Written on November 15th, 2008 at 12:11 am by Darren Rowse

16 Essential PC Applications for Bloggers

Blogging Tools and Services 98 comments

This article was written by Ruchir Chawdhry.

PS: Mac users can check out 14 Essential Mac OS X Applications for Bloggers that Darren wrote a while ago.

1. Mozilla Firefoxmozilla-firefox.png

Mozilla Firefox is the king of all browsers. Limitlessly extendable, fast, and lightweight. If you’re still using any other browser (even Google Chrome), then switch to Firefox immediately, it’ll boost your productivity – guaranteed. There are many Firefox plugins, these two posts give the essential ones for bloggers:

2. MemoKeys

Stop wasting time typing the same thing repeatedly. MemoKeys saves you time by letting you call up commonly used text with keystroke combos. This is very handy is you get a lot of email, comment on blogs a lot, or have a default email/comment template.

3. Microsoft Office 2007office-2007-logo.png

All you Microsoft haters might say otherwise, but you need Power Point, Excel, and Word if you want to make it big as a blogger. Office 2007 is easy to use and has beautiful default templates.

If you don’t want to pony up for Office 07 then the open-source OpenOffice is a nice alternative.

4. SnagIt

SnagIt is the best screen-capturing program out there. Using SnagIt, you can take screenshots of menus, windows, specific regions, and more. The more-than-capable editing program that comes with SnagIt is also a godsend for productivity seekers and Photoshop phobics like me.

5. WordWeb

WordWeb is a free powerful dictionary and thesaurus program. It’s mainly an offline dictionary tool with about 150,000 words in its database, although it also allows you to look into online reference sites such as Wikipedia. WordWeb’s a feature rich dictionary & thesaurus tool and a must have for bloggers who write their own content.digsby-logo

6. Digsbydigsby-logo.jpg

Digsby is an all-in-one IM/social networking client. It supports most of the IM protocols out there, like Yahoo!, MSN, ICQ, and AIM. It even supports Facebook chat! It features tabbed conversation window, allows you to manage your email, and stay up-to-date with everything that’s happening on your Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn accounts. As its makers say: Digsby = IM + Email + Social Networking.

7. Link Popularity Check

Link Popularity Check checks how many links you have according to Google, Yahoo!, MSN and a bunch of others.

8. RoboForm

RoboForm is the tool to have for bloggers. It cuts out the time you spend filling various forms online, it remembers all your passwords, and it even features a random password generator for the security freaks among us. The price? Only $29.95. Use the discount code GOOG1 to get $6 off.

I’ve yet to come across another app that is better or on the same level as RoboForm. If you don’t have it, you don’t value your time.rss-bandit

9. RSS Banditrss-bandit.JPG

RSS Bandit is a desktop RSS reader that syncs directly with Google Reader. The best feature is has is that it allows you to download your feeds (including images) for you to view offline. Very useful for travelers and those who hate web based RSS readers.

10. Camtasia Studio

Camtasia Studio is the ultimate screen-recording program for PCs. With the latest version, you can create HD quality professional-looking videos. It can produce your videos in many formats such as iPod, Flash, Quick Time, Windows Media, AVI etc.

11. Windows Live Writer

A full-featured desktop blogging application, Writer allows you to add images, videos, maps, tables, and much more. Overall, it’s a much better alternative to your blogging software’s inbuilt editor.

12. AdesClrPicker

This little known color picker has recently gone free. It’s fast to load, easy-to-use, and captures colors in HTML, RGB, C++, VB, and Delphi color codes. You can capture color codes anywhere on the screen. What more could you want?

13. Yahoo! Widgetsyahoo-widgets-gears.png

Yahoo! Widgets adds small widget apps to your desktop. Aside from being glitzy, it can be useful if you choose the right widgets. Here are a few widgets that bloggers should get:

  • Day Planner – Calendar – A very useful to-do and day planning widget that also has a calendar
  • Simple Notepad – Useful for quick note-taking without having Notepad always open
  • My MemoPad – Useful sticky-note widget. I actually use it to display my goals.

