, and I can't see a real difference in quality (or digital camera isn't so good to begin with).

Now just make sure where, in your computer, you saved that teeny picture file.

Now you are ready to go to The Cat Site to "upload" the file to use as an avatar.


When you became a member of the site, you filled out your profile and chose the options for what to display. Do you get any Private Messages ever? All this stuff is under the same general heading.

Look up at the top of the site - scroll up - right below the Royal Canin ad is a series of seven thin long "buttons" -

user cp register calendar members faq search home

You would click on the far left button "user cp"

When you do that, just underneath those same buttons it says "The CatSite.com Forums > User Control Panel for ......." (It tells you where you are). Underneath that are seven more options:

My vB Home, Edit Profile, Edit Options, Change Password, Edit Buddy List, Edit Ignore List, Private Messaging.

Mine show up as dark blue letters on grey background.

Click on Edit Options. Scroll all the way down to the bottom where it shows your avatar. Click on the brown button next to your avatar that says "Change Avatar".

A screen that says "Thank You for Updating Your Profile" comes up while your hourglass says to wait. You didn't do anything wrong - just wait!

Then the pre-existing avatars show up. Scroll down below those. At the bottom, you'll see where it says "You can upload an avatar from your computer:" all the way on the right is a brown "button" that says "browse." Click that.

A "dialogue box" should pop up. You have to be able to tell that dialogue box where to look for your picture - if you need help with that, let us know!

If your computer is like my computer, at the very bottom of your dialogue box, the last row of "things" says - "Files of Type". In the white part next to that, my computer automatically has in there "HTML files." You won't see your picture unless you change this!

Click on the little down arrow next to that, and scroll down the list and choose "All Files (*.*) Once you click that, you should be able to see your small picture file if you have the computer looking in the right place! Highlight the picture you are going to use for your avatar.

If you did not make your picture small enough, I don't know what happens. I'm giving it a try right now, and my hourglass has been pouring sand back and forth for a LONG time.

If you did make your picture small enough, after a minute or two it should take you back to the very beginning page you were on once you had hit the "user cp" button.

Now - you can either go click "Edit Options" and scroll down to see if it worked and what it looks like, Or you can go to the upper left corner and click on TheCatSite.com Forums - and go look at a thread you participated in and check out your avatar!

I just changed the Shelly avatar to Donut Shelly!

Does this help?

Anyone have suggestions on a program that will resize a picture? Maybe a free one I can download?

I've tried ofoto which I thought was supposed to shrink the image but all it does is voom out.

I think I saw one in the weightwatchers thread. Hang on.....

Found it: http://www.irfanview.com/

Heidi posted it, and she says it's easy to use, and to just follow the instructions. I'm sure she'll be willing to help 'cause she's such a sweetie. If you need help, and she doesn't check back in here, send her a PM

(Sorry for volunteering you Heidi)

OR - wait! Better yet - she helps everyone in the Computer! Computer! thread. It's in the "super important threads" section, and I'm sure others need help too! (Or maybe how to do it is already in there - I just don't know).

oh boy. I feel really stupid and I need to look at this for a little bit to see if I can do something like that... and yes Heidi it's as clear as mud to me! LOL! darned old timer that I am, I am just not good with computers.

Don't feel stupid! What - are we all supposed to be good at everything? The only reason I was able to figure it out is because I already had lots of help learning how to post pictures, and the avatar thing isn't so different. Getting the picture ready is the hardest part of the process. !!!

**sighs** I tried to download that irfanview program and it downloaded it but when I tried to open it a screen popped up that asked what program do you wish to open this program with. Needless to say it didn't work. Grrrr!!!

I don't know how your computer is set up or where your download files go, but is there any possibility you clicked on the wrong thing to install it? Either that's what happened or it didn't download properly. If you want to check before you try to download again, you can try this:

The default setup is usually that download programs go into the folder c:\\my download files. But you can also look in "My Desktop," as that is also where many PCs send download files.

So you could try going down to your "Start" menu button, and then click on "Run." You should get a little dialogue box that says "Open" and has a white box next to it. Make sure the white box is empty first (if anything's in there, just click in the area and use your delete or backspace button to get rid of all text). Then below the white box you'll see some more buttons. Click on "Browse." You'll get another dialogue box. Up at the top it'll say "Look In" and has a white box next to that. Click on the little down area to the right of that line.

You can try clicking on "C". It'll pull up a list of what's in your "C" drive. Look for My Download Files. Click on that. Now this is the slightly tricky part. (Or at least the part that's a little harder to explain). You'll need to change the view so that you can see the list of files with the file extensions. All the way to the "Look In" are two small buttons. Click on the very far right button, and it should turn the view from Icons into a list.

What you are looking for is the Infra whatever the program name is - but you're looking for one that is an APPLICATION file. There may even be a SetUp file, but it too, should be identified as an application file.

If you don't find it in C:\\My Download Files, you can try My Desktop.

Application files ARE programs, so if there is one there for the infra-whatever it's called program, all you should have to do is click on it, that'll drop it into the white box. Then click "open." That'll drop it into the "run" dialogue box. Then click OK. That should open the program.

But all of this works only if the files downloaded! If you had a problem with the download, you'll have to try downloading the program again. Sorry!

Don't know if this helped or made you more confused, but thought I'd give it a shot.

hmmmmm... more computer stuff. I need that book, computers for dummies and the other one avatars for dummies! LOL! maybe I will try and do this after all the hub bub dies down at work!

Yay it worked.
Thanks for the instructions