diff --git a/boot.php b/boot.php
index 3ed3497772..baf1f48121 100644
--- a/boot.php
+++ b/boot.php
@@ -376,6 +376,11 @@ function fetch_url($url,$binary = false, &$redirects = 0) {
 	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, true);
 	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,true);
 
+
+	$curl_time = intval(get_config('system','curl_timeout'));
+	if($curl_time)
+		curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, $curl_time);
+
 	// by default we will allow self-signed certs
 	// but you can override this
 
@@ -434,6 +439,10 @@ function post_url($url,$params, $headers = null, &$redirects = 0) {
 	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST,1);
 	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$params);
 
+	$curl_time = intval(get_config('system','curl_timeout'));
+	if($curl_time)
+		curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, $curl_time);
+
 	if(is_array($headers))
 		curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
 
@@ -1451,3 +1460,18 @@ function valid_email($x){
 	return false;
 }}
 
+
+if(! function_exists('gravatar_img')) {
+function gravatar_img($email) {
+	$size = 175;
+	$opt = 'identicon';   // psuedo-random geometric pattern if not found
+	$rating = 'pg';
+	$hash = md5(trim(strtolower($email)));
+	
+	$url = 'http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/' . $hash . '.jpg' 
+		. '?s=' . $size . '&d=' . $opt . '&r=' . $rating;
+
+	logger('gravatar: ' . $email . ' ' . $url);
+	return $url;
+}}
+
diff --git a/mod/register.php b/mod/register.php
index a0a5e5c284..1c068419ee 100644
--- a/mod/register.php
+++ b/mod/register.php
@@ -187,6 +187,46 @@ function register_post(&$a) {
 
 	}
 
+	require_once('include/Photo.php');
+
+	$photo = gravatar_img($email);
+	$photo_failure = false;
+
+	$filename = basename($photo);
+	$img_str = fetch_url($photo,true);
+	$img = new Photo($img_str);
+	if($img->is_valid()) {
+
+		$img->scaleImageSquare(175);
+					
+		$hash = photo_new_resource();
+
+		$r = $img->store($newuid, 0, $hash, $filename, t('Profile Photos'), 4 );
+
+		if($r === false)
+			$photo_failure = true;
+
+		$img->scaleImage(80);
+
+		$r = $img->store($newuid, 0, $hash, $filename, t('Profile Photos'), 5 );
+
+		if($r === false)
+			$photo_failure = true;
+
+		$img->scaleImage(48);
+
+		$r = $img->store($newuid, 0, $hash, $filename, t('Profile Photos'), 6 );
+
+		if($r === false)
+			$photo_failure = true;
+
+		if(! $photo_failure) {
+			q("UPDATE `photo` SET `profile` = 1 WHERE `resource-id` = '%s' ",
+				dbesc($hash)
+			);
+		}
+	}
+
 	if( $a->config['register_policy'] == REGISTER_OPEN ) {
 		$email_tpl = load_view_file("view/register_open_eml.tpl");
 		$email_tpl = replace_macros($email_tpl, array(