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Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: Paint.NET

December 24, 2006 by Liz

Paint.NET packs a lot of power in a small package

Great Find: Paint.NET

Permalink: http://www.getpaint.net/index2.html

Target Audience: All computer users

Content: Who doesn’t like free? While some argue that this might not be the application a graphics professional would use, it is a powerful photo and image manipulation application to add to the average computer user’s toolbox. This week we’re looking at Paint.NET, a Windows application.

Thanks to Chris at Martial Developmentfor pointing out this tool.

Here are five things I like about Paint.NET:

The application is free and open source (of course this is #1)
It’s easy to learn – no classes needed
You can undo and redo actions with the history feature
It has layers, allowing you to easily create composites
Red eye removal, rotate, and zoom are just a few of the special effect adjustments you can make

Click the screenshot to go there.

Paint.NET is a tool you will want to try. The CNET review lists it with 4 stars from both editors and users.

Stay tuned… next week is ?

–Sandy, Purple Wren

Great Graphic Find: Photoshop Elements
Great Find: Film Loop
Great Find: Wufoo Ã¢â¬â Form-making Tool

Laura Young Is One in a Million!

December 24, 2006 by Liz

Carolyn Says So

One-in-a-Million by Trée George and Sandy Renshaw

For the One-in-a-Million-Category of:

Extending and dedicating herself, personally and professionally, to tending needs the rest of us seldom see. This category can only be filled by one who works tirelessly behind the scenes and still takes the time to give us glimpses into the world of a caretaker. Because of her enthusiasm and compassion, her joyful outlook on life and her appreciation of its fragility, Dragon SlayerÃ¢â¬â¢s Laura Young fills this role with grace.

The winner is Laura Young, Dragon Slayer.

This award was submitted by: One-in-a-Million Cohort: Carolyn Manning

Thanks, Carolyn, for seeing the one in a million in another blogger! Thanks Trée George and Sandy Renshaw for the logo that shouts it out!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Thanks to Week 61 SOBs

December 23, 2006 by Liz

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

What is He Talking About? Chris Cree on Equality

December 23, 2006 by Chris Cree

Ã¢â¬ÅOnce the game is over, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.Ã¢â¬Â
–Italian Proverb

Today’s quote is a great commentary on status and that final equalizer, death. It doesn’t matter whether we’re rich or poor, female or male, lazy or hard working, successful or bumbling, Donald Trump or Rosie O’Donnell, eventually all of us will breath our last breath.

You see in spite of Thomas Jefferson’s lovely sentiment we are not all created equal. It’s an empowering idea, to be sure. It’s the kind of thing that inspires a nation to seek it’s independence.

But it is simply not true.

In fact we are hardly equal at all. I’m taller than many folks and at the same time shorter than others. So we aren’t equal in height. Really most of us aren’t even close to equal physically.

Me, I’m not a very fast runner. Nor am I particularly handy when it comes to fixing things.

We all have differences in education, work ethic, economic resources, ethical understanding, and family size. We’ve all heard different messages when we were growing up, were given different amounts of encouragement to pursue our passions, and had different options presented to us along the way.

And that’s not to say that folks can’t overcome some serious handicaps in any or all of these areas to accomplish tremendous things. Or that folks of great privilege never experience big falls.

That old investment disclaimer always applies. “Past performance does not guarantee future returns.”

However, in spite of all of our immense inequalities that proverb above is true. When it’s all said and done, each of us will end up effectively in the same box. The probability of each of us dying is exactly 1. It is one way each and every one of us is created equal.

Think about that the next time you pass someone on the highway with a much nicer car than yours. Or one that is nowhere nearly as nice. Or someone who doesn’t even have a car.

Think about what really is important when it’s all said and done.

–Chris Cree, SuccessCREEations

Calling All B.A.D. Bloggers: A Few Tweaks, Buttons and Thank YOUs!!

December 23, 2006 by Liz

A Few Weeks, A Few Tweaks

On that Sunday in November, when I started the B.A.D. Blogger prgram, I had no idea what it would be like, or that it would be such a fabulous experience, getting to know bloggers one by one. This kind of learning is packed with the insights and surprises of the unique and incredible individuals behind the screens that we read, and every time I end a call I am changed just that little bit by having connected with another living, breathing human being who taught me something I didn’t already know.

I’ve had a few weeks to talking to bloggers. Now I’ve got few tweaks to keep the B.A.D. Blogger program growing. Here are are the little changes and rearranges you can expect moving foward, as I talk to B.A.D. Bloggers one by one.

I will still be talking to a Blogger a Day, but I won’t write about every one of them. A Blogger a Day on the phone for me is one thing, asking you to read about them is another. I’ll schedule a two to four a week for you to get to read. I’ll save the other calls for business so that the B.A.D. Blogger calls can be unique and take on a life of their own.
I have new questions up my sleeve to make each call just that much different from every other.
I also have room on my schedule for any blogger who wants to talk life. . . . Let me know that you want to be a B.A.D. blogger and we’ll arrange a call if it’s possible. I find that most things are possible.
I’m exploring ways to bring the best blogging onto the real world. If you have ideas email me at lizsun2@gmail.com.

Who would you like to get to know? Feel free to recommend someone.

Thank YOU, BAD Bloggers . . . You Deserve an Award

A few folks will tell you, if you survive a “Liz” telephone call, you deserve an award. . . . The B.A.D. Blogger button finally is here. Thanks to my son who made it happen. — I got to watch. Cool -huh! Take one if here’s room on your blog. If not, leave it here. 🙂

The part I like most is that I get to say thank you again to all of you who have been B.A.D. Bloggers so far. Here you are in the order I spoke with you these past days.

You really have to see what an incredible group you are!

Thank you to every B.A.D. Blogger for taking the time to talk with me. It’s been incredible! I know it’s only going to get better. I’m blogging on the telephone now.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Deborah Byrd Is a B.A.D. Blogger!

December 22, 2006 by Liz

Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Deborah there?

Down in Austin, near the famous music street, lives a woman named, Deborah Byrd. A few ago she did something remarkable. She wrote grant and produced a short daily message that became an international radio show.

I asked Deborah how she got interested in sky radio. She told me that college she took a general Physics class that first counfounded her, then captured her interest. Deborah told me that soon she was seeking out classes in Astronomy.

We discussed the story of Star Date, how it started as a daily phone message. Every day it would ask, Have you seen the stars tonight? She wrote the grant for that message that then became a radio short, which she left to the University of Texas.

Now Deborah is producing Earth and Sky Radio, which is on 1000 stations. Deborah explained that Earth and Sky has over 2000 scientiest on their database helping people explore possible, positive human futures. People meet and talk on the Earth and Sky blog.

We talked about how the blog changes the radio venue. Deborah explained that now it’s not just her words going out; now she also gets to hear what listeners think. We talked about the conversational aspect. To Deborah that’s one exciting part. She said that she welcomes comments, ideas, and opinions from every point of view — she’s anxious to listen, to hear what people think and why they think as they do.

Deborah said that producing a radio show with an extensive blog resource is a different kind of journalism. She said the exciting part is that not only do people get to talk, but that she gets to talk back to them. I thought “Ah conversation! Yeah, I know what you mean.”

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

I’ve been talking at people for thirty years and now, wow! They’re talking back to me! It’s so exciting! —Deborah Byrd

Stop by Deborah’s Blog, Earth and Sky, and say hi!

Thanks, Deborah, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.