Here is how to reduce the large pictures your camera takes, to a reasonable size for emailing or putting on your blog. A lot of people still use dial-up for Internet, and receiving megabyte size pictures does not make them very happy when an email takes more than a half hour!

This method works on Windows PC computers, and uses MS Paint.

Paint is such a handy program, you should put an icon on your desktop as follows:

1. Click Start, then without clicking anything, move the cursor onto Programs, Accessories and then you should see a list of about 12 programs.
2. Move the cursor onto Paint and press right-mouse-button (you get a list).
3. Select Send-To, and left-mouse click on Desktop (create shortcut).
4. Now you can bring up Paint by clicking on your desktop icon. I suggest you do exactly as above, for Windows Explorer, which is also in the Accessories group.

You will have already downloaded your camera, probably into 'My Pictures', that's where mine go.

Bring up Windows Explorer, look into My Documents, My Pictures, or wherever your photos are stored. See that little box with the 6 dots, click your mouse on that and you can view Thumbnails (small images of your pictures) or Details (you can see the size of the picture). Both are handy.

3. Don't lose your originals!

Here's what you do.

1. Open your original picture with File, Open on the top left of Paint.
2. Now, save that picture with a new name, with File, Save As. The original name will be highlighted, overtype it. In this example, it is Picture 058. It was a Mustang aeroplane so I called the new picture Mustang-058. Paint will automatically attach the filename extension, so it will be saved as Mustang-058.JPG. Don't put a fullstop after the filename unless you are putting in the full extension yourself, such as Mustang-058.jpg.
3. If this is for emailing or for your blog, it is a good idea to also put 'lowres' into the name for 'low resolution'. Your name might be Mustang-058-lowres.JPG. If you are cropping a picture for later printing, put 'hires' into the name and don't reduce the size as below.

Now it has a new file name, and you are not going to destroy your original, reduce the size.

1. Click on Image, Attributes and note the size. My picture is 3008 pixels wide, 2000 pixels high. You can select inches and cm if you prefer.
2. A good size for emailing is about 640 x 400, 800 x 532 or 1200 x 800. Let's make this 800 wide. A little maths with your calculator (800 divided by 3008) will show that you want the picture shrunk to 0.27 or 27% of original. Click Cancel to close the size box.
3. Click Image, Stretch,Skew and type 27 (27%) into both boxes, then OK. You will now see your smaller image.
4. Click File, Save. In this example, my picture has gone from 1,752 Kbytes (1.7 M) to 87 Kbytes. A very good size to email or put on your blog.
5. Let the people know that high resolution versions of the pictures are available. Otherwise they will printout grainy pictures from the emailed or blog versions instead of the nice sharp crisp one that you took.

If you don't know how to file away all your pictures into folders with proper names like 'Holiday November 06' get some assistance from your friendly computer Guru who will show you how to create folders, copy and move your files using Windows Explorer. Otherwise, you will soon have 5000 pictures in My Pictures and life will get very tedious. As my friend said recently - ' I took some great pictures of your car and I downloaded them into my computer and now I can't find them anywhere'. Gee, great!

Rather than just shrinking the original, you might like to crop the image and cut out that rubbish bin beside Grandma. I must say, Photoshop's Crop Tool does this better than MS Paint.

1. Reduce your image, as above, so you can see it all on the screen and it is a bit bigger than you want it.
2. You can alter the picture size by putting the mouse on the little dot (handle) of either the middle of the right hand side, or the centre of the bottom of the picture.
3. When the cursor goes over the handle, you will see two arrows, and by holding the left mouse button, you can drag the edge of the picture across, or upwards, effectively resizing it.
4. File, Save As.
5. Or, to crop a piece out of the picture, first click on the Select Tool
6. Then starting at top left, hold the mouse button and you can mark a portion of the picture.
7. Edit, Copy (copies that marked part in the select tool box)
8. File, New (save changes - Cancel)
9. Image, Attributes type 10 by 10 pixels (not Inches or cm). If you don't do this you can end up with a lot of white around the cropped picture.
10. Edit, Paste (or CTRL V if you know that trick).
11. File, Save As (suggest you put 'crop' in the file name).

I hope this has helped :-) Here's three books that look pretty good.

The Digital Photography Book: The Step-By-Step Secrets for How to Make Your Photos Look Like the Pros This isn't a book of theory--it isn't full of confusing jargon and detailed concepts: this is a book of which button to push, which setting to use, when to use them, and nearly two hundred of the most closely guarded photographic "tricks of the trade" to get you shooting dramatically better-looking, sharper, more colorful, more professional-looking photos with your digital camera every time you press the shutter button. Here's another thing that makes this book different: each page covers just one trick, just one single concept that makes your photography better. Every time you turn the page, you'lllearn another pro setting, another pro tool, another pro trick to transform your work from snapshots into gallery prints. There's never been a book like it, and if you're tired of taking shots that look "OK," and if you're tired of looking in photography magazines and thinking, "Why don't my shots look like that?" then this is the book for you.

The Digital Photography Book: the Step-by-Step Secrets for How to Make Your Photos Look Like the Pros!: v. 2 The Digital Photography Book Volume 2 follows in the footsteps of the wildly successful first volume of this title, giving photographers nearly two hundred more closely guarded photographic --tricks of the trade -- to get them shooting dramatically better-looking, sharper, more colorful, more professional-looking photos with their digital camera every time they press the shutter button. Here's another thing that makes this book different: like the original, each page covers just one trick, just one single concept. With every page, photographers will learn another pro setting, another pro tool, another pro trick to transform their work from snapshots into gallery.

The Digital Photography Book: v. 3 The Digital Photography Book, Volume 3 follows on from the earlier books.

The Photographer's Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos Covers both traditional in-camera composition and the new opportunities for picture-making made possible by digital imaging editing. Shows how to explore situations and locations in order to find the best possible photographic possibilities.

You might, like me, have a new free SIM card from 2 Degrees to try out. Here is how to copy the Contacts list on a Nokia 6230. It might work on other phones, including a Nokia 1110i.

1. Select 'Contacts' Menu.
2. Select 'Copy', then 'From SIM card to phone', then 'All'. This saves your contacts list in the phone memory. Switch off.
3. Swap SIM cards so your 2 Degrees SIM is installed.
4. Select 'Contacts' Menu.
5. Select 'Copy', then 'From phone to SIM card' and 'All'. This saves your contacts list in the 2 Degrees SIM card. Switch off.
6. Swap SIM cards back to your original. Your contacts all show up twice as they are saved in both the SIM and the memory.
7. Select 'Contacts' Menu, 'Delete', 'All', 'Phone'. The security password is '12345' unless you have changed it. This erases the contacts list from phome memory, leaving the SIM card alone.
8. Done!