Kindles aren’t just for books. People also subscribe to blogs on their Kindles. It usually costs around $1.99 a month (the price is set by Amazon) and is a great way to offer your content to all those people who woke up to find Kindles under the Christmas Tree/Menorah/Festivus Pole. When they subscribe, every new post you make is delivered to their Kindle (no need for them to remember to check your blog!). You are paid 30% of the fee Amazon charges.

Register With Amazon’s Kindle Publishing Program

It is cost-free and simple to register with Amazon’s Kindle Publishing program. If you do not already have one, you will need to create a vendor account, which is different from your regular Amazon account.  Read through the terms, because you are agreeing to obligations on pricing, content, timing and termination details. You will agree to terms for both the US and European markets.

At the end of the registration process you will be given a Vendor ID and Amazon will have all your payment details. You’re in business!

Add A Blog

When you have finished registering you will be taken to you dashboard. Click the “Add A Blog” link on the top right hand corner. This is where you fill in all the information that will let both Amazon find the posts from your blog and send them to your readers’ Kindles.

Filling In The “Add Blog” Page

Find Your Feed

If you aren’t familiar with RSS and feeds, don’t worry. Most blogging platforms (not to mention Twitter and Facebook) use feeds to distribute your content. It’s usually easy to findGo to your blog and look for the RSS symbol (possibly in the address bar of your browser) and click on it. It will take you to a page that has an address something like “http://yourdoman.com/feed”. Copy that, and paste it into the first box on the Add A Blog page. Click ‘validate feed’ to make sure Amazon is looking in the right place for your blog.

Enter Blog Information

If your blog didn’t have a snappy title before, now’s the time to give it one. Your blog is going to be competing with thousands of others for Kindle readers’ attention. Just calling it “Julie’s musings on writing” isn’t going to cut it. In fact, you might want to add a tag line too. (for example, the blog I listed is my Story A Day blog, aimed at creative writers. I use a tagline there that addresses a  ’pain point’ for my potential readers — aspiring writers who wish the could write more: “Write Every Day, Not “Some Day”.

Blog Description

Make your description snappy and to the point. Tell the readers what they are going to get out of paying for your blog every month. What concerns are you addressing?

Screenshots & Logo

Upload a couple of pictures, one a screenshot of your blog and the other your ‘masthead’ or logo. People are extremely visual, but remember that most people reading on an actual Kindle device are only going to see these things in black and white. Try to keep the contrast high and the images clean.

Website Info

Very important: enter your website address! You want  your new fans to be able to find your website, don’t you? You’re not going to get rich selling Kindle blog subscriptions (unless you get insanely popular) so the whole point of publishing here is to expand your reach. Let people know where to find you!

Category & Keyword Information

Category and keywords are going to be very important in helping people find your blog.

If you don’t know what keywords to use: steal.

Go to a successful blog online that covers the same topics as you. From your browser’s toolbar select View / Page Source of View Source. A whole bunch of HTML will open up in a text window. Don’t worry too much about it. Just look for the line that says “meta name=”keywords” and then you’ll be able to see what that site is using. Take your inspiration from that (don’t actually steal. That was a joke.)

Language & Frequency

Select your language and tell Amazon how often you’re going to post. Be conservative (you can update it later). If you are new to blogging and/or the sole author on your site, don’t promise daily posts. Unless, of course, you have an airtight plan for how you are going to churn out seven awesome posts a week.

Almost Done

At this point you can save your work and generate a preview of how your blog will look in the Kindle store. (This takes a few minutes, and is optional)

If you’re happy with how everything looks, press “Publish” and wait the 48-72 hrs they say it’ll take to get you set up in the store (in reality it took less than 24 for mine to appear).

Tell People About Your Blog

Kindle blogs are listed by category. Within each category the default view is “most popular” blogs at the top.

Your blog, on its first day, is not going to be there. You’re going to have to tell people it’s there, so they can subscribe and help you move up the charts.

To find your blog: Go to the Amazon store and search for “Your Blog Name” and the word “Blog”. This should bring you to your blog’s sales page.

Copy the address (use an affiliate link if you like) and then go forth and promote.

Good luck!

