{"id":2420,"date":"2011-04-13T17:50:03","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T16:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulgoodchild.net\/blog\/?page_id=2420"},"modified":"2012-02-12T17:16:36","modified_gmt":"2012-02-12T17:16:36","slug":"essential-toolkit","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/essential-toolkit\/","title":{"rendered":"Essential Toolkit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I use lots of different tools on my quest to compute better, share information and even make money online. Below, laid out in categories is a Rolodex of sorts, outlining all the different software and services I use.<\/p>\n<p>If you sign up for free updates, you&#8217;ll also get access to a free e-book that gives you 5 Top PC Tech Tips to read at your leisure &#8211; have a look at the form on the right -&gt;<\/p>\n<h2>Computing Software and Tools<\/h2>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Mozilla Firefox<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">An essential piece of software for every computer is a good web browser. <a title=\"Mozilla Web Browser Download\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mozilla.com\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Go and pick it up here<\/a>. It also wouldn&#8217;t do any harm to <a title=\"Download Internet Explorer\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beautyoftheweb.com\/#\/download\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">update your internet explorer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Piriform CCleaner and Defraggler<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">You need to <a title=\"How I compute \u2013 Part 3: Tackling the bloat\" href=\"http:\/\/paulgoodchild.net\/blog\/how-to\/how-i-compute-part-3-tackling-the-bloat\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">clean out your computer regularly<\/a> and optimize the data on it. Cleaning your computer is easy, but you need a tools. Grab <a title=\"Piriform CCleaner and Defraggler Download\" href=\"http:\/\/www.piriform.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">CCleaner and Defraggler<\/a> here.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Lastpass<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I can&#8217;t say enough good things about this free password saving tool. It seriously is the last password you&#8217;ll ever need to remember. <a title=\"Lastpass\" href=\"http:\/\/lastpass.com\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Go get it<\/a>!<\/p>\n<h2>Personal Development and Productivity Tools<\/h2>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Online Accounting<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">A very simple way to manage your freelance work, keep track of projects and expenses, file your taxes, and charge clients: <a title=\"FreeAgent\" href=\"http:\/\/paulgoodchild.net\/blog\/tools-software-i-use\/freeagent\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">FreeAgent<\/a> !<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Workflowy<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">If you like making lists, you&#8217;ll love <a title=\"Workflowy - lists for list-geeks\" href=\"http:\/\/workflowy.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Workflowy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">750words<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The perfect online tool for journalling and <a title=\"750words: online journalling and morning pages tool\" href=\"http:\/\/750words.com\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">writing your Morning Pages<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Blogging and Websites<\/h2>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">WordPress<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">This is the platform upon which this website is running and forms the foundation of all my websites. You can download it from <a title=\"Wordpress Home\" href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.org\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress.org<\/a>, but most web hosts offer the ability to install WordPress quickly and automatically.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Host Like Toast: Managed WordPress Hosting<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I&#8217;m a little biased here because I&#8217;m operate and use my own hosting service. We&#8217;ve been running web hosting for nearly a decade and we&#8217;ve been running on WordPress for years. Check us out.<a title=\"Host Like Toast: Managed WordPress Hosting\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hostliketoast.com\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Host Like Toast: Managed WordPress Hosting<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">worpit<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">If you have more than 1 WordPress website, this <a title=\"worpit: Faster WordPress Admin\" href=\"http:\/\/worpit.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress management tool is essential<\/a>. And it&#8217;s FREE!<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">WordPress Plugins<\/h3>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<li>Digital Access Pass &#8211; WordPress Membership plugin: I have written an <a title=\"How I created a complete membership site with WordPress\" href=\"http:\/\/paulgoodchild.net\/blog\/2011\/03\/how-created-complete-membership-site-wordpress\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">article about Digital Access Pass here<\/a>. Or you can go straight to the <a title=\"Digital Access Pass\" href=\"http:\/\/paulgoodchild.net\/blog\/tools-software-i-use\/digital-access-pass\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Digital Access Pass website here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Configure SMTP WordPress Plugin\" href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.org\/extend\/plugins\/configure-smtp\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Configure SMTP<\/a> &#8211; Allows you to specify SMTP servers from which to send email from the Blog &#8211; best of all you can use your Gmail or Google Apps accounts.<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Digg Digg WordPress Plugin\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mkyong.com\/blog\/digg-digg-wordpress-plugin\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Digg Digg<\/a> &#8211; Lots of social networking tools for sharing<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Feedburner WordPress Plugin\" href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/support\/feedburner\/bin\/answer.py?answer=78483\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Feedburner Feedsmith<\/a> &#8211; I use Google Feedburner to manage my <a title=\"How to reclaim your time with Google Reader!\" href=\"http:\/\/paulgoodchild.net\/blog\/2010\/07\/how-to-reclaim-time-google-reader\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">RSS feeds<\/a> and this plugin is essential.<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Gravity Forms\" href=\"http:\/\/paulgoodchild.net\/blog\/tools-software-i-use\/gravity-forms\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Gravity Forms<\/a> &#8211; perhaps one of the best tools for creating contact and order forms for WordPress.<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Google XML Sitemaps WordPress Plugin\" href=\"http:\/\/www.arnebrachhold.de\/redir\/sitemap-home\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Google XML Sitemaps<\/a> &#8211; essential so that search engines can crawl and index your website<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Google Analytics WordPress Plugin\" href=\"http:\/\/ronaldheft.com\/code\/analyticator\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Google Analytics<\/a> &#8211; the other half of the Google Analytics equation<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Smart Youtube WordPress Plugin\" href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.org\/extend\/plugins\/smart-youtube\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Smart Youtube<\/a> &#8211; you can insert Youtube videos very easily with this plugin!<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"WP Touch WordPress Plugin\" href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.org\/extend\/plugins\/wptouch\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">WPtouch<\/a> &#8211; Makes sure your website is easily read and accessed on iPhones and other Smartphones. It has a free version and a paid version.<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"W3 Total Cache WordPress Plugin\" href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.org\/extend\/plugins\/w3-total-cache\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">W3 Total Cache<\/a> &#8211; Optimizes your site for faster access and download by people who visit your site &#8211; essential!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">WordPress Themes<\/h3>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<li><a title=\"Thesis Theme Affiliate\" href=\"http:\/\/paulgoodchild.net\/blog\/tools-software-i-use\/thesis-theme\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Thesis Theme<\/a> &#8211; This site, and 3 other websites I have created run on this theme framework.<\/li>\n<li>Press75 &#8211; my new website is running on one of the themes from Press75. When you purchase Press75, you get access to <strong>all<\/strong> the themes they have. It&#8217;s a great resource!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Keyword Tools and SEO<\/h3>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<li><a title=\"Market Samurai\" href=\"http:\/\/paulgoodchild.net\/blog\/tools-software-i-use\/market-samurai\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Market Samurai<\/a> &#8211; probably thee standard in Keyword and SEO research for just about any website or project. You can download a fully functional version for absolutely free and once the trial finishes, you get to keep the keyword research tool.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">If you like making lists, you&#8217;ll love <a title=\"Workflowy - lists for list-geeks\" href=\"http:\/\/workflowy.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Workflowy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I use lots of different tools on my quest to compute better, share information and even make money online. Below, laid out in categories is a Rolodex of sorts, outlining all the different software and services I use. If you sign up for free updates, you&#8217;ll also get access to a free e-book that gives [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2420","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Essential Toolkit - Plog - Paulie&#039;s Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/essential-toolkit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Essential Toolkit - Plog - Paulie&#039;s Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I use lots of different tools on my quest to compute better, share information and even make money online. 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