By now you may have noticed PDD’s Gravatars, the little personalized images that appear next to each of the comments. Some people already have personalized Gravatars, but right now your comments probably display our default image. Want a personalized Gravatar of your own? It’s easy.

How do I get my own Gravatar?

Click here to visit gravatar.com and upload your own image. You will have to sign up for a free account at that site. All you need is an image and an email address.

When you return to PDD, simply use the same email address you used at gravatar.com. Your images should automatically appear whenever you make comments on this or any other site that enables Gravatars.

Should you need this information in the future, we’ve created a page in the help section.

Okay, so while it’s pretty thin right now, I want to talk a bit about my favorite feature of the new PDD. The one that’s capable of revolutionizing the way I read the website. Author archives.

I bet you didn’t even know there were author archives. You’ll notice that under each post’s title, the author’s name is actually a hyperlink. Click it to see a list of everything that person has posted since PDD’s upgrade. Sure, there’s not much there now. But imagine a couple years’ worth of posts.

Here are some things that I find exciting about this feature.

1.) Individual sub-blogs. Think about it: If you can, in one click, see all posts made by one particular person, well, that’s a blog of its own, right? You can take a look at one person’s real estate in the PDD community. If you wanted to show someone the work you do at PDD, simply give them the link. http://perfectduluthday.com/authors/YOURNAME/. It’s like a blog all your own.

1.a.) Author RSS feeds. You can even subscribe to an RSS feed for a particular PDD blogger, or link your own feed elsewhere on the web. We haven’t worked an automatic way to generate author feeds into the PDD system yet, but the feeds are there. http://perfectduluthday.com/authors/YOURNAME/feed/ is where each feed is located.

2) Bullshit detector. I’ve always held that every new thing you say on PDD carries the weight of everything you’ve previously said. The problem is, with so many members it’s hard to keep track of everyone’s ideals and history. Now, with one click you can easily read back-posts, and refresh your memory as to just what kind of an asshole or angel you’re dealing with.

I read recently that when confronted with new technology, a lot people just learn the rudimentary functions. Don’t be that person! PDD has crazy good features, customizable to fit your needs.