Recently I was introduced to a great free photo editor that makes tasks like re sizing and croping photos for your blog a breeze.

It can be found at Pixlr.com

Below is a quick guide to how to get started with it. The red ellipses  indicate where to click on the pages.

First step is to go to Pixlr Editor choice from the top menu.

Next you open an image from your computer using “open image from computer” button.

Once you have selected a photo from your computer, there are several things you can do to edit it.

 Re sizing a photo

Click on the Image option from the top menu, and select image size from the menu that appears.

This will bring up a box that allows you to enter the width or height you would like the picture to have. I find for my posts on the internet that a width of 380 pixels allows for a good picture size without using up a lot of file space and bandwidth.

You will also notice that there is a check box to “constrain proportions”. Selecting this option makes it so that the picture scales equally. ( in other words you won’t end up with a picture that is out of proportion.

Once you have entered the size you want the picture, and clicked OK, you will notice the picture will get really small on your screen.  In order to see it in the new “full Size” you can click on the view menu and then select the actual pixels option, and you can see you picture in full “re sized size”.

You can then save the picture as the new size and upload it to your site to share with others.

I will continue to share more Pixlr.com tips in future posts

Evernote is a notebook style application that stores your information both locally on your computer and on a cloud server so you can have access to it from anywhere.

It allows you to store text and a variety of other file formats where you can get to them anywhere.

I like that it offers an encryption option that lets encrypt individual notes so storing account passwords and other “important” information can be done with little worry of them being compromised.

Probably my favorite feature is that I can access it from my smart phone, which makes taking down ideas when they come to me very easy to do when I am not in front of a computer ( when most ideas come)

It also allows for making check lists which has helped me to organize projects and keep things straight.

Finally with the use of folders and the very powerful search feature I am able to find the notes and information very quickly and efficiently. This program has been a life saver for me. Helping me to organize my life into one place that I can access from pretty much everywhere.

They have 2 options of the program, a free version, and a paid version for those who need more storage.

It can be found at  evernote.com

Here is a view of the intro video if you would like some more information