14. Twhirl

Of course, how could I forget Twirl? A must-have app for twitterers to twitter their tweets.

15. PeaZip peazip-logo.png

PeaZip is a beautiful but fast archiving utility that supports most of the compression formats out there. It’s recommended for bloggers who download and sample a lot of files. Alternatives are WinRAR and 7Zip.

16. The Journal

Keeping a diary/journaling can help you improve as a blogger. Now, not many of us are so keen on opening a notebook every now and then to write in, so if you’re such a person then The Journal is for you. It supports separate volumes, inserting images, tables and the like, and you can even password-protect your diary.

For more on why you should keep a blog diary, check out Darren’s post:

What Do You Use?

I’m sure that I’m just scratching the surface here. I’d love to hear from other PC using bloggers – what applications are you using?

You can catch Ruchir Chawdhry at TechVivo where he blogs about gadgets, software, online tools, windows tips & tricks etc that you can use to become more productive & better your life. Click here to subscribe to TechVivo.

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98 Responses to “16 Essential PC Applications for Bloggers” - Add Yours

  • Ganesh

    November 15th, 2008 12:20 am

    Those are some must-have tools for a blogger. Thanks for mentioning useful apps like Journal and Camtasia Studio. I never knew there existed an application like a blog diary. Twhirl should not be missed out too. Thanks for the great post.

  • Prateek

    November 15th, 2008 12:30 am

    Thanks for this post I was just looking forword for something like this as I am new in Blogging World

  • Ryan McLean

    November 15th, 2008 12:34 am

    I was thinking “Why would Darren write about PC applications when he is a hardcore Mac user?” but then I saw it was written by someone else and it all made sense. These are some great applications which will be really good for your PC users (I however have just converted to Mac and I am loving it). Hopefully windows seven will be better than Vista…because PC sucks in comparison to mac

  • Ian Fernando

    November 15th, 2008 12:39 am

    I love digsby! it has my twitter so it gives me more desktop real estate! and keeps me logged into facebook – great community app

  • graftedlife

    November 15th, 2008 12:42 am

    Thank you for the list! Would love to see something similar for Mac.

  • david

    November 15th, 2008 12:45 am

    I love FireShot — lets you capture screenshots (including full pages), edit them, etc.

    Also FireFTP.

  • Rahul

    November 15th, 2008 12:51 am

    Sorry to say but this list is missing the point that most bloggers wants to be arised . You mentioned all the things that are useful : OK . but not all are free , since we get better apps for free why do you suggest everyone to waste their money on something they can get for free ? The list was well sorted out but wasn’t useful at all.

  • Jack Hughes

    November 15th, 2008 12:57 am

    Dia is a great free open source tool for creating images in a nice easy Visio stylie.

  • Alltag eines Fotoproduzenten

    November 15th, 2008 1:01 am

    Thanks a lot for the RSS Bandit tipp. I was always looking for something like that.

  • Vitor Pinho

    November 15th, 2008 1:04 am

    I use portableapps.com . Almost all the available applications mentioned here (and some alternatives) can be installed to a usb and used on any other PC. good for me who changes between a laptop at work and desktop at home. I got an idea for a future article: the essential web applications for bloggers. “Remember the Milk” is one useful to-do list. You guys fill the rest.

  • A Cowboy's Wife

    November 15th, 2008 1:05 am

    HUGE fan of Ades Color picker! Love that thing and use several times a week!

    Great list:)

  • Kevin Micalizzi, Community Mgr, Dimdim Free Web Conferencing

    November 15th, 2008 1:09 am

    Ruchir, great list, I’m checking out RSSBandit and MemoKeys right now.
    -I’m a huge fan of Evernote, I’m using it to journal pretty much everything. And with the sync to their site now, I can switch computers and still have access to everything. (www.evernote.com)
    -For screen captures, I’m a fan of ScreenHunter Free (http://www.wisdom-soft.com/sh/sh_free.htm).
    -Instead of Twhirl, I’m currently using TweetDeck, which is working nicely, letting me see my streams and searches at the same time. (www.tweetdeck.com)

  • Shrihari

    November 15th, 2008 1:10 am

    I agree with most of these here. In a category, i either use the one mentioned here or i don’t use one at all. The exceptions are color picker and unarchiver.

