Let it Snow!!!

So it's snowing and we're supposed to get a lot tonight (the "don't park in the street" siren already went off). I'm geeked about that since it doesn't seem like Christmas without it.

But I've noticed I've still got a fall theme up on my blog so I'll be changing that to a Christmas theme that I've used before (if I can find all the parts). I've been learning Wordpress and so far I've learned it's SO much easier to change themes in WP than in Movable Type...

So it looks funny over the next hour or so, I'm working on getting out the fall colors!

I Need a Graphics Tool to do "Live" Cropping / Zooming

I'm sure someone out there can help me with my problem, but I don't know what to call it so I can't Google it. I'm trying to create some banners that are 865x180 pixels (the specific size doesn't matter, that's just what I'm using today). I've got lots of images that are way bigger than that so I need to be able to zoom in and out and see what it'll look like if I crop it. I've been doing it with some other tools, but my zooming scales are limited with Graphic Converter (I need some in-between scales) and with iPhoto (I do want to do this on my Mac) I've got no decent way to see what the crop will look like. Graphic Converter almost does it, because if I'm close (but bigger) I can paste it in a smaller window and fine-tune it; but when I want to look at an image at 20% or 30%, it's not an option,

Obviously, I'd prefer to not have to get an ultra-exspensive tool for this. But there's got to be a better way than I've been experimenting with. I'm hoping a flash tool that I upload my photo to and it zooms around for me. Or maybe just using a tool in a way I haven't tried it yet...