A Few Words About Words, And Another Tool

Around this time forty years ago [my goodness, I wasn't even of legal age back then], the number one song in the US of A was the one sold in the sleeve pictured above; Tighten Up, from Archie Bell And The Drells. Propelled by a strong bass line [still pretty tasty today], as well as a relatively clever dance of the same name, Tighten Up is still a very popular tune in the Oldies world.

I bring all this up to note that tightening up your posts is good advice. Of course, there are times when you need to use every word to tell a story, paint a verbal picture, or explain an idea. Most of the time, though, fewer words are best. When you finish a post, and before you hit "Publish", look it over carefully. Pretend that you're not being paid by the word [for most of us, who don't get paid at all, this should be easy]. See if there are simpler ways to express your ideas. Make cuts and rewrites as needed. Then, and only then [after using "Spellcheck", of course], send your words to the Blogosphere. Those who will read your posts thank you.

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In a few of these posts, I've complained bitterly about the difficulties of properly sizing images for various purposes [my gripes were centered around EntreCard's "125x125" rule. I don't mind the size specification, but I couldn't find an image sizing tool that worked accurately enough to suit EC's limits]. But now I wish to show my gratitude to a programmer, or programmers in The Netherlands [flag depicted at left] and our good friends at Google [they're just everywhere, aren't they?], for pointing me to:

http://www.resize2mail.com/. As you might guess from its name, it's really designed to resize digital photos for e-mailing and other similar needs. But it also works quick and easy for resizing any gif or .jpg image. Here's how it works:

1. / Scroll down to the area under "3 easy steps"

2. / Under "options", select "on your own" [interesting way of putting that, isn't it?]

3. / Type in the correct dimensions where indicated

4. / Press the "okay" [another interesting term] button

5. / Your resized image appears. Save it to your computer, then take it to your favorite image modifying site [Splashup: http://www.splashup.com/ is very good for this], put in any copy, save it, then submit it to EntreCard [or wherever else you plan to use it].

Caveat: I've only submitted one card. It did work, though. Besides, if any of you have taken college-level science courses, you should know that the Lab Supervisor [me] usually leaves the research work to the lab members [you]. E-mail me if you have any problems. I probably can't fix them, but if enough of you have issues, I'll write another post completely denying authorship of this one. C'mon people! I have tenure on the line, for goodness sakes!

-Mike Riley