Slayer, I use UnFREEz to create animated gifs. it was free, (best price)
Once you download it read the tutorial on the website, its pretty easy to use. You just create your gifs and then drop them in the order you want them to play. set the frame delay and loop the animation. Theres probably more out there, thats just the first one I tried. I also have Gimp (a cheap, free Photoshop type program), use it to edit pics and make avatars. MS Picture Manager is also simple to use to resize pics for avatars.
