The kind of animation you see in LJ icons is just another kind of image -- you can right-click on it to grab it, same as you would any other icon.

If it's the standard LJ icon size (that is, 100 x 100 pixels), then I'm pretty sure all you need to do is download it to your computer, and then go to the icon management page and, provided you have icon space, you should be able to upload it just like the others.

At least I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

you can right-click on it to grab it, same as you would any other icon.

Well, that's what I've done - but now I've realised that on her page, whence I'm snagging them, it says 'Upload to your own photobucket/server', which implies (to my ignorant flaily mind) that she's still hosting the image while I use it, and I'm stealing her bandwidth? Or something?

(OMG, you guys - they are teh awesome, these icons! With Dean's "I'm Batman" moment, that I've been wanting to get as an animated icon like crazy, and, and Castiel, and Sammy, and did I mention the Dean, and and and Dean's cannot-breathe freakout when the Impala was stolen, and...)

Ahem. Okay. Right. So I don't need to open a photobucket account?

Nope, she's just saying not to hotlink. If you're just putting them in your icons, you can just have a copy on your local machine.

Oh. Cool!

So - what does hotlink mean, then?

Hotlinking is kind of what you were saying... instead of putting a picture on your own webspace, and then linking to it wherever you're putting up the picture, you just link to the original picture, wherever it happens to be. Then, whenever someone loads your webpage, it uses the original location to load, using their webspace instead. It's an issue for things like Photobucket, where you're only allowed a set amount of downloads per month for a free account.

Oooh, that sounds painful, Daniel.

I want a vacation. No vacation until spring break, next month. I'm going to spend this weekend working on my talk for the conference at the end of March, so that I can have that out of the way and not have to worry about it over break.

My doctor offered a cortisone injection this morning. I said no -- it wasn't hurting enough then to overcome my needle fear. I'm kinda thinking maybe I should have gotten it. Ow.

People, stop the painful stuff.

We took a walk downtown and stopped in at the new clean and sober club. boring. but good cider

I've got a few rows of little tiny red dots on my arm. From the blood pressure cuff at the doctors office -- popped blood vessels. It's interesting. I'm striped!