Another generation of Kindle is here, Kindle 3 and now you’re asking yourself,

“Should I buy a Kindle 3?”

With the new, wi-fi only Kindle 3 priced at only $139, how much longer are you going to be able to resist? (The Kindle 3 wireless version, with free 3G connectivity AND wi-fi, is still $189. The new version of the larger Kindle DX is $379)

What’s New With Kindle 3 And Do I Care?

Have you read my Kindle FAQ, yet? If you have basic questions, start here.

High-Contrast Screen

The big thing that caught my attention about the Kindle 3 were the words:

“All-New, High-Contrast E-Ink Screen, 50% better contrast than any other e-reader”

If I’m totally honest, I’ll admit that I was a bit disappointed with the contrast on my Kindle 2. The page seemed a little greyer than on my original Kindle and I would have loved just a bit more contrast. It never bothers me when reading in natural light, but under poor light conditions it made a difference.

They’re touting ‘new, improved fonts’ too, which is always nice.

Faster Page Turns

You really do adjust to the flickery, eInk page turns, but making them “20% faster” is no bad thing.

Double The Storage Space

I’ve never had a problem with my Kindle becoming too full because I archive books (send them back to the Amazon server) once I’ve finished with them. Slurping them back into the Kindle is a matter of a minute or so.

Some people might like to have all their books right on the device all the time, however. With the new “wi-fi only” option, too, having your books on the device makes sense, in case you aren’t within wi-fi range when you feel a desperate urge to re-read last summer’s hot thriller.

Smaller Body, Same Screen Size

Anything than makes the Kindle easier to slip in to a pocket or handbag is a good thing.

Less body also means a lighter Kindle, although I already thing it’s a great weight.

I just hope the new, smaller body still leaves somewhere to grip onto without covering the screen in smudgy fingerprints.

Quieter Turn Buttons

This is a wonderful thing for those of us who like to read in bed while someone else is falling asleep next to us. I’ve been accused of something close to Chinese Water Torture while clicking my way through a book some evenings….

Enhanced PDF Reader

Kindle 2 had PDF support added as an after-thought. This one has an enhanced reader with dictionary look up and the ability to make notes and highlights.

PDFs are always going to be at war with progress, however, as they were created to fix a page-design to a certain format and new technological interfaces are all about reshaping content and delivering it how the reader (not the author) wants it presented.

However, if you do read PDFs on your Kindle, it’s certainly be nice to make notes and highlights.

New Web Browser

If you don’t have a smart-phone and you don’t have an iPad or another way to easily access the web while away from your desk, this might excite you. It certainly excited me when I got my Kindle…but then I got a smart-phone and never used this function on the Kindle again. Still, nice to see they’re working to improve it.

There are two versions of this new, dark-grey Kindle available:

The all-singing, all-dancing download-books-anywhere version for $189 and

The slightly less flamboyant Wi-Fi-only

Does “Wi-Fi Only” Mean And Will I Hate It?

So I’ve been talking about this “wi-fi only” feature on the cheapest Kindle.  What does that mean?

Well, on the other Kindles, you use the cell-phone network to download books directly to your Kindle. You don’t need a plan or anything: Amazon has a deal worked out with Sprint and they pick up the cost (or the publishers do…but that’s getting too far behind the scenes. All you need to know is is you get free access to the Amazon store wherever you are, as long as you are in range of a cell tower).

“Wi-fi only” is going to be more restrictive. Like the early iPads, these Kindles will only connect to the store if your home has a wireless network (can you browse the web from your laptop on the sofa? Then you probably do) or if are in a wi-fi hotspot (like a McDonalds or a Starbucks or one of the zillion other places that offer Wi-Fi to entice people to come and hang out there).

So, you won’t be able to download books as you stroll down the street.

You will have to find and  access an open wireless network

BUT

• If you are doing most of your reading at home, or have easy access to lots of wi-fi hotspot
• If you don’t care about downloading books wherever you are and can probably wait until you get home to do it
• If you want to save $50 on the device and buy yourself five books instead…

This is a great deal. Buy it now!

Let me be upfront right, er, up front: I love my Kindle (s). But I was intrigued by the iPad because it was so damned new and sexy and multifuction and did I mention new and sexy?

