Oh, and tell us about your favorite plugins in the comments!

Zemanta

Zemanta is very useful for bloggers, because when you write a post, Zemanta browses the Internet for related pictures and links you can add to your post. We all know that 50% of a blog post is searching for pictures and links to link the words you want, but Zemanta makes it really easy for you. It also features other cools stuff, such as re-posting content you find on the Net. It integrates especially well with Wordpress. Just open an editing tab with Zemanta on, and see what happens

DownThemAll!
An awesome Download Manager. Speeds up the downloads a bit and enables you to resume them, also has a cool “DTaOneClick” feature, that makes it easy to download files to desired directories with just one click. It also doesn’t bug you like the default Download Manager.

BugMeNot Firefox plugin

Every wanted to just check out some text or a part of content in a site that you’re not registered on, but requires you to be? Save time with the Bugmenot extension.

“BugMeNot will log in for you automatically using user-submitted passwords. Features: multiple login attempts, failure reporting, and auto-submittal.”

Yeah, it simply synchronizes bookmarks. BUT! Now it can also store passwords and share them between Firefox setups. You unlock them using your PIN. It’s not that safe, but I believe many people will find it very useful. Of course, there’s always Weave if you need more functions.

RoboForm

Another time saver, especially if you have to sign up for different thins very often:

“If you use RoboForm for web form filling, site logins, and/or password management, be sure to use the extension for Firefox.”

Runners-up:

• FireFTP
• ScribeFire
• AdBlock Plus

While others are fantasizing about Microsoft’s Yahoo offer, I’ve got something that’s even more important to talk about.

I started blogging last summer: a local SEO experiment. Didn’t work. Updating daily wasn’t a challenge, but slowly I lost my passion.

That’s when it hit me: passion is what drives blogging. Only with passion (or 20 Indian ghostwriters, which I sadly cannot afford) can one sustain a certain quality level through a long period of time. And so, The Internetling was born. A blog where I post what I like, and not what I have to. It changed the game a lot. I enjoy writing posts a lot now and always take time to proof-read and improve.

While I was not an active blogger back in 2007, I’ve been following many interesting blogs. I still remember how I gobbled up all of those articles, and the overwhelming desire to guest post. I was aware of course, that for these bloggers you have to write quality stuff and have authority. Well, maybe someday, who knows

Now, back to the topic. I want to tell you about a few who radiated this passion. And you, loyal readers (and those who hate me, but still subscribe for some weird reason) have them to thank for what The Internetling has become. I like The Internetling as it is, and am not worried about the growth. What drives me now, and this I learned from these bloggers, is the pure joy of blogging.

Oh, and if you were perhaps wondering, John Chow ain’t one of them

And now, you guys who managed to read all this trash above, I present to you:

1) Martin Reed of CommunitySpark

Promotion sure goes a long way: I first stumbled upon Martin’s blog when John Chow posted a paid review of Martin’s blog, Community Spark. This blog is about community building, administration and marketing. It is very nice to read, his style is very calm and his mind evidently doesn’t skip from topic to topic like mine. Recommended. I still read all the posts, although it’s been eons since I’ve commented. Hope this little review will make up for it.

2) Nate Whitehill

Now I don’t remember really how I first got to Nate’s blog. It was probably through some blogroll, who knows. Well, I’ve been reading Nate’s blog since the very beginning (end of January, start of February 2007). His blog has seen rapid growth last year and is showing no signs of stopping, but what I really like at Nate’s blog is that you can see how much work is involved: very down-to-earth! Of course, I never met Nate in person but he seems like a very nice person. Be sure to check his popular posts.

And Nate, if you’re reading this, show some love for us who don’t have Cinema displays - I can hardly see teh first post on my 19″ Sony

3) John Waraas

Well John, you’re famous now!

My first dose of Waraas was his post abotu buying a house (no way guys, I’m waaay too lazy to find it and link it). His blog has got lots of interesting content you don”t find on other sites. I won’t argue about his SEO techniques, let the slogan ‘Evil SEO‘ speak for itself. On John’s blog, you can learn a lot just by reading a few of the posts, plus his writing is really fun to read. Just recently noticed he’s a member of Sitepoint, like me.

4) Darren of Problogger

I think Darren has seen quite a few reviews, I can imagine. I like Problogger for the same reason most people like it: the good design (thank goodness he ditched the old one), the high, consistent posting quality, and frequency. Darren simply pwnz the other A-listers.

Right, Chow wins in the evil category, I admit that

Well, that’s it. Check out these blogs, every single one is very interesting and full of cool content. I hope these blogs gain even more influence - it would be very positive for the blogosphere. Keep up the good work!

Don’t you just hate it when you have to fire up your browser, navigate to your page and finally log-in every time you want to blog? When I see that TinyMCE editor window I always remember how it remains one of the most serious web productivity punches in the faces of bloggers.

I set off to find a tool which could make my one-click blogging dream come true. Some of these tools are not perfect, it also depends on the platform you use. But let’s face it, serious people mostly use Wordpress, MovableType, or Blogger (still wondering why about this one), so that is going to be the support I’ll be looking for.

Flock

If it ran as well on my MacBook as on my PC, it would most certainly be my browser of choice (I’m waiting for the upcoming release) . The niftiest feature it’s got is of course the blogging tool. Flock integrates with many Web 2.0 services, such as Youtube, Flickr etc. and last but not least, blogs. By pressing the blog button, you get a great text field where you can blog and publish your post from. It supports Wordpress and Blogger, although it sadly lacks MovableType support. There’s still support for TypePad, though note that TypePad is a service, like Blogger, using MovableType as a platform. COnsequently, I cannot guarantee It’ll work with your self-hosted MovableType blog. If you’re a Flock and MovableType user, a comment would be welcome indeed

ScribeFire (former Performancing) for Firefox

This plugin has been recommended to me numerous times. So why not try it out? It’s boasts a great deal of cool features, like multi-blogging. The main site doesn’t show what blogs are suported. WordPress, Blogger, and LiveJournal should work. After you install the plugin you can always open it by simply clicking the small ‘notepad’ button in the lower-right corner toolbar.

Ecto

During my search for the best blog tool, I discovered there are many paid tools. Ecto is one of them. It doesn’t work in the browser, it’s a standalone piece of software, for both Mac OSX and Windows (pro’lly works on other OSes with Wine, though). I don’t think paying for a blogging tool is really necessary, but hey, Darren likes it and maybe you will too. It is packed with features, like multiple blog posting, offline blogging, and supports all of the blogging platforms you’ll ever need.

Where do you blog from?