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UNOFFICIAL SURVEY: Blogging tools you find indespensable

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CyberKID
from India |

Hello guys,

We have thousands of bloggers here on this platform, and thousands of blogs too, with people blogging in quite a varied number of topics, be it fashion, architecture, law, technology-gadgets, programming, photography, arts and crafts, and even personal (non-niche) blogging.

While working on something, I happened to think over some tools, we, as bloggers, find indespensable to blog better.

I would like you guys to kindly share with us all, which is the tool which you find quite useful, and would like to suggest to others too, who are blogging in your kind of niche, or for that matter, if it's useful for others too.

By tools, I mean, applications, softwares, mobile phone/tablet apps, pieces of hardware, which help you blog better. Like for example, to protect my pictures, I use a watermarking software, even a demo version (after its trial period has expired), I find quite useful and indespensable, and I suggest it to anyone who is posting pictures online, to use to watermark their photos/artwork with.

So, be it any tool/application/app, be it the simple word processor to type in the posts, be it some photo editing/image creation software you use to create art work, or be it a scanner, which you use to scan and upload your art work with. But please try not to go into a lot of details, if you are including hardware devices, including the model number, price of the gadget/hardware, etc. as that is not our primary concern. We just need to know the tools you find useful in blogging. Please do not include blogging platforms (blogger/wordpress/tumblr), as we have a number of different threads for discussions over those, though, if there is an app, that you particularly find helpful (except analytics widgets), please feel free to include those.

P.S. Just to inform you, I would like to use your responses, tools/applications, bloggers use (though not personally identifiable), with the task I was working on.

Edited
Reason: Typo

Replies 1 to 11 of 11

Vijay Prabhu
from Mumbai |

CK I was just tutored by P (junior CK)Wink to use Image resizer.  Wonderful tool and must have for SEO optimisationSmile

Ranjith
from hyderabad |

P ?

CyberKID
from India |

Thanks Vijay. Indeed, an image resizer is a must have tool for every blogger, who cares about SEO and load times, and even for those who don't care about those above, but do care about visitors.

Ranjith
from hyderabad |

I use  the following tools which I have created myself Money mouth

A Light Hearted Talk Home Page Manager

A Light Hearted Talk Pages Manager

Right now, I am creating another tool which will archive data from clicky (clicky stores visitor data only for 1 month ) Cool

Ranjith
from hyderabad |

I use paint/word sometimes to create images.

I have also created some doodles (or whatever you call them :P) using Adobe Ideas ipad app.

CyberKID
from India |

r, your software failed at my end. I'm not buying it. Tongue out Plus, I don't need a page manager to manage just 6-7 pages on my blog. :P

Ranjith
from hyderabad |

Vijay :-w

Nsv నేను నీ కథ చదవను :-w

CK You need to upgrade to Java 8. :-w 

Ranjith
from hyderabad |

NSV I will Laughing

Ranjith
from hyderabad |

Sunday Laughing

Parichita
from Mumbai |

I will mention one tool which I find indispensable in all my online browser thing-- Lazarus. It helps me save the content even when the net goes and browser misbehaves. I know tech-savvy people might have much more interesting tools, but for dummies like me, Lazarus is a big help. 

Vishal Verma
from Bangalore |

tools i use - Sproutsocial, tweetdeck, moz..

SloWord the Author Playwright Blogger
from the Tundra |

The only tool I use all the time and find totally indispensable is the tool who writes the words out of his brain. Some call him The SloMan and some know him as The LastWord. Sometimes he comes out ranting as the PeevedPunjabi. 

Of course, when cricket fever hits LeggieLefty comes out to have his say.

As I said the only tool I need.....

Ranjith
from hyderabad |

He is asking about softwares :-w

RioZee
from Out of this yEt in this World |

I am simple blogger, no softwares need as such but the blogger app on phone is handy for me to write and post on the go.