I had used my iPhone’s Kindle app as a portable ebook reader, for those times when I didn’t feel like lugging my Kindle along with me, and it was more than fine.So I was worried.

I was worried that the iPad was going to be really great and pretty and that my Kindle(s ¹) were going to end up sitting on shelves looking like really expensive white bookends.

The iPad IS Really Sexy

There is no denying this. When you turn on the iPad and that gorgeous display lights up and things start whooshing, and the colours are crisp and the text looks good, it is hard to imagine how the Kindle stands a chance against it. I wasn’t sure I even wanted it to.

When I opened up the iBooks app and saw the truly gorgeous (colour) rendition of AA Milne’s The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh I was torn between admiration and regret. How could my beloved eInk compete? So does it?

Using the same rating system I used in my review of the Kindle 2, here are my thoughts on using the iPad (version 1) as an ebook reader:

THE REVIEW

KEY

:(  A Bad Thing

:|  No strong feeling either way

:)  A Good Thing

:D  A Very Good Thing

:( The Weight and Feel

From an eBook reader’s perspective: it’s quite heavy and hard to hold in one hand. There is no way to really hold it centered in one hand and not obscure some of the text. (Kindle 1 had a similar problem in that it was tough to hold it in one hand and not accidentally press the ‘next page’ button). And that rounded back has to go, but that’s a complaint for a different article.

After having used this for a week or so, I’m finding it increasingly hard to hold for long periods. If you are a voracious reader, like me, the last thing you want is something that makes you want to put the book down (it’s why I don’t like hardbacks, to0)

:| The Size

I am undecided on this one. On the one hand, you can see bigger and better books on the iPad, and you can turn it to the landscape view really easily². But it’s big. It’s not as portable as either the Kindle or the iPhone, and it doesn’t sit easily in one hand.

:( Backlighting

I read computer screens all the time and I wasn’t sure I really bought the whole “backlighting strains your eyes” thing until I had my Kindle. It doesn’t really register as eyestrain, but after a (long)  while staring at a computer screen, iPhone screen or iPad screen I start feeling headachy and sick.

I simply find that I cannot read for as long on a backlit screen as I can with paper or my Kindle. I start wanting to put the book down. And that makes me sad.

:( Readability In Daylight

Aargh. One of the things that really wowed me about Kindle was that when you walk into a patch of sunlight, the text on the screen become EASIER to read. This had never happened on my phones or on my camera LCD screens, so I just wasn’t expecting it. But it is gorgeous in the daylight. Not so the iPad. It is a nice, bright screen in indirect light, but, like any other backlit screen it makes me squinty-eyed and frustrated in daylight. And the fingerprints? Oh, the fingerprints.

:( Touchscreen

Don’t get me wrong, for other applications, the touchscreen is a miracle of technology, a joy, an absolute delight and it warms the cockles of my little geeky heart.

But on an eBook reader?

No. Just no.

While turning pages feels a lot more natural when you can swipe them the way you might with a magazine page, the accumulation of fingerprints on the shiny screen drives me to distraction. I’ve bought a bunch of microfibre cloths and I’m working with my therapist ³ and maybe it’s just me, but I have to say:

A touchscreen on an eBook reader is not the go-to technology.

Unless you’re talking about…

:D Interactive Books

This is where the iPad is going to kick ass, change the world and spawn a new age of creativity and progress.

I know, I sound like an Apple fanboy, which I’m really not.  But the interactive books are new and intuitive and delightful. (And expensive, but you know what? A lot of work goes into them. And a lot of licensing fees!)

The free  Toy Story interactive book is gorgeous, and contains both audio and video clips from the movie, as well as video games (GAMES! In a Book! Heavens!). You can read it yourself or have it read to you. You can read it in your kid’s bedroom at night with no other lighting (This is where my objection to backlighting on an eReader falters. I love this. I’m always battling my urge to keep the lights low at bedtime, with my urge to be able to see what the hell I’m reading). You can give it to your kids who can’t even read yet and they can play, read, learn words. And OK, these interactive books have existed for a while, but usually tied to the computer. Interacting with them on the iPad is just about perfect.

