As some of you may know, my primary blogging applications are on Linux based PC’s, however a large portion of my clients and visitors are Windows based and several have asked me what I think would be the best software for Windows based bloggers – To improve productivity, safeguard information, enhance research and communication. I prefer to take a frugal approach to answering such questions, after all, why incur extra costs when you don’t have to?

Side note: Many of these applications are also available to my Linux friends (and Mac) too.

For all those who asked, and those interested to know, I’m sure something on the list below will be useful:

1) eMail Communication.

Thunderbird is an email client that features intelligent (learning) spam filters, spell checker and customizable layout. It provides IMAP/POP support, HTML email composing, email search, address book, advanced message filtering, address completion, import tools, and multiple email and (RSS) newsgroup accounts. You can add extensions for extra features including:

• Quicktext email template creation and for super fast addition of predefined text snippets to an email message.
• Display Mail User Agent so that you can better see what application is sending you email. This helps in avoiding spoofed email. For example, Google is never going to send you email using Outlook Express.
• Duplicate Contact Manger helps you avoid duplicated contacts in your address book.
• Multi Language Dictionaries allow you to customize your spell checking option.

2) Web Surfing.

Firefox helps you browse web pages faster (for improved researching), more safely, and more efficiently. Some good features are pop up blocking, tabbed browsing to let you view multiple web pages in a single window, and opening links in the background so that they’re ready for viewing when you’re ready to read them. Again, there are several plugins I use, which may also aid you. Some of the ones I find most helpful (among others) are:

• Add Bookmark Here 2 is an extension that facilitates adding your bookmark to any category without wading through the menu system.
• Colourful Tabs creates a different colour for each tab. It makes tabs easy to see and easy to switch too when I have an excessive number of tabs open. (Which happens often when I’m conducting online research).
• Copy Plain Text helps me avoid the formatting when I am copying text between pages and blog posts. Nothing’s more annoying then copying text to find it’s also duplicated the font, colour, font size, etc. This extension gives you the choice to copy something as plain text only.
• Kgen allows us to see which keywords are strong on our blog post and pages. Then we can use them on social sites as more effective (and relevant) tags or for SEO (Search Engine Optimization.
• PrintPDF enables a simple print to pdf function for Firefox. Simple and useful.
• Read It Later is one of the tools I use the most! Sometimes I don’t really need to keep a bookmark of a page; I just need a way to flag it for later reading. This extension does just that, it helps me avoid cluttering my bookmarks with pages I’ll probably only read once or twice.
• Reload Every will reload a web page every so many seconds or minutes (that you set). It is very useful for pages where the content is changing. For example, I use it when sniping items on eBay, (this allows me to place a bid at the last possible moment). It’s an automated way to keep refreshing content in your browser window.
• SEOQuake is a robust tool that helps with SEO and Internet promotion. It’s an intelligence and investigation tool that simplifies your access to pagerank, indexing, keywords, social site inbound links and other features.
• TagSifter is a way to tag each bookmark you make (with one or more tags). This makes searching for bookmarks or related bookmarks, faster and simpler.
• Update Scanner is useful to us when a site does not have an RSS feed as it monitors site changes. It also helps us monitor changes to pages (also when the changes won’t be found in a site’s RSS feed).

3) File Uploading.

Filezilla is an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) application that allows you to upload and download files to and from your server. One useful feature is the ability to resume (in case the connection to your web hosting server is interrupted. Most of us will use the Filezilla Client (not Server).

4) Content Mirroring.

HTTrack helps keep a local copy of all your blog content on your local PC. While I always stress that you must keep an off site, current backup of your blog files and database in your possession at all times. This tool will maintain a full copy of your blog content on your PC, or on your laptop. It also allows you to display your blog when a web connection in unavailable.

5) Web Browsing Safety.

PeerGuardian helps protect us form visiting bad sites as it maintains an IP blacklist. If a web site or blog is hosted on a blacklisted IP, PeerGuardian will intervene to safeguard you.

6) Offline Blogging.

w.bloggar is a tool that I can take with me (on a USB flash drive). It allows us to edit posts when we are not connected to the Internet. It also allows us to create posts when not connected to the Internet. Our content is save locally. When we have a connection we can simply publish our changes and new posts and voilà, they will appear in our blog.

7) Healthy Blogging.

Workrave helps me in preventing of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). It frequently alerts me to take small pauses, rest breaks and restricts me to my daily limit. I find I’m in front of the PC all day and this application helps me avoid not only wrist, arm, shoulder and neck pain; but also helps avoid eye strain.

8) Accounting Information.

GnuCash is a personal and also a small business accounting package. I like it because it is cross platform friendly (meaning I can use it on Linux and Windows). It’s easier to use than the name may suggest. <Smiling here>.

9) Presentation Creation.

Wink is a great tool for those of use who need to create tutorials and presentations for our blogs.

10) Traffic Building Tool.

TweetDeck, being one of the most recent applications I use to monitor twitter as well as communicate with twitter users. It’s simpler to use (in my opinion) than some of the other applications I’ve tried. It helps me break down the communication into manageable chunks, that way I’m not spending excessive time on twitter.

11) Document Creation.

OpenOffice helps me create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. I use it to create seminar presentations and documents for my blog clients. Again, there are a fair number of extensions that allow you to improve upon features and enhance your blogging productivity: Open Office extensions.

12) Graphic Creation.

Gimp helps me retouch photos or create new images. It also comes with a long list of plugins, from which you can select and install.

13) Time Tracking.

ToDoList facilitates time tracking using timers you can activate when you are working on a task. It helps make time tracking painless and improves productivity (as you can see where your time is spent and where you could better spend it). You’ll notice it has lots of other features too.

14) Desktop Publishing.

Scribus is a desktop publishing software that with an intuitive interface; usable for press-ready documents. Again it’s cross platform ready, so I can create print page layouts on Linux, Mac or Windows.

15) Data Backup.

BackupPC is my favourite automated backup system. It back up all the important data on my blogging computer to another server (which in my case is on an internal network). It helps prevent data loss if my PC fails (saving my contacts, documents, bookmarks, images, PDF’s, etc.)

As may be evident, there’s not a lot of “extra” software installed on my “Blogging Box” (the PC I use exclusively for blogging). It’s a lean, mean machine. Humour aside, one aspect to good applications and good productivity is to eliminate the “fluff” and interruptions in your work flow. Again, one huge benefit is that all the software is free, there is no cost.

While I’m sure many of you may have seen or use other applications I’ve not mentioned (or may not have considered), this list is by no means exclusive. What applications do you think are good for bloggers? What big omissions have I made? Comment below and let us know what else should be on this list.