No, no and no!!!! So then, what is it that the new writers for the web, need to know?

Using the correct software! My first efforts were rejected for technical reasons. As usual, I looked on the internet for advice and found none. I replied to one of the articles published by Triond, but no luck there. Perhaps these are closely guarded secrets? No longer, dear new writer, will you have to struggle in vain.

Firstly, software for writing, or, as it is known in the world of computers, word processing!

The software that I am suggesting is free, yes FREE... Feel free to download a copy of OPEN OFFICE. The bundle has many other features apart from word processing, however, the component that you need is WRITER. Just open writer and start writing away. Remember to save the file as a .doc file.

My next problem was introducing pictures with the text. What puzzled me, and there seem to be no guidelines from the gurus, was what size pictures to insert? I think that 200 pixels for the longest side is about right. There is every chance that a picture is stolen from the web, and one can argue that copying a picture for a blog or other private use is OK. Strictly speaking, unless you are invited to copy pictures from a site, it is a copyright infringement. Will you be caught, yes, and will you be punished, often to the full extent of the law!!!! In a recent case involving infringement, the infringer, English Partnerships, represented by Pinsent Masons, paid legal costs of £14,720. They still have no license to publish the image!!!

Where to get pictures from, no problem. Take them yourself, buy them, or download them from sites that offer material free. Sometimes, and you must understand, there is no such thing as a free lunch, the free picture is not free. That is, you are obliged to provide a link to another site!

Whilst pictures are not free, the software to change the sizes and enhance them is!

FastStone Photo Resizer is a free download. To keep your files simple and organized, before using the resizer, create in Windows Explorer or any other file manager, two empty folders. Mark the first, Batch 1 and the second, Batch 2. You can of course name them anything you like, but I advise separate folders where you copy your original files into. Copy the picture files into the folder Batch 1. The reason for this is simple, if something goes wrong, you have just lost a copy and not the original file. Just try one file for the first time, before doing a large batch. Launch the FastStone Photo Resizer and put batch 1 as the source folder and batch 2 as the output folder. Choose the resize option and introduce 200 pixels for the longest size. In a short time, depending on the size of your original files, the new images will be ready.

This is a camera file resized in FastStone Photo Resizer, from a Fuji digital camera.

The picture below is the same but sharpened using the same FastStone software.

I look forward to reading your illustrated articles