    I use 7Zip for archives. And i use the instant eyedropper tool. Its the simplest one IMO..

    Also, i recently switched to Google Chrome from Firefox… :) Yay for Chrome..

  • Ruchir Chawdhry

    November 15th, 2008 1:13 am

    @ Rahul: Well, you get what you pay for. And if you can find a utility as powerful, intuitive, user friendly, and easy on the eyes as SnagIt or Camtasia that’s free, then I’ll give you a license to SnagIt… Seriously…

  • Bradly Fletchall

    November 15th, 2008 1:15 am

    I’m a big fan of Paint.NET for graphics editing. I create all my logos, buttons, etc using this free app. Its updated often and there are a lot of plugins for it. Its easier to use than photoshop but still has many of the same features

    http://www.getpaint.net/index.html

  • Swim University

    November 15th, 2008 1:21 am

    I use the ScribeFire plugin for firefox and I also use notepad. I use word for my spell checking but because I use wordpress for my blog I copy and paste all my text into notepad to remove all the microsoft code that sometimes follows when I copy and paste from Word directly into wordpress

  • Steven-Sanders

    November 15th, 2008 1:23 am

    Very cool tools! Great info. I especially like the digsby application.

    My wife has that crazy thing that jumps up and down on her mac, but I’ve always downloaded all the different apps for my pc.

    Now I have something similar.

    Thanks!

  • arshad

    November 15th, 2008 1:30 am

    windows live writer .
    i have found it useful while managing too many blogs .There are also options for water marking images and easy alteration of alt tags .

  • Renkai

    November 15th, 2008 1:46 am

    You always post the most useful stuff! Thanks

  • Kevin

    November 15th, 2008 1:50 am

    Does anybody use the Flock browser? I love the social networking integration that it comes with, although lately I have been having problems with it, and I find it to be a great alternative to Firefox.

    Just wondering what other people thought. I have Chrome downloaded but haven’t tried it out yet.

  • Jon Clayton

    November 15th, 2008 1:51 am

    Excellent list. Thanks for the information!

  • Chuck Frey

    November 15th, 2008 1:56 am

    I love ShortKeys, which I have set up to auto-insert things like my e-mail signature, website addresses, e-mail addresses, common e-mail subjects and inquiry responses, etc.

    Does anyone know of a journal app that is web-based? I’m aware of tools like EverNote, which enable you to capture parts or all of web pages, but those apps aren’t quite up to the task of journaling. Any suggestions?

  • Shrihari

    November 15th, 2008 1:59 am

    @Chuck, Maybe try Google Notebook…

  • Ruchir Chawdhry

    November 15th, 2008 2:03 am

    @ Kevin: Yeah, flock can be useful if you actually use the extra features. I uninstalled it, though, as it consumed too much RAM on my PC, and I didn’t use any of its features anyway…

  • Thomas

    November 15th, 2008 2:03 am

    My latest install is Intense Debate, a WordPress plugin.

    http://www.intensedebate.com/

    Check it out!

  • Takumi86

    November 15th, 2008 2:12 am

    I never know that Yahoo Widget can be used for blogging tools, thanks so much for sharing these stuff

  • Jeff

    November 15th, 2008 2:29 am

    I like google notebook for organizing thoughts and links. While firefox has great apps, I find chrome faster on my old laptop

  • Rahul

    November 15th, 2008 2:29 am

    I like the yahoo widgets. I’d like to check other tools as well, tools like AdesClrPicker.

  • Gem

    November 15th, 2008 2:36 am

    Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

    I started to get half of those items – they are really very very useful.

