I have covered information related plugins and the utmost most important plugins so far. Today I am going to talk about tools that are helpful during the writing process of blogging.

Blog Article Tools

Similar Posts - The ability to relate blog posts to one another is vital in recycling old content that is otherwise sitting there being ignored. This plugin indexes words in your post when you publish it to match it to other blog articles. There are lots of options to tweak in order to get the relevancy right where you want it. There is even the ability to edit the similar keywords on a per post basis for even more fine tuning. Screenshot »

Recent Posts - This is similar to the similar posts above. In fact it was written by the same guy, Rob Marsh. This plugin is self explanatory as it lists the most recent posts wherever you want in your template using <?php similar_posts(); ?>. The beauty of this and the similar posts plugin is they are both cacheable meaning less load on your database. Screenshot »

Postie - You might remember my how-to post about getting Postie setup on WordPress. The ability to post from my mobile phone has been a lot of fun and makes good use of the 400 picture message bundle I pay for every month. It is pretty simple to get going and the ability to post from anywhere I have cell phone coverage is quite a profound idea. Screenshot »

WP-FLV - Posting video on your blog can be daunting if you don’t go through a site like YouTube. Even then, WordPress’ visual editor makes a mess of the embed code. To handle with all the messy details of embedding flash video in my posts I use the FLV plugin. It adds a button to my editing tool bar that wraps a link to an FLV in <flv> tags that get processed later when I publish. The video shows up in a basic flash player and I am good to go. Screenshot »

WP-Amazon - Have you ever needed to link to something on Amazon.comAmazon.com but didn’t feel like opening up another tab and running a search? WP-Amazon lets me do all of that right within my Write Post interface. The little Amazon button reveals a search sidebar that lets me find anything in any category on the whole site. The real use for this is you can drag the link straight into your post and it will automatically insert your affiliate ID to the link so if anyone buys anything after clicking on your link, you will get a cut. Screenshot »

For the fourth and final installment of this series, I will cover syndication plugins that I employ on my blog.

Yesterday we saw my important plugins but today I will take a look at plugins that make it easier to access a wide array of information about my blog in order to track certain patterns and statistics.

Information Plugins

WordPress Reports - This plugin is the equivalent of crack. It adds a new tab in my admin panel called reports and displays Google Analytics data for the last 7 days in nifty bar graph form. Stats include Weekly/Daily visitors and page views, average page views per visit, top inbound links, rising inbound links, popular blog entries, rising blog entries, falling blog entries, top entry pages, percent of new versus returning visitors, and circulation via Feedburner statistics. Be careful with this one as checking my stats is a new obsessive habit of mine. Screenshot »

Adsense Earnings Report - Yup, I have ads on my blog in case you haven’t noticed, but just for individual postings. I don’t expect to earn much money from them but I do like to keep track of my earnings and now I can do it from right inside the WordPress interface. It only shows impressions, clicks, and earnings but what else is there? I have noticed the numbers are a little off compared to actually logging in to the AdSense console but it still gives me a reasonable idea. Screenshot »

Diagnosis - I like to know some of the geeky backbone information about the server running my blog and this plugin makes it real easy to dig ALL of that info up. It mostly tells me what version of PHP/MySQL is installed, the name of the server, what PHP extensions are loaded, and the database load. I mostly use it for the last item to make sure my database is chugging along swimmingly. Screenshot »

WordPress.com Stats - These give pretty much the same information as the Google Analytics reports mentioned above. I just use the WordPress stats for comparison reasons. Two perspectives are always better than one. Screenshot »

TD Wordcount - When you blog pretty much everyday it is amazing to look back and see how many words you have written over the life of your blog. TD Wordcount breaks it all down in a multitude of ways including total for published entries, total for unpublished entries, entry with most words, average words per post, percentage of posts with 300+ words per entry, how many words per author, and number of posts per author. I always get a kick out of these kinds of stats and as of this post I have written 24,820 words! Screenshot »

WP Plugins Tracker - With all of the plugins I needed a way to make sure I was up to date with the latest releases. Plugin tracker does just that by checking your installed plugin version with the current version in the WordPress Plugin Database. Screenshot »

Tomorrow I will take a look at article tool plugins that make my life easier when I am writing.

