Mrs. Mecomber’s Scrapbook

I found another terrific photo-editing program. It’s Easy Thumbnails, and it is amazing!

I do a lot of photographing (and photo-editing and uploading) pictures for my blogs. Because I usually deal with a large number of photos, I prefer to resize them all at once. Irfanview– my favorite photo-resizing program, does do batch editing like this, but I have found it confusing, and I have to reset all my settings every time I use it. So I’ve been looking around for something easier. I absolutely love Easy Thumbnails.

This little program (it’s free) will resize one photo or all your photos. The default setting is to resize them all to 200px by 200px, but you can change this to anything you like. It saves the newly sized photos in the same folder, but with a “tn_” in the title. This is helpful because you won’t have to go searching for your new photos (or have to make an entirely new folder to keep them), and it won’t copy over the original photos. Once again, the settings will change those features should you want them changed.

I love Easy Thumbnails. It has become part of my top ten favorite programs, ever.

Have I said how much I love windows Live Mail, lol. The more I use it the better I like it! I just figured out how to show the Menu bar (by default Microsoft hides it). To the upper right hand side of the program is a little question mark button– it’s blue and is the typical “help” icon. To the left of this button is a little folder icon with a menu arrow. Click the menu arrow, and choose “show all menus.” The menu bar will appear!

I also love the fact that I can delete, with one swift click, the Junk Mail or Deleted Items box. In Outlook Express, I used to have to right-click, search the pop-up menu, choose “Empty Deleted Items,” choose “yes, I’m sure” etc etc. It’s so easy with WLM!

I really like this program.

I have been trying out Windows Live Mail for a few days. I think I love it! I have always used Outlook Express and liked it [Mrs. M now dodges tomatoes]. Yes, I have tried other email clients (Eudora, Thunderbird, Outlook, other no-name brands) and just preferred OE.

My only bone of contention with OE is that it has not been able to configure for my Gmail (no big deal; I’m not terribly fond of Gmail and all my Gmail is forwarded to my MSN email anyway). It also doesn’t like my free hotmail account. Weird. So I have juggled two email clients– OE for all my POP3 emails, and Hotmail for my hotmail account.

Well! I am using Windows Live Mail, and it handles them all! I think I love this thing. But I love it even more for two other reasons:

1. Every time I get an email, a little notification window pops up. I love this! I like to know when my email comes, because sometimes I get so busy and completely forget to check. This is wonderfully helpful.

2. I can minimize the program into the system tray! Woohoo! This has got to be the best part of it. I don’t like clutter in my taskbar (I usually have only, oh, TEN programs running simultaneously). The email program sitting in the taskbar was always a thorn in my side. But not anymore. Finally.

The only thing I couldn’t figure out was that Windows Live Mail was not saving my “Sent” messages, even though I had configured it to do it. Wha? If I opened my Outlook Express, I found my Sent messages in that program. Then it dawned on me: make Windows Live Mail the default mail program! I did, and voila! All fixed.

I am not great big fan of Windows programs. I usually delete them or uninstall them when they bombard my computer. But I am very impressed with WLM. If you want to try it, it’s here. You’ll need a “live” or “hotmail” account, or be willing to create one.

MilehiMama over at Mama Says is asking for help with a new ‘do. Template tutorials are always difficult over long distances (like the Internet), but there are thousands of people with websites who can help. I was sifting through my free Blogger templates links, and found a very nice and simple Blogger tutorial. Check out Blog Flak for some really great lessons and how-to’s on basic template techniques. The site hasn’t been updated in a while (life and writing tutorials with pictures sure can consume time; boy, do I know that!) but what is there is very good.

I’m hoping Mama gets a really smashing (not crashing) new template– her site will look like a million bucks when it’s over, I’m sure!

P.S. Her posts are very good! Check it out.