You don't need Photoshop or some other advanced piece of software to resize a large number of images at once. You can use Microsoft Office Picture Manager which is part of the Office suite.
Windows Explorer does not have menu displayed by default like you were used to in previous versions. To activate and keep it permanently visible follow this tutorial.
Truly amazing work by the NYC Grid guys creating images composed of two images at the exactly same location only decades or sometimes even century apart.
As the Google Reader will cease to exist in a couple of months time, you can start sniffing for the alternative RSS feed reader. Allow me to try and make it really simple for you.