I have been looking at and using a couple of different photo/image editing programs. I started looking at these programs because I am interested in improving my skills in creating graphic images so I can service my customers better when building their websites.

First, I am a software developer. I have very little graphic design experience other than the occasional graphic for a button to use on some website. So my preference is to find tools that are free and relatively easy to use.

The tools I am currently using are Paint.NET and GIMP.

First, let’s take a look at Paint.NET. They have a nice user community that provides tutorials to show how a certain task is performed. I found this tool pretty easy to use when doing Photo editing and simple graphic images. However, I found it a little difficult to use when creating more advanced graphic images such as a Web 2.0 looking button.

The GIMP program has been great for both Photo editing and graphic images. I found this tool very easy to use even for more advanced graphic images. I was able to create a Web 2.0 looking button through this tutorial . Here it is:

This isn’t too bad considering it was my first attempt and took me all of 15 minutes to complete. I will have to work on my technique to make it look better but I am sure that will come with more experience.

I think both of these tools are good candidates to use when editing your photos or images. I need to spend more time with both of these tools to unleash their real potential. Either one one of these tools should meet your graphic editing needs.

Recently I have been kind of down on some of the products being produced by Microsoft. This has been kind of tough for me to handle since I make my living developing software using Microsoft products. I still like the majority of products by Microsoft. However, it seems Microsoft wants to have them use all of their products.

For example, a couple of weeks ago I tried to use Windows Live Mail as my mail client for one of my email accounts. I could not use Live Mail because this account was not an msn or hotmail account. I thought at first I was not setting up Live Mail correctly. After I Googled for a resolution, I discovered a lot of people having the same issue using various email accounts like gmail. So, what did I do?

I installed Mozilla’s Thunderbird mail client. I was up and running in less than 5 minutes. Now, why would Microsoft only allow people using msn or hotmail accounts the ability to use Windows Live Mail? I don’t know, either.

IE (internet explorer) is another product I have been disappointed with. I have been going between browsers the last 4 or 5 years. I usually use Mozilla’s Firefox or Opera. I try to go back to use IE but I just can’t do it. I have found that Firefox and Opera perform better than IE. IE 7 has been frustrating to use. It usually throws the famous error where it asks if I would like send the information to Microsoft.

On a positive note, I have been pleasantly surprised with Windows Vista. I have the Home Premium Edition. It has been very stable and reliable for me. However, it took me awhile to get this version of Vista working with Visual Studio .NET 2005. Also, I cannot debug ASP.NET unless I manually connect to the aspnet worker process (aspnet.exe).

Overall, Microsoft does a great job developing products for people to use at work or home. I just hope they realize some of their products could be improved and available to more people.

Over the years I have looked at a lot of code where the developer does not write any comments or the comments that have been written are very poor. Developers should comment their code to save time and confusion by others who read their code. It will also save you time if you need to make a modification months after you originally wrote the code. It will also help you if someone has a question about the code. Your comments will help you remember why you are performing a certain task in a specific way.

However, if you are writing comments for every line of code you write then you are not helping anyone. Your comments should explain what the code is trying to achieve. .NET makes it very simple to add comments to your code so you can not use the excuse it is too time consuming anymore. You can use the summary or remarks tags in .NET to comment your code.

Commenting your code should be part of your daily coding practice!