Donna Vitan

There are an incredible selection of tools, software, add-ins and utilities that make the internet easier to manage and my life easy. The following are a few that I use for this site and at home/work use.

Internet:

• WordPress Blog system that does blogs and more.
• Firefox Incredible web browser that re-ignited the need to expect more out of the internet experience. Also kicks IE’s ass.
• Thunderbird Email program for offline and multiple account management.
• Gmail Web-based email service, great for when I’m all over the place but at my computer. Also capable of importing email from various accounts. (It’s great to have both online/offline access to my emails especially when it comes to work.)
• Google Analytics Not just another stat collector. An amazing tool for any site to help focus your site marketing campaigns, improve your site design and content. I figure, I’ll start this now and as I develop the site I’ll have a pretty good guide.
• SmartFTP Full featured, free FTP Program for Windows. Sooo easy to use.

Desktop Security: At this point it is always wise to set up your security in layers where one programs fails to detect a threat, another one will surely catch it. In the past I’ve only been aware of Norton and McAfee but I have come to understand that there so many programs out there that are available and free that offer equal to and sometimes substantially better protection.

• Ad-Aware SE Personal Scans your system, identifies and removes spyware programs.
• Spybot Search & Destroy Detect and remove adware from your system and registry.
• Zone Alarm Firewall Application-level personal firewall, blocks hackers, spyware and trojans from accessing the internet.
• AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition An easy to use anti-virus program with low system resource requirements, includes automatic update functionality and real-time protection.

WordPress Plugins:

• Akismet Spam prevention for comments.
• Google Analyticator Include your Google Analytics UID which is an in-depth and sexy tracking system for your site.
• Sidebar Widgets Easily configure your sidebar and adds del.icio.us. bookmarks and Google Search to the sidebar.
• Adhesive Designate a post as a sticky.
• Votio Lets readers vote and shows results at the bottom of the post.
• WP-Stats Display your WordPress Statistics
• WP-PostViews Shows your Post Views
• WP-ContactForm A Simple way to include a contact form in any page.
• Sidebar Editor

Firefox Extensions:

• Web Developer Adds a menu/toolbar to the browser with various developer tools.
• FlashGot Handle single to massive download manager.
• PDF Download Allows you the freedom to choose whether to open a PDF or save it.
• Bookmarks Synchronizer 3 Upload/download bookmarks using FTP in order to synchronize my home/work bookmarks.
• Greasemonkey Lets you control how you experience websites from blocking scripts to improving a particular site’s usability.
• MinimizeToTray Keeps your toolbar free.
• BlueFrog SRT Allows you to report sites as spam/phishers.
• IE Tab Open IE only sites
• Tab Mix Plus Adds that extra bit of functionality to tabs, I especially like the Undo Close Tab.

Thunderbird Extensions:

• Remove Duplicate Messages
• Toggle HTML
• Signature Switch
• MinimizeToTray
• BlueFrog Stop Spam. Fight back.

The great thing about this is that these are all free. Some have options to upgrade to paid professional versions and most appreciate donations to continue to update and develop further improvements. Enjoy.