If all you want is to create the animated GIF, then Microsoft GIF Animator is quite good. Its very basic, and does not include compression, but is easy to use. I always prepare my images/frames before creating animations. This includes sizing the images as well as converting them to 256 colors in another application. Whatever image editor you use probably has better image editing capabilities AND you're more familiar with it anyway. Best of all the software is free, just search the 'net for "Microsoft GIF Animator".