This is, I think, where the real sea-change will happen. This is where the iPad will sing and book publishing will change. Books in the future will have all the interactivity, and none of the clunkiness of websites ⁴ It’s entirely possible that words-on-the-page only books will eventually go the way of silent films (still loved by a few devotees but regarded with tolerant bemusement by most).

:| The Various eReader Apps for iPad

You should go here to read actual reviews of the various iPad book apps, but always bear in mind that new apps will come and more books will be available and any opinions I voice here will be outdated by the time I push “publish”. I’ve only used the Kindle app and the iBooks built-in one.

:| Availability of Titles

For now, there isn’t a vast availability of titles outside the mainstream bestsellers list. Finding kids’ books and older books is almost impossible, but this will change. For now, the Kindle has, of course, a much better selection, but even that isn’t perfect. But if you’ve ever had anything to do with the publishing industry you’ll know that they’re still living in mourning for the Roarin’ 20s and it’s only in the past couple of years that some younger publishers and agents have started using that new-fangled thing they call email. The pressing need to capturing their backlists and convert them to readable, manipulable data files was met by the publishing industry ten years ago with the kind of uncomprehending indifference shown by the people of Pompeii as their friendly neighbourhood volcano began to seethe and rumble. Even now, I suspect it’s only because Google said, “to hell with you then, we’ll do it”, that the publishers have pulled out any stops at all. And when Amazon launched the Kindle, then B&N (who they all hate and fear) launched the Nook and Steve Jobs started sniffing around, things started to look serious.

The Bottom Line

For an avid reader ⁵, the Kindle is hands down the best device for now ⁶.

It is light, it is portable, it is easy on the eyes and the hands, you can annotate books AND share everything across various platforms. It is an absolute pleasure to read for hours and hours, in daylight or indoors. It emulates the traditional reading experience and improves upon it (inbuilt dictionaries, annotation, bookmarking and highlighting without destroying the book, hands-free page turning ⁷, on-the-fly indexing, searching and on and on). There are lots of titles available.

For whizz-bang and a taste of the future, get your paws on an iPad and have a look.

FURTHER READING

Debbie at Inkygirl.com has collected a bunch of iPad/vs eReaders reviews in this article.

I purposely did not read these reviews (apart from the apps one) until after I’d written mine. I’m off to see who agrees with me…

I bet you have books all over the place: by your bed, in the kids’ rooms, in boxes, in the basement…So how are you ever supposed to remember which of the Captain Underpants books your kid already has, or which Patricia Cornwell you’re missing?

[Skip to the bit where I tell you how to use your iPhone as a barcode scanner for your books]

LibraryThing.com is a wonderful solution. You can list all of your books here, with a mimumum of effort (enter the title or barcode number, even the author’s name, and up will pop a listing that you can click on. It lets you add as much or as little detail as you need: from tags and categories to the date you bought it to where you store it, to the dates you started and finished reading it!). You can add books as you go along and always have a record of every title in your house.

The problem with LibraryThing is that, unless your parents set up an account for you at birth and assiduously updated it, you’ve got a back-collection of books that needs to be added to your virtual library.

I have, periodically, lugged a pile of books to my computer and typed in their information but that takes a lot of time and gets a little dull. (Data entry is fine when someone’s paying me, but when it’s eating into my actual reading time, I get a little cranky).

LibraryThing sells a cuecat bacode reader for $15 but I’ve never managed to get around to getting one ¹, and anyway, it needs to be hooked up to your computer, so no cat-like roaming around the house nosing into corners with this feline.

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to just stroll around your house, pulling books out of nooks and crannies and scanning them right there and then?

Well today I discovered that I can use my iPhone as a scanner to upload my titles to LibraryThing.

How? How? Tell Me How!

1. Download the iPhone app Red Laser for $1.99 free [update: Now available for Android phones too. Thanks to Dennis for letting me know]. It uses the iPhone camera to take a picture of the barcode and stores the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) that is built into the barcode. [click here for detailed instructions]
2. Email the list of stored ISBNs to yourself then copy and paste them into the “paste text” box on the import page at Library Thing. [click here for a tutorial]
3. Sit back and watch as LT.com adds the books to your library (it puts them in a queue so there is some waiting, but hey. It also combs out duplicates as it goes through, and adds all the bibliographical data, so let’s not get too picky!)