Over the next couple of days I will share my thoughts on my favorite WordPress plugins that are installed on this very blog. To make things easier, I have divided them up into four sections: the important ones, information aggregators, article tools, and syndication tools. Below are the ones that I feel every WordPress blog should have for a more stable and protected blog.

The Important Ones

WP-Cache - This plugin generates static HTML pages to serve up instead of hitting the database on the backend every time a user requests a page. Sending HTML is a lot less resource intensive and will fortify a blog from going under when a massive crowd pounces on the content, also known as the Digg effect. Screenshot »

Akismet - From the same people that created WordPress comes Akismet, the anti-spam plugin. Have you ever recieved a comment that seems like complete gibberish with a ton of scrupulus links? Then you have gotten attacked by comment spam. Akismet uses the wisdom of crowds and sends all of the comments you recieve through it’s barrage of tests to determine if it is real or junk. It’s free for personal use and is a snap to set-up with any WordPress blog. Screenshot »

Bad Behavior - In tandem with Akismet is Bad Behavior which aims to block most malicious spam bots from ever posting on your site to begin with. It says it has blocked 360 spam accesses in the past 7 days but I have no clear idea on what it is doing. All I had to do was install it and forget it so it is worth keeping around. Screenshot »

Tomorrow I will take a look at information aggregation plugins that make it easier to analyze trends with my blog.

Twitter has been pumping out new features these past couple of weeks. Their latest, which just launched this evening, is Blocks.

This is what it looks like and so far all I can figure out is blue squares are you, orange are your friends, and gray are um.. gray. You can click on squares to see the tweets of others. What is the point? Beats me.

Twitter Blocks was created by Stamen Design, the same folks who brought us those neat Digg visualizations.

Twitter also launched something a little more useful. Have you ever wanted to see a list of all the third party twitter apps in existence all in one spot? Then check out the Twitter Fan Wiki which categorizes apps into distinct categories for your exploration. I guess that is why they launched everything mentioned in this post at http://explore.twitter.com

This search engine optimization company has a slick website with a royal blue and white theme. The main category navigation has an interesting roll-over effect where the icons not selected become grayed out. A reader can maximize the reading room by hiding the nav area which slides shut thanks to the animation prowess of the Script.aculo.us library.

The only thing I would change would change about SEOStudio.co.uk would be the color of the type. Blue on blue provides a low contrast and to aide readability I would pick something lighter.

Smooth icons with a soft glow as well as the eye-catching color choice make this a site I’ll keep track of for times when I need some inspiration.

We bloggers always seem to be in a hurry. I always try to include a photo in all of my posts and when I am in a rush, waiting for the slow and bloated Photoshop to open is a real drag. That is why I rely on ImageWell whenever I am posting from my PowerBook. ImageWell features…

• Resize, Rotate, Crop and Flip
• Layering and Transparency controls for images and draw objects
• Web Preview and Quality/Size adjustment tool before uploading to the web
• Screen Grab feature grabs full screen, a selection on your screen, or window grab and automatically imports it into the well for instant editing and sending

I mostly use it to resize and compress larger image to fit on my blog but it provides other features that I may use in the future. The best thing of all is ImageWell is completely free! So if you constantly find yourself waiting for Photoshop to boot up just to make a minor change, consider using ImageWell and get back to your web work.

The original camera battery that came with my Canon Digital Rebel was starting to lose the ability to hold a full charge. I tried to squeeze every last drop out of the battery by constantly taking it out of the camera and holding it in my hand but even after this desperate measure it still would only last for about 20 minutes. So the first place I turned to find a new battery was eBay which has a wide range of BP-511 generic batteries to choose from. The prices were so good I ended up winning an auction for two batteries at the final price of $15.00, including shipping. Normally a single original Canon battery would go for $35.00 but I was willing to take the risk of going with a generic.

After a couple weeks of testing, the batteries are working great. They hold a charge for many photo sessions now and I can focus on taking more shots instead of worrying about how much juice I have left. Everything was great until I got to the point where I needed to take it out of my camera. The Digital Rebel has an orange latch that holds the battery snug and in place. When I would release the latch with the old battery, it would pop right up so I could grab hold of it and lift it out. These generic batteries are heavier than the original so when I released the latch the battery just sat there like a rock. It took me 15 minutes and a bobby pin to pry the thing out of my camera. This would not do if I were out shooting so I devised a quick fix.

