Bloggers, there are lots of things you’ve to keep an eye on, and most of the time, you’ll need the help of different programs for different needs. Sure, there are more web tools for the job, but nothing can get to give you the convenience and speed that desktop applications offer. So, here goes a list of over 30 handpicked application, that can possibly increase a blogger’s productivity.

Desktop Blogging Clients

Post to your blog straigth from the desktop.

Windows Live Writer – One of the best. Plugins can be added to increase its power. Check out our review here.
w.bloggar (Windows only) – Available as a full and portable version (can run from USB thumbdrive).

AIRPress (Windows, Mac) – Adobe AIR based blog editor for WordPress blogs. AIRPress requires Adobe AIR beta 2 to work. If it’s not installed already, it will be auto installed with AIRPress.
Thingamablog (Window, Mac, Linux)
Qumana (Windows, Mac)
BlogDesk (Windows) – Optimized for WordPress, MovableType, Drupal, Serendipity and ExpressionEngine.

Statistics Tools

Monitor websites traffic and other stats.

Google Analytics (AIR) – Check detailed traffic stats from the desktop. Works both on Mac and Windows PCs. Google Analytics account required.
Snoop (Mac, Win) – Track website visitors in real time staight from the desktop. Stats provided by reinvigorate.net

SERPs Finder (Win) – Find where your page lists for a particular keyword on Google, Live and Yahoo! Search.

Screen Capturing Tools

Snippy (Windows) – System Tray Tool for screen capturing. Mark out the region of the screen that you want to copy — and Snipp it.
Clip2Net (Windows) – Take screenshots, add notes and arrows, and save them online.
WebShot (Windows) – One more screesnhot grabber, free version is quite limited, but still does the job.

Camstudio (Windows) – Capture screen activity (vide+audio) and save it in AVI or SWF format.
Windows Media Encoder – Capture audio and video content and encode video captures to WMV format.
SnagIt 7 (Windows) – Powerful screenshot capture and editing tool. Normally it costs $29 but version 7 is available for free. Unfortunately, the promotion period is over.

Image Editing Programs

GIMP (Win, Linux) – Free Photoshop alternative. Also see Gimpshop which even looks like Photopshop.
Paint.NET (Win) – Another open source software tool for your image editing needs.
IrfanView (Win) – Worth a mention here, it’s an image viewer with a few editing capabilities.

FTP Programs

Filezilla (Win, Mac, Linux) – Open Source FTP Client. Read MakeUseOf review here.
FireFTP (Win, Mac, Linux) – FTP extension for your Firefox browser.

Keyword Research

Good Keywords (Win) – Excellent too for finding suitable keywords for your article titles. MakeUseOf review: Get Your Keywords Right.

Microblogging Tools

Pwytter (Win, Mac, Linux) – Cross-platofrm Twitter client.
Twitbin – Firefox Extension for Twittering
OutTwit – Twitter client for Outlook. If you’re interested check out more Outlook addons here.

Pownce Client – Official Pownce clients for Mac and Windows. [What is Pownce ?]

Task Management

Rainlendar (Win) – One of the best desktop calendar apps for Windows.
Essential PIM (Win) – A free personal information manager.

Offline HTML editors

First Page (Win) – Two paned windows HTML editor.
KomPozer (Win, Mac, Linux) – Extremely easy to use and ideal for non-technical users.

Miscellaneous

WordPress Comment Moderation Notifier – Get notifications when there are comments that need to be moderated.

That’s about it. Do you have a must-see program that’s not on the above list? Let us know in comments.

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