Pros: Oh the time it saves! And it feeds my little techno-geek heart with glee to ‘bleep’ the barcodes and see them show up in my Library.

Cons: the barcode scanner can be a leeettle temperamental. I’m working on figuring out the best combination of lighting/distance/karma.

1. Buy the app, if you haven’t already. (It’s by Occipital, and it costs $1.99 is free in the app store.)

2. Run the app. Select the little lightning bolt in the bottom of the screen, to start the scanner.

3. Before you point the phone at anything, flip the little switch at the bottom of the screen that defaults to “multiple off” (this will make the process faster. If you do not do this, the phone will stop and try to look up every item as you scan it. What you really want to do is simply collect a list of barcode numbers. ‘Multiple on’ mode does that.)

4. Now grab your book and flip it to find the barcode. Turn it so that there is no glare or shadow on the barcode and hold the phone a few inches away from it. Position the arrows so that they bracket the main part of the barcode. They should turn green. Now hold still and the phone should chirp or beep or buzz, to let you know it has scanned it. A series of numbers will appear under the picture, which should correspond with the numbers under the barcode. ¹

5. Scan your next book. You’ll hear the beep/buzz (depending on whether or not your speaker is on) and the numbers under the picture will change.

6. Repeat this as often as you like (I would recommend doing a trial batch with four or five numbers the first time).

7. When you’re ready to stop, click “Done” on the bottom left of the screen. This takes you to a list of ‘scanned items’.

8. Click on the ‘arrow in a box’ logo that means ‘send me somewhere else’ on your iPhone. Then, email the list to yourself.  (this step is necessary becaus I could not find a way to simply copy and paste from this screen).

9. Open your email program, find the new email, and copy all the text from the body. Don’t worry, Library Thing is smart enough to realise that the list numbers before each barcode number can be ignored.

10. Open LibraryThing.com’s upload page ². Paste your list into the “paste text” box, press ‘grab’. Go and do something more interesting while LibraryThing.com looks up all thei nformation and adds your books to your library. It puts them in a queue, so it’s not instantaneous, but they will be added. (It also allows you to add a batch of tags at this stage, so its not a bad idea to scan all your mysteries together and all your kids’ books in a batch).

You know when you’re walking around with a friend and you see a cool new toy? What do you do?

You point at it.

“What is that?” you say, quickly followed by, “And where can I get one?”

If your friend is the guru of all shopping gurus, she can probably tell you where to get it, who has the best price and exactly when it will go out of style.

If you friend is like me, she’ll go, “Umm, I do not know. Let’s look it up online.”

Until now the non-shopping-gurus among us have been limited to typing text into text boxes to do our online searching. But no longer.

If you have an iPhone and the Red Laser app, you can point your phone at the product’s barcode, scan it

and let the web tell you where you can get it and who has the best price.

(You may still need a fashion-forward friend to tell you if it’s trendy or lame, however.)

Is That All There Is?

Isn’t that enough?

But no, there are more applications than just comparison shopping.

My favorite way to use this is to scan barcodes from the back of all the books in my house and list them all at LibraryThing.com (no more wondering if I have this title or that, when I’m at the bookstore!)

The designers of Red Laser have provided developers with the tools to use their technology in any way that their dirty little minds can come up with, so I’m off to find out what else I could be doing with my new barcode obsession.

Ciao!

Why Twitter?

For me: mobility and cost and immediacy.

Most people seem to use computers to tweet but it was conceived as a way to share text messages with a bunch of friends easily.

My family are all in a different country and a different time zone. Posting little 140 character questions and updates that can be read by the whole family means that we can keep up-to-date even 3,000 miles away and 5 hours out of sync. And I don’t need to log on to my computer to do it.

My sister-in-law lived in yet another country for the first 8 years I was part of her family, and we spoke briefly at Christmas and maybe birthdays and it was always a little awkward because we knew so little about each other.

Since we’ve started tweeting, I know how she spends her day every day and now we chat about the things that matter to us. I’ve discovered she has a great sense of humour and, last month, when she had a car crash, I knew about it and was able to check that she was OK (and maybe offer a little support) while she was still waiting for the towtruck to arrive. My mother and sister-and-brother-in-law (not related except through my marriage) trade one-liners and discuss trends. My own sister, who went to the same University as my sister-in-law, has talked to her more through Twitter than they ever did at university (where they were aware of each other but never talked).