The Sorcerer
from Mumbai |

I prep reviews in Windows Live writer, but rather than uploading the content and the pics, I use the good ol' copy-paste method. The problem is that for photos in groups, I need to make a gallery. Unfortunately, the images uploaded via live writer does not reflect in WordPress' media thingy. If you are still looking for a watermark software, Irfanview is your friend.  Edit-> Insert Overlay/Watermark Image. I use that for bulk conversion of image files an inserting watermark images. 

Rajesh K
from Chennai |

Blogger, WP Android apps for mobile blogging.

Inkscape, GIMP for Graphics/Image manipulation.

FBReader, Pocket, @Voice Aloud Reader to listen to Webpages, PDFs, Docs (for faster research).

Wikimedia Commons, Flikr, PhotoBucket for Image hosting. 

Hunky @ NexGenBikes.com
from Kolkata |

For me, these are following,

  • Fast Internet connection with dynamic IP (Cleint Side)
  • Good and cheap hosting solution, SSD-VPS prefered..
  • Standard PC/Laptop, fast enough to run moderate software.
  • Image editor, like Photoshop.. Office tools like Microsoft Word, Excel..
  • Camera, phone camera too helps many times..
  • Ohh, yes off course, electricity Tongue out

Apart from that, rest of the requirement would be subject specific requirement for specific blogs Innocent

Thanks..

The Sorcerer
from Mumbai |

You forgot internet access. 

Ranjith
from hyderabad |

Why only dynamic IP? Innocent

Hunky @ NexGenBikes.com
from Kolkata |

@TS..

You missed my first point..

@Rajni..

I prefer Dynamic IP in client side for many reasons.. Primarily security !!

Narasimha Sharma Veturi
from Hyderabad |

I use MS Word, Notepad and Lekhini.Org (To write in Telugu). Other than that, I don't use anything at all for the purposes of blogging. Smile

CyberKID
from India |

Ah, thank you all for all your responses.

Appears that we bloggers use so many tools that atleast I never imagined. Infact, a lot of those tools were such that I've never heard of. I know there will be many more of such tools as people come up with their responses to the question.

Well, for me, I use a number of tools to blog over, and add value and a personal touch to it. A few applications that I use are:

1. MS Word, helps me compose my posts, check for grammar and spellings throughout the post. This also helps me format the post uniformly throughout my blog. Beyond, everything else, MS word helps me compose a post keeping a backup of all my posts offline, if I ever need any of them, in some rare unexpected instance.

2. A few other things, that go beyond the purview of a regular non-technical blogger, are a few that some programmers use (though, I'm no programmer). Some text editors like Notepad++, or Sublime Text editor help me work on HTML, Javascript/Jquery and CSS files.

3. Spreadsheet Applications like MS Excel that I use to create tables and graphs, like one I have recently posted on one of my other blogs. Google Docs, Spreadsheets do help me out at a number of instances. Talking more about these will go a bit technical, and I do not want to indulge in technical things.

4. Image editing software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Picasas, MS Office Picture, MS Paint that used to come in as a package with MS Office 2007 and earlier versions help me edit work up and create graphics for my blogs. Editing images is something I do not like, and hence, I do not edit any images going on my blog, barring a few I've done earlier. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are helpful in creating graphics, editing vector graphics. MS Office Picture manager is particularly helpful in compressing pictures to reduce their sizes. Picasa, I used in one instance to create photo collage for one of my posts, where I had way too many pictures to let them go individually in the blogpost.

5. Watermarking application: I particularly use and recommend only one watermarking software, Umark, which although, a paid application, does a great job in its demo version too. Just does the task. You can choose to watermark using an image, or text based watermarking, it does it all. Buy it, and you get great features.

6. An FTP client like Filezilla helps me upload files to one of the web hosting accounts I have.

7. Hardware, include my cellphone(s) that help me take photographs which I post on my blogs. Other things people have already noted. Laptop/computer and other such stuff.

8. Online applications like tableizer, CSS gradient generators, and Google Translator also help me out do it well.

Ranjith
from hyderabad |

FileZilla! I forgot that.

And I also use Putty Laughing

The Sorcerer
from Mumbai |

You always Irfanview. Does a lot of things, including image type conversion, single and bulk watermark thingy- along with renaming them.