  • Irish polyglot

    November 15th, 2008 2:45 am

    I hate to nitpick, but these aren’t “PC” applications, they’re Windows applications. A lot of people use Linux on PCs and there would be different applications in that case. A couple of these do have Linux versions (Openoffice is great in Linux for example), but just keep it in mind for next time!! ;)

  • C.J. Harley

    November 15th, 2008 3:02 am

    Great list Darren. I started using FireFox about two months ago after being fed up with IE. It was one of the best things I have done. WordWeb sounds like a must have application for an aspiring writer like myself. :o)

  • LastPass.com

    November 15th, 2008 3:41 am

    If you like RoboForm, you might love LastPass at https://lastpass.com/

    It’s cross platform, cross browser, integrated directly into your browser, includes automatic synchronization across multiple PCs, automatic filling of forms, and a host of other features.

    Oh, and best of all: it’s free.

    LastPass.com

  • Mike Henry

    November 15th, 2008 4:16 am

    OpenOffice is the way to go! A PDF maker should also be a top 10 tool. A website I’m currently consulting for distributes literature on the web via MS Word documents. Thats fine and dandy if everyone has either Word or a Word Doc Viewer, but if you’re out there posting documents that aren’t in HTML form they should be in PDF form.

  • Chris | Healthy Gaming

    November 15th, 2008 4:26 am

    Thanks Darren, nice list!

    I also use Microsoft Office, but mostly for Outlook and it’s Notes section. I still prefer Palm Desktop’s layout, but it’s not compatible with my device.

    What do you or other people use to keep multiple notes, and todos?

  • Chris | Healthy Gaming

    November 15th, 2008 4:30 am

    I also wanted to mention a few essential tools I use, related to blogging:

    -UltraEdit, for editing files directly on my blog’s FTP server.
    -Filezilla FTP client
    -Thunderbird for email

  • Web Success Diva Blog Marketing

    November 15th, 2008 4:52 am

    This is an absolutely awesome list. My faves include Firefox (MUST have browser for serious bloggers) and Camatasia. Thanks for sharing!

  • Mike

    November 15th, 2008 5:13 am

    Can’t agree more with you about the list of applications. I am a bit surprised that you mentioned “Microsoft Office” as a must-have tool… Come on? Srsly. Why would a blogger need that?

  • Deb Kolaras

    November 15th, 2008 5:50 am

    Definitely Open Office on #3 – it’s not about ponying up, it’s about committing to and supporting open source!

  • Mike

    November 15th, 2008 5:51 am

    I was using wridea until they updated it now my browser (IE-6) throws an error.
    It is a web based app and I really Liked it for Jotting down and tying Blog topic ideas together does anyone use this or have a program to perform a similiar function

  • mubix

    November 15th, 2008 5:58 am

    My substitutions for the list:
    3. Google Docs, you can use it to type up an article on the go (with Gears) and online, no need to move documents or ppt files around with a USB stick.
    http://docs.google.com/

    4. I sincerely beg to differ. FastStone Capture is awesome. It’s a single executable that you can take around wherever you go without having to install anything. It can take screen shots of pages that scroll and other items that scroll using PgUp and PgDown. It has a fully functional editor, color picker, screen ruler, ability to export to all kinds of formats, and only costs 19.95 lifetime compared to SnagIt for 49.99 for version 9.
    http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm

    11. ScribeFire + Google Docs

    14. TweetDeck: Adds functionality to Twitter by allowing you to set up groups and have separate columns for tweets, dms, replies and searches.
    http://www.tweetdeck.com/

    15. 7Zip + The Universal Extractor: This dynamic duo can handle any extraction or compression task and with The Universal Extractor you can extract installers easily, making it possible to make certain apps portable without having to install anything and then uninstall it.
    http://legroom.net/software/uniextract

    16. Google Docs

    These are my own personal preferences. You have a great list here.

  • John Hoff - eVentureBiz

    November 15th, 2008 6:32 am

    RoboForm is by far my favorite tool on there. I use it every day many times a day. I have dozens of logins and passwords online and none of my passwords are the same thanks to RoboForm. That really helps with security.