And sometimes it’s just fun. I was able to follow 2010 as it broke around the world.

And yes, if you’re a Facebook person, you can do something similar with status updates. But Facebook is designed to allow you to talk only to people you know or knew.

While you can protect your tweets, you can also allow anyone who wants to follow you. I’ve had conversations with business people and celebrities I would never have dreamed of emailing. I landed an interview with a corporate bigwig and Tweeter, simply by asking in 140 characters, and promising to be similarly brief in the interview. I bet you if I had emailed him, my email would have been lost, or ignored, or put aside until such time as he could compose a nice email reply. But tweets are immediate, brief and easily acted upon on a whim.

(I know, it seems crazy that email is now too formal, or too much work, but so we go)

What If I Don’t Want The World To Know When I’m Going To The Store, But I Do Want My Family To Know?

Why not keep separate accounts?

I have a personal account that only my family and friends can follow, where I tweet every day updates and comments. I also have a business profile that is open. Anyone can follow my tweets and I follow lots of celebrity business people as well as people in my own field and people I come across who are just plain entertaining or informative. I have a third profile that I use to follow celebrities and other people I don’t know. It’s my voyeuristic little guilty pleasure and I don’t check it all the time, nor do I want to, so I keep a separate account just for them.

Having all these different profiles allows me to be free with personal information in my protected account (“The house is empty: come on in, burglars!”), and professional when I want to be seen that way (in my business account) and goofy, with guilty pleasures (like the fact that I follow a bunch of sci-fi actors and occasionally send them gushy fan-girl comments that I’d rather keep my family and friends from mocking me about.)

As Simple or Complex As You Need It To Be

One of the great things about Twitter is its simplicity: 140 characters, delivered by phone or to a simply-designed webpage. But that’s also a downside: it’s not very powerful. You can’t filter the people you follow, or sort tweets, or hide tweets…but luckily there are lots of enterprising software boffins out there who can’t resist tweaking and making something more complex, to suit their own needs. As a result, there are tons of programs you can download (mostly free) that allow you to sort through your Tweets, or look up all mentions of a specific keyword, whatever you want to do. Tweetdeck is the acknowledged power-user program, I also like Tweetie for my iPhone and have used Twitterfox/Echofon as an add-on for my Firefox browser (although I had some problems with it forgetting my accounts). I’ve also used, and quite liked Seesmic on my computer, which is a lot like Tweetdeck, because it lets you see multiple accounts all at once.

There’s a lot more that you can do with Twitter (automated tweets, hashtags, link shorteners) but we’ll save that for another day and another post.

Why Not Buzz?

Well, I talked about Buzz on the day it came out and before it became clear how silly Google had been, compromising people’s privacy the way they did. I didn’t see the need for another social network (for me) but it may be that we all migrate to Buzz eventually. For now, I’ll keep Twittering.

Buzz sprang into the world recently, a new service from Google that kind of replicates the status update part of Facebook and kind of replicates Twitter. Everyone is, a-buzz about Buzz (good naming, Google) because it’s from Google, even if they’re not sure what it does, yet.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t find Google does a very good job of explaining their new things and why I want them.

So What Is Buzz?

Harry McCracken over at PC World has a good analysis of what Buzz might be all about and what it might do.

Mashable has a good article about what Buzz actually is, and what all the bits of it do (their rating: “lots of potential, but not a ton of substance [yet]“).

Here is Google’s announcement

and here’s the video, which I didn’t find awfully helpful…

The ever-helpful Lifehacker has this hack for turning off the status updates Buzz pops into your mail interface without turning off Buzz altogether

The Buzz on “Buzz”

This punter(if you can get past all the advertising and find the article) thinks that Buzz is a ‘Real Twitter Killer’. Unlike me he thinks that Twitter has a lot of problems that need fixed (you can’t edit posts, you can’t post pictures, the 140 character limit). But…Those are some of the reasons I like Twitter so much!

