Laurie,
I first downloaded Easy Thumbnails a couple of years ago. It is a very easy to use program, and it helps that it's *free* too!
I have other Fookes software as well. They make nice stuff.
I also use both Paint Shop Pro (by Jasc Software) and PhotoPlus (by Serif Software), among other titles. Both are also great at making avatars (and a host of other things as well), however I noticed that with PSP, one setting needs to be altered to keep the quality of the photo once it's reduced (in version 9 of PSP, the setting is called "smart resize" and is on the resize menu, near the bottom). PhotoPlus keeps the quality automatically. Of course, if you're making avatars, Easy Thumbnails makes it really easy! Great idea there.
Kimber