    What tool do I use to blog with?

    I’m sure many people don’t do this, but I have a saved html version of my blog’s (the business part of my website) template. I load it up in Microsoft FrontPage and draft up my blog articles.

    Then I can preview my article right from my own computer in a web browser and see how it’s going to look. Since FrontPage is a html editor, I can easily create image maps, figure out color codes, insert links, etc.

  • blogger seo

    November 15th, 2008 6:32 am

    perhaps the number one post is reasonable since it is free and could provide you anything you need for convenient blogging. Others will just fair but Firefox is improving from time to time plus as lot of add-ons and useful extensions.

  • Chester

    November 15th, 2008 6:33 am

    Yup..

    I agree with your first point. Firefox is much much better than Google Chrome! :)

  • JB @ Cool Products

    November 15th, 2008 6:52 am

    I’m glad that I’m not the only one who swears by PeaZip for archiving and formatting files. It’s reassuring to know that I have most all of the essential applications that you described. Except Yahoo! Widgets, not a huge fan of, but to each his own.

  • Max

    November 15th, 2008 6:56 am

    Why would someone pay $40 for the Journal application when they can use Google Notebook?

  • Jason Mitchener

    November 15th, 2008 7:43 am

    Thank you for this list.; But could you list some ways bloggers use Excel?

  • Harley

    November 15th, 2008 8:24 am

    For general notes, lists and diary/journal type things tiddlywiki is a great tool.

  • Michelle DeRepentingy

    November 15th, 2008 8:28 am

    The Journal looks pretty cool but I use MS One Note and love that I can stick pdf files, photos, random thoughts anywhere on the page within seperate notebooks and tabs – why not use it instead?

  • @Stephen

    November 15th, 2008 8:32 am

    I am in love with UltraRecall. They have a cool GTD-flavored overlay that lets me store and catalog all my internets knowledge. And it imports directly from FireFox, and Thunderbird.

  • Paul @ Green Pepper

    November 15th, 2008 8:41 am

    Great list Ruchir, thanks. Already using 7 or 8 of them but discovered some new ones here too.

    BTW @Swim University, and anyone else who does that whole ‘copy to Notepad to remove formatting’ thing, there’s a handy little app called PureText that sits in your tray and does just that (strips out the formatting) any time you want. It’s tiny (13Kb!!), and free! Download from http://www.stevemiller.net/puretext/
    PS I’m not an affiliate or anything to do with it, just a grateful user who thought people here might appreciate it too ;-)

  • Jonathan

    November 15th, 2008 8:41 am

    My favorite is windows live writer

  • Matt

    November 15th, 2008 8:48 am

    Title of this article should be: “How to Spend Hundreds of Dollars on Software You Could Have for Free if You Used Linux.”

    I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out why MS Office is crucial to blogging. Someone please help me out here.

    That reminds me… I need to go write my next blog post in Excel.

  • soores

    November 15th, 2008 9:51 am

    Windows Live Writer is absolutely great… check it out if you haven’t… Tried today… Fell in love almost immediately… I think this is the only MS product I love…

  • Rics

    November 15th, 2008 10:39 am

    Hello Darren,

    I’m using a lot the Google Docs and Notebook apps. This two excelent softwares gives me all the mobility I need. The best of all: for free!

    They’re really great tools.

  • Robby G

    November 15th, 2008 12:08 pm

    wow this has got to be one of the most useful posts i’ve ever read. Not to say the others aren’t great, they are, but thank you very much for this. Digsby and Link Pop Check is amazing. Cheers!

  • Double

    November 15th, 2008 12:27 pm

    As always, very good tips for bloggers.

  • Ruchir Chawdhry

    November 15th, 2008 1:14 pm

    @ Mike: Well, Office/OpenOffice is a must-have tool because you need word basically if you’re a blogger and powerpoint + camtasia if you’re a video blogger…

    @ mubix: Univeral extractor looks like a cool app. I’ll check it out.

