peterwsterling

Once the widget is added to your sidebar you may easily configure it to provide a display of recent comments with comment author avatars. The options are:
<ul>
<li>The title of the widget.</li>
<li>Limit the number of comments to shown (1 to 15).</li>
<li>Option to display the avatar of the comment author, or not.</li>
<li>Set the size of the avatar.</li>
<li>Chose to have the comment author’s URL (if given) open in a new window,</li>
<li>Show the date of the comment, or not.</li>
<li>Set the format of the date.</li>
<li>Set the size (as a fraction of the normal text size) of the date string.</li>
<li>Show an excerpt from the comment.</li>
<li>Convert smilies in the excerpt.</li>
<li>Show a country flag indicating the source of the comment, requires MySQL database modifications, see below.</li>
<li>Show a country flag in main comment loops, non-widget, requires theme and MySQL database modifications, see below.</li>
</ul>
The style of the output may be controlled with simple CSS rules that need to be included in your <code>styles.css</code> template file. 
 The container (i.e. <code><ul></code> or <code><table></code>) has the id recentcomments (use CSS <code>.recentcomments</code>). 
 List items (i.e. <code><li></code>) have the class recentcomments (use CSS <code>#recentcomments</code>).

Dougal Campbell

This plugin allows you to automatically add Gravatars for commenters to your 
theme, if your theme does not already support them.
According to the Gravatar.com website, Gravatars are Globally Recognized 
Avatars, or an “avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog 
appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites.” 
You register with the Gravatar server, and upload an image which you will 
use as your avatar. The gravatar image is keyed to your email address, so 
that it is unique to you.
This plugin will display gravatars for the people who comment on your posts. 
You do not need to modify any of your template files — just activate the 
plugin, and it will add gravatars to your comments template automatically.
<h3>Credits</h3>
Based on a code snippet from Matt Mullenweg: 
 http://photomatt.net/2007/10/20/gravatar-enabled/ 
 http://pastebin.ca/743979
Props to David Potter for pointing out that Gravatar normalizes email 
addresses to lowercase before hashing with MD5: 
 http://dpotter.net/Technical/index.php/2007/10/22/integrating-gravatar-support/

Easy Gravatars

nice

Add Gravatars to your comments without modifying any template files. Just activate, and you're done!

Recent Comments with Avatars vs Easy Gravatars