This Self-Professed Google Fanboy compares Google’s auto-selecting-email-contacts-for-Buzz to being forced to socialise with his neighbours…in his apartment. Which kind of works…

@dblume says this will just lead to more fragmentation — something with which I cannot disagree. I can’t follow everyone everywhere. I’m going to choose my friends based on where they hang out. Which is sad. I’ve enjoyed the wider social contact with old friends and new that came from everyone being in one place.

And this guy sums up the whole thing nicely:

Genius At Work by Ben McLeod

I use WordPress to host and run my websites.

(It started as blog-hosting software but works as a Content Management System too. The Wall Street Journal’s site is built on its software, for example).

Lots of people more technically-skilled than I have written lots of little programs, called plug-ins, that help me make my website do cool things without having to write the code myself¹. Some of these things I could do myself, but plug-ins make it easier, quicker and automated. ²

Plug-ins let me do everything from put headlines in my sidebars, to helping me track how many people visit which article, to creating sign-up forms, and create those cute little ‘link to me’ buttons at the top of this article. Here are the ones that allow me to build websites that make my clients go “ooooh!”

Must-Haves

Google XML SiteMaps

This makes it easier for Google to index your pages (i.e include you in their search results)

Google Analytics For WordPress

This inserts the “Google Analytics” code wherever it needs to be in your site (usually in the header or footer of the code, which you don’t necessarily want to go digging around in unless you know what you’re doing. Trust me. A misplaced semi colon can bring grown men to tears!)

Google Analytics is an amazing (free) tool that tracks how people get to your website, where they go, how long they stay, where in the world they are, what keywords they searched for to get to you (and therefore what you should be including on more of your pages)…and so much more. It presents the information in all kinds of cool ways: graphs, overlays, tables. Go. Sign up.

Being able to tell clients exactly what’s going on with traffic is really valuable. You can both see what impact the site is having on business, you can see which marketing strategies are working and which are a big waste of money, you can improve the site. Good for you, good for your client.

Social, Sharing and Visibility Plug-ins

Simple Modal Contact Form (SMCP)

I, and my clients, use mailing list services like MailChimp and Constant Contact. While both of these offer form-building options at their sites, sometimes you just want a little more control, but again, with out having to play HTML or CSS.Very easy to use and effective, and no-one has to know you didn’t hand-code the whole thing.

The only problem I have with this plug-in is that its acronym reminds me of that song “SIMP, Squirrels In My Pants” from te cartoon Phineas and Ferb…)

WP-Polls

Thinking about offering a new product or service? Ask your customers/readers what they think. Super-easy single-question polls to pop in your sidebar. Minimalist style. Lovely.

Sexy Bookmarks

I tried gathering button graphics for all the social networking tools (Twitter, RSS, LinkedIn, Facebook) and building a sidebar “Link to me!” plea.

Then I discovered Sexy Bookmarks. You can see what this plug-in looks like at the bottom of this post (unless you’re reading the RSS feed. It didn’t show the graphics, just a huge text list, so I turned it off for you guys. Come visit the original post…)

Social Follow

Sign up at the Social Follow website, enter in your user name at all the social networking sites you use (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc) and they will generate a little button like the one in my sidebar, making it easy for people to follow you wherever you are (if you like that sort of thing). This plug-in builds a widget that you can drop into any widget area in your theme (again, no messing around with your theme’s code files).

WP125

You know how a lot of sites have those little square adverts off to the side? Well, some are powered by ad companies (or Google ads) but sometimes it makes sense to control your own ads.

This plug in lets you sell and manage advertising on your site. You control how big the ads are, where they go, how many show up, what images show up, and it also contains a management function, that allows you to set rates, and expiration dates. It’ll even email your advertisers when their contract is about to expire.

Nice, for getting things how want them to look

Query Post

This allows you to build sidebar widgets that contain just the posts you want them to contain. It has a zillion different ways to filter your posts and pages to allow you to control what appears. It is obviously very powerful and I’ve only figured out how to do rudimentary stuff so far, but it is simple enough for newbs and powerful enough for folks who know what they’re doing.

Category Page and Page2Cat

This is a lovely little plug in that lets you create a page that is automatically updated with all your posts from categoryX (which you define by typing a short code, i.e. a phrase in a square bracket). Simple and elegant. You may have to add some code to your site depending on your theme, but it’s only once and it is well-documented.