  • dev(Www.iHaCK.ASIA)

    November 15th, 2008 1:40 pm

    Love 1. Mozilla Firefox, 5. WordWeb and 8. RoboForm , this 3 really powerful but never try 9. RSS Bandit and 15. PeaZip before , will try and see how good this application are, and thank for list out this all great tool as always

  • Chuck Frey

    November 15th, 2008 3:48 pm

    I use PureText, too. It saves me a lot of time, because I dictate or write blog posts in MS Word, then copy text to the clipboard. In PureText, I’ve assigned the F1 key as the paste plain text key. That saves me from having to clean up a lot of extraneous font crap in Wordpress!

  • Chris Howard

    November 15th, 2008 3:54 pm

    Ruchir, You can’t just say you need Word for blogging and Powerpoint for video blogging. That doesn’t prove nothin!

    I’ve blogged three years without ever using Word. (I am a Mac user but do have and use MS Office for many other things). However, I have used other text editors for writing blogs offline.

    I would 100% say to anyone, you do not need Word for blogging. You just need a handy text editor if you are going to write like that. WordPad in Windows would be sufficient or Text Editor on the Mac and you’re probably spoiled for choice on Linux.

    You can use Word if you’ve got it, but it shouldn’t be on a list of essential blogging applications.

    A blog editting tool, like Ecto, is a much more sensible way to write your posts offline. And much cheaper than MS Office.

    Re Powerpoint: well, I don’t understand who’d make videos using Powerpoint – it doesn’t sound like the right tool for the job, so you kinda need to explain that one more. And even if presentation software is essential to video blogging, then there’s probably lots of cheaper alternatives.

    For those who do make presentation-type movies, again, PowerPoint is not essential. Check the alternatives first.

    Really, if you think these two types of apps are essential, you should have said “3. An office suite” and then listed the options such as OpenOffice, Google Apps, and MS Office if you’ve already got it.

  • Dimitri Nosarev

    November 15th, 2008 5:06 pm

    Super! I love the the practicality of the information given. Thank you.

  • Robin Capper

    November 15th, 2008 6:36 pm

    Wow, I use a lot of those already and agree with most. A couple of alternatives;

    Mindjet MindManager works nicely with Office, in fact most of my office documents are authored in MindManager. BlogJet is similar to Live Writer, it’s not free but worth a look.

    ActiveWords is awesome for text substitution, launching applications, documents and scripting actions like email reply, searching etc. Then have a long free trial (up to 60 days) that’s worth checking out.

  • Mega Champ

    November 15th, 2008 7:32 pm

    Super collection, although i must say the office 2007 is little buggy, however office 2003 does the job pretty fine.

  • Ruchir Chawdhry

    November 15th, 2008 8:33 pm

    @ Chris: what I meant is you need an office suite like Office/OpenOffice. Yes, you won’t be using office to blog directly from it. But it’s useful for spell checking your work or making plans for your blog. I’ve already included a blog editing tool in the post: Windows Live Writer.

    And lists like these are subjective. It’s basically what I have in my blogging toolbox. I honestly hate the the other alternatives to Office 07. I have tried them, I tried OpenOffice but it was very unintuitive and downright ugly… I care about how much more productive the software makes me, not about it’s cost…

  • ITrush

    November 15th, 2008 10:07 pm

    Wow, thank you for the lists.. checking some now.

  • Aditya

    November 15th, 2008 10:22 pm

    Very Nice Article! I have read about more and more from here. And now I think its time to bookmark this website. I am an owner of a blog. You can visit it at http://anddjournal.blog.co.in/ I would really like you to read my blog and give your comments on my blog. Thanks!

  • axel g

    November 15th, 2008 10:28 pm

    Irfanview is a great tool. Personally, I use it mostly to reduce the weight of photos +_+

    Great list!