Using regular scotch tape, I stretched out a piece and folded over the top of the tape back onto itself to make a firm loop. Next, I proceeded to cut the strip of tape in half vertically so I had two, long skinny strips with loops on the end. With the battery warning sticker as a guide, I pressed the two pieces of tape firmly in the groove leaving the loops hanging over the edge of the top of the battery. What I have left with is this…

Now I can easily hoist my batteries out of the camera turning a former deal-breaker trait into only a slight inconvenience. It still takes a little fiddling to pull the battery out but at least I don’t need to wiggle a bobby pin around the battery compartment. And the best part is they don’t get in the way of charging or using the battery. These knock-offs are totally worth the initial risk of going generic.

The Simpsons Movie manages to stay true to its television roots with off the wall hi-jinks and a familiar cast from everyone’s favorite fictional town. With 18 seasons under its belt, it would be a challenge to find someone who has not seen a single episode of the cartoon family. In fact, the main draw of this movie is the fact that it is, well, The Simpsons but 3x longer. Come to think of it, the trailer and TV commercials had nothing to do with the plot but captured the slapstick Simpsons-esque humor.

As I entered the theater I had no idea what was going to take place during the hour and a half running time but that didn’t really matter. In true Simpsons style, the story is set-up quickly through a series of random and seemingly unconnected events. Throughout the film the characters poke fun at everything from the government to the FOX network and even the idea that they are making a movie with the same stuff everyone has been enjoying for free on tv for the past 18 years.

Going from the TV screen to the silver screen did change a few things. For one thing, the movie is a bit edgier with some sort-of kind-of nudity, slightly harsher language, and a little more violence than you would normally see on the network TV version. But those things are what make the movie a movie, the freedom to push the content further with greater freedom of expression. The look also departed from the typical 2D animation to a more 2.5D cinematic cartoon. At first this look was a bit uncomfortable, but it grew on me through out the movie.

The bottom line is if you have ever been a fan of The Simpsons you will definitely want to see the movie. Those who don’t really like or understand The Simpsons are better off just skipping it since it captures the same aspects that everyone has come to love from the TV show. Besides, if you are not a big Simpsons fan then you will miss a lot of the inside jokes that make it that much funnier. If you do go, sit through the credits as there are a few extra little scenes sprinkled throughout.

I give the Simpsons Movie two thumbs up, 5/5 stars, 10/10, whatever the rating system is mostly because I am a big fan of the Simpsons in general. The film kept me laughing and managed to avoid being a half-assed theatrical port of a great television series.

Tonight Kristina and I went to a Bladensburg 7-11 which is one of a select few that have been converted into a Kwik-E-Mart. It was fun seeing the popular fictional brands as live products such as Buzz Cola and Squishees. The Simpsons convenience store facade was a big hit as there were people coming in taking pictures the whole time we were there. I managed to take a couple picture myself.

See the rest of the gallery

Other highlights of the trip included randomly seeing an old friend from college who happened to stop by the store after work and getting a banana Squishee. We also stocked up on Krusty-Os and Buzz Cola for later treats. Yummm! If you want to see a Kwik-E-Mart store near you then you better hurry because as of Saturday, July 28th, all of the stores wil revert back to plain old 7-11s.

I have tickets to see The Simpsons Movie tomorrow night after work and afterwards I will post my review for Simpsons Extravaganza Pt.2.

Former DV Guru blogger Ryan Bilsborrow-Koo let me in on his new side project The West Side. Set in a unique, alternate universe, it melds together elements of two disparate film genres: the grit of an urban setting with the tradition of the American Western.

After watching the single episode on the site I left astounded. The black and white treatment fits the tone of the story perfectly although technically there is some distracting digital noise in some dark scenes. That’s alright because the story definitely piques my interest as we follow Qasim, played by Damian Washington, as he introduces us to the desolate urban city in search of a drink. The episode felt a tad sluggish but at the end I wanted more. Hopefully The West Side can deliver episodes consistently as it builds its audience on the open frontier of the Internet.

Watch Episode 1 of The West Side.