A Collection of Useful Tools

“He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, although he is a tool.” – Michael Scott, The Office

HTML Tutorial
It’s always helpful to know some HTML basics while blogging. HTML is super-simple to learn and this site provides a full tutorial with definitions, exercises, examples, FAQs for learning just the basics or more advanced HTML. It also includes a very handy tag list.

Add This
AddThis claims to be the number one bookmarking and sharing button, and I have to admit, I am partial to it. It’s always handy to allow your visitors to bookmark and share your site with other people (which will, in turn, increase your traffic). The button is a nice, clutter-free alternative to many other similar tools.

Lulu Self Publishing
Lulu provides a method for independent publishers to publish their work on a print-on-demand basis – you pay for only the copies you actually buy. If you have a crapload of blog content and want to take the next step – but, for whatever reason, don’t want to go with a traditional publisher, Lulu can be an inexpensive way to publish your work while retaining full copyright; however, it’s up to you to market and sell your publication.

Drupal
I prefer Drupal to most other content management systems I’ve tried, as I find it more intuitive than most, the designs tend to be a little more creative (which is awesome for those of us who don’t want to worry about the design portion of a blog and want to focus on content alone), and it’s super-easy to add modules and perform updates. This site has a fantastic community with lots of support documentation and discussions. I’m a fan.

Alexa
Founded in 1996, Alexa is one of the older and more established metrics sites. Although I haven’t used their toolbar, I am, of course, familiar with many of their other services, such as their site information features, which include statistics and related links for an unparalleled database of sites. In addition, Alexa offers the ever-popular “Movers & Shakers” and “Hot Searches” (what people search for) services.

Google Trends
Google Trends allows you to tap into Google’s database to find out what’s popular. You can enter up to five topics to see how often they’ve been searched on Google over time. With “Hot Trends”, you’ll receive a snapshot view of the fastest rising searches for different points of time (updated hourly).