  • Ganesh

    November 15th, 2008 10:51 pm

    A few applications that I would like to recommend are Filezilla, Notepad ++ and RealPlayer. Filezilla is a must for every blogger who needs a good FTP client. Notepad ++ is much better than the standard Windows Notepad as offers many facilities for bloggers tweaking PHP, HTML or CSS code. And RealPlayer, because it doesn’t hurt to hear some music while working. :-)

  • PageMaker

    November 15th, 2008 11:48 pm

    @Ruchir: I use Gadwin Printscreen (http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/) for doing screen captures. I’ve used a trial of Snagit before, but found the editor of limited use, as I prefer to work in GIMP or Photoshop. For those not looking to add yet another graphics editor to their already-groaning HDD, I submit that Gadwin offers all the screencap functionality that Snagit does: screen/area/active window, bmp/gif/tiff/jpeg/png output, mouse capture or not, customizable hotkey & destination, it’s all there.
    And yes, folks, it’s freeware. Let the stampede begin. :) Now, where’s my license? LOL!

  • Nugroho Adi Pratama

    November 16th, 2008 12:59 am

    Nice List, just that i’m not very comfortable using multiple apps for blogging, i think it give us distraction. I prefer using firefox and firefox only, since i can customized it to certain extend using add on. My favorite :
    - google toolbar (for autofill and PRchecker)
    - scribefire
    - fireftp
    - foxmark (simply put everything in bookmark, u don’t have to worry anymore)

  • Wildfire Marketing Tips

    November 16th, 2008 2:27 am

    Great post with tons of usefull tools, but you don’t need #4 (Snag it) – You can capture your screen by hitting ctrl + the print screen button, then paste it in your image editing program.

  • Kim @ What's That Smell?

    November 16th, 2008 3:33 am

    I have been using Roboform for years and it is AWESOME. It is a must have tool for anyone who logs in to multiple sites on a daily basis, or anyone who fills out forms with their personal info. You can do it with a single click of a button and it saves a ton of time.
    Great list!

  • Ruchir Chawdhry

    November 16th, 2008 3:44 am

    @ PageMaker: LOL man. That offer wasn’t meant for you ;) And anyways I still think SnagIt rocks hehe :D

  • Eric Tan

    November 16th, 2008 4:50 am

    you should ad subscribe t0 twitip.com to learn how to utilize twitter to help you blog =)

  • Omarra Byrd

    November 16th, 2008 7:13 am

    I actually love the RoboForm software myself. I use it all of the time and it takes all of the menial everyday tasks that I have to perform on my computer daily and shortens them extremely! What once took me fifteen minutes to complete now takes me only one second because RoboForm does the same task with just one click. In fact I wrote a Report about a lot of RoboForm’s capabilities for use that aren’t even touched on in the User’s Manual for RoboForm. You can get that Report here:

    http://www.theroboformreport.com

    There is also a FREE version of RoboForm that you can download on this web page, just to test the RoboForm software out for yourself! I highly recommend it!

  • Levi Blackman

    November 16th, 2008 7:39 am

    Great post! These applications save me tons of time. I would be lost without them.

  • Michael Wilkes

    November 16th, 2008 10:41 am

    Fabulous post, Darren. I love lists, and this one has *already* increased my speed. Pretty important, in light of my subject matter! Thanks!

  • BugJee

    November 16th, 2008 4:52 pm

    you can also try free open source CamStudio for Capturing screen activity
    http://www.bugjee.com/?p=712

  • Gunnar Lindberg Årneby

    November 16th, 2008 8:55 pm

    What I am missing on this list is one thing; good free tools for measuting different web properties popularity, rank och numbers.
    Alexa is not even remotely trustworthy. I use Quantcast occassionally. But what else is good for a blogger who needs quick no frills traffic stats?

  • Ray The Money Man

    November 16th, 2008 11:38 pm

    I must admit to have given up on the Microsoft apps. Guess I am a hater! But I must admit, the Open Office is very cool.

  • Kevin

    November 17th, 2008 12:47 am

    list is nice.. i guess there are few more applications missing in the list… twitter desktop client, Gtalk,..etc ???

