Hi Derek,
I think the profile picture upload via image URL works.
If you upload your profile picture to an image hosting site such as photo bucket, you can get the image link from there. The link needs to end in a .png or .jpg for it to work though. I'm not sure about .gif, sorry.
Unfortunately it's a lot of stuffing around. It would be nice if the upload feature actually worked. From the times I've tried to upload a profile picture over the years, it's never actually worked.