There’s an interesting thread over at the Authority Blogger forum* about ‘must have’ tools. Of course, different bloggers have different priorities, so the responses have varied quite a bit. However, there are some constants – for example, Firefox, it does seem to be the browser of choice for most bloggers. I thought I’d list my choices here, and explain why these particular tools suit my purposes.

• Firefox: Do I really need to explain more? There are many great things about FF, not least the fact that it so easily customisable. The range of add ons grows by the day and when it is combined with Greasemonkey, Firefox becomes far more than just a means of viewing web pages.
• Rough Draft: I have blogged about Rough Draft before, mainly because it is so incredibly useful. If you are looking for a small, fast word processor with special tools for writers, do take a look – oh, and did I mention, it’s free!
• WordWeb: Every writer needs a good dictionary and thesaurus, and WordWeb is both. It sits in your desktop toolbar and can be activated with a click, it’s also compatible with Rough Draft.
• Google Reader: Google’s own feed reader. I wasn’t keen at first, but over time it has improved and I now find it the easiest way to keep up with new posts from my favourite blogs. Feeds can be sorted into categories using tags, which is really useful because it means I can keep a separate list just for research.
• WordPress: I use the self-hosted version – as you can see. Yes, there are numerous blogging platforms available, but WP is a bit like the Firefox of blogging. It’s easy to use, extremely customisable and it’s free.
• Google Analytics: Google’s free blog and site statistic tracker and analyser. In other words it tracks your visitors and gives you all sorts of useful info about how they use your site. I have a stats package provided with my hosting service, but I tend to use Google instead, simply because I find it easier to figure out what everything means.
• Thunderbird: Mozilla’s free email client. Once again, there are other options, but Thunderbird, is very fast, customisable, and user friendly. You can use it as feed reader too.
• Google Alerts: A free service which tracks words or phrases. I use it to keep track of how my blog posts are being used, and also to keep up with the latest information about various topics.
• Internotes: A sticky notes Firefox extension. Really useful for adding a description or reminder to a web page you want to write about or refer to later.
• Ace HTML: A free HTML editor – not a WYSIWYG, you have to write the code yourself. It’s simple to use, and defaults to XHTML, but you can also work in HTML, PHP, XML, CSS and several other formats.
• PhotoImpact – No, it’s not as glam as Photoshop, but it does everything I want and creates new layers automatically, having to do that manually in Photoshop is really annoying.

I appreciate you dropping by,
Please leave a comment, don’t be shy