  • Harish

    November 17th, 2008 1:08 am

    I wondered whether there were any useful apps for bloggers.But only now I came to know about them.Thanks for mentioning them.They are must for bloggers

  • Matt Strum

    November 17th, 2008 7:57 am

    Hey, just a plug for those wanting to keep a journal using the most advanced methods available. Check out my product, http://www.xtremejournalsystem.com. It started out as a personal project after I tried out all available solutions (including the named solution above) and wanted something better. Try it and I’m sure you’ll come to the same conclusion I did, there’s nothing better. Please email me your comments and suggestions on how I can improve it so I can serve you better.

  • graphic design brisbane

    November 17th, 2008 11:03 am

    Firefox is the king of all browsers?!?

    Well i guess that is in the eye of the beholder. Personally I tolerate it for web design purposes, otherwise i don’t touch it. It’s just so very very SLOW and CLUNKY.

    Personally I use Opera, it does everything I want it too and more, but I’ll admit I am warming alot to googles’ chrome. But that is just imho.

  • Josten

    November 17th, 2008 11:48 am

    wow after today firefox will be used more now instead of internet explorer

  • Silverf0x

    November 17th, 2008 2:39 pm

    hehehe…don’t agree with Microsoft Office 2007.
    Why must using Office 2007 ?
    Or why must using office :D

    not anti office, but I think office need more resources than open office

    Not offense, just personal opinion…and CMIIW

  • uwak

    November 17th, 2008 2:48 pm

    thanks for nice listing…I am familiar with some tools above…. and I am getting more other useful tools above

  • Priyan

    November 18th, 2008 5:17 pm

    I think Blog Desk is really worthy to be mentioned here as an alternative to Windows Live Writer. Blog Desk have a very clean and more features than Windows Live Writer when compared.

  • SEO Tips South Africa

    November 19th, 2008 5:31 am

    Hey there! Found this article via Ades Blog. His color picker tool is handy indeed. The rest of your recommended toolkit contains many surprizes I am not au fait with, so I am going exploring now! Thanks for sharing!

  • Brad Hart @ A DoFollow Blog

    November 19th, 2008 10:19 pm

    For password management Foxmarks, the great bookmark manager of firefox, now will backup all of your passwords as well.

  • Jacky

    November 19th, 2008 10:21 pm

    @Ruchir I tried Windows Live writer and am pretty excited of its functionality. The only thing I really miss is the possibility to have serveral folders to sort articles that are not publicated jet. Obviously I cannot just right click and create a folder, …

    This is the only reason why I want to go offline with my blog writing, I want to organize my not-jet-public articles, so I can get back to them easily in case I want to make them public.

    Do you have any advice for a program that could do that?

  • SEO Tips South Africa

    November 20th, 2008 12:28 am

    That Foxmarks tip rocks! Thank you Brad!

  • Ruchir Chawdhry

    November 20th, 2008 12:13 pm

    @ Jacky: You can check out Blog Desk, another offline editor. It might have the functionality…

  • Jacky

    November 20th, 2008 5:31 pm

    I just tried Blog Desk (was searching for other software yesterday), and it really has this feature, but it is not as comfortable in formating the text (as windows life) e.g. I have to create textblocks to be able to insert headings, which is kind of annyoing … (or do I miss something?)

    Cheers
    Jacky ;)

  • Infonote

    November 22nd, 2008 7:54 pm

    A free alternative to ‘RoboForm’ which I use is ‘InFormEnter’ a Firefox plugin.

  • Karl

    November 23rd, 2008 8:06 pm

    Thanks for these kick ass applications… I already had some, and like Snagit there is a free alternative from same company, which I love more – it’s Jing!

  • Mike

    November 27th, 2008 8:36 pm

    A well sorted out list – I think most people would have some of them but each one of them is a real healp

  • analogstuff

    January 15th, 2009 4:23 pm

    Thanks for sharing the information. I never heard of some of the tools you have listed. Will try to use them and will share the feedback on the same.
    Thanks once again Darren.


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