Make Things Easy For Your Readers

WPTouch iPhone Theme

Your three-column design might look great on a computer monitor, but it probably irritates people reading on a tiny mobile screen. Thisplug-in automatically converts your blog, when readers access it via a mobile device. It makes your site look like an iPhone app (which is cute if, like me, you love your iPhone).  It also has a ‘turn this off’ button at the bottom for people who want to see the original layout, or who hate all things iPhoney. Very, very nice plug-in

Make Posting Easier For You

Flickr Manager

Every time I go to Flickr, I curse the fact that I have to click so often to get to the size and code I want for my picture. Flickr Manager Plug-in works just like the little “insert picture’ button on you WP Dashboard, except that instead of prompting you to upload a picture, it goes straight to your Flickr Photostream. It allows you to choose sizes, alignment etc and add a caption (dependent on your theme). HUGE timesaver.

(update: this doesn’t seem to be finding all my pictures since I upgraded to WordPress 2.9.1)

FDFootnote

This allows me to create footnotes ³ really simply, by using shortcodes (basically,putting something in a square bracket — in this case a number, a period and your note)

So, off you go and explore the wonderful world of plug-ins.

Update (2/22/10): Lucky 13 is:

WP-Table Reloaded

I’ve long been frustrated by having to hand-code tables in the wordpress window. No longer! This plug-in installs its control panel in the Tools section, from whence you can set up tables, add data and then embed the same table (or different ones) anywhere in your website simply by entering a short code. Love it!

So, iPad vs. Kindle. It was the first thing a lot of people mentioned and I’m not sure why.

It’s a bit like comparing a greetings card to a smart phone. Or my beloved blank notebook to my desktop computer.

One is designed to do one thing, and do it well, with all the limitations that implies (i.e. it can’t do anything other than the thing it was designed for, and must be used pretty much in the way the designer specified.) The other does lots and lots of things, with a few compromises that are usually made up for by the convenience factor.

My blank book is pretty much pants when it comes to helping me retrieve information or store photographs or connect with other people. But when I want to jot down an idea, or draw a diagram or entertain a cranky toddler on a train, or make an impromptu origami model, that notebook is my best friend.

Similarly, I LOVE my iPhone and I carry it with me everywhere (yes, everywhere. Don’t think too hard about that). I even read ebooks on it. It is good on the treadmill that lives in a dark and spidery corner of my basement. It’s great in bed, oh yes.

My iPhone ereader (and so, by extension, the iPad ereader) lets me look stuff up, dog-ear pages (not really) and make notes. The iPad will usher in the Apple eBook store.

BUT

I still love my Kindle.

When I want to settle down and read a book for hours (as if I get the chance!) I reach for my pencil-slim, un-backlit, black-on-grey eInk screened, phenomenally long-lived, free Internet access, zippy download, fingerprint-free screened, no-glare Kindle that looks better in daylight than the printed page with none of the ‘holding the book open’ inconvenience.

I love its little cotton socks. I really do.

Just as an email birthday greeting, while more convenient, lacks the appeal of a through-the-post physical card, and the Kindle itself lacks the paper-and-ink-smell tactile experience of reading a dead-tree edition, the iPad ebook reader will come with compromises. The convenience may outweigh those compromises for many people, but I really, really hope that Amazon and the publishers continue to support this device.

The Kindle was designed for people like me, who buy and read books voraciously. We are the ones who will read a book a week, or more. (I have two small children and last year I logged 40 books as ‘read’ in my WeRead profile. In one year! Most of them were bought and read on the Kindle. It’s the most I have read in years. Because it was always easy to find my book, find my place, and grab a new book. Only once did I pick up my Kindle and discover I had let the battery run down, and that was after a particularly busy couple of weeks when I had tossed it in the corner, wireless still connected.)

Dedicated readers appreciate a dedicated device. Casual readers would never have bought a Kindle anyway.

So I’m still not sure why everyone focused on the iPad as a Kindle killer. It might be, but there is so much more to the iPad than ebooks.

My hopes are that

a, the publishers realise that Amazon is trying to sell more books, and respond to their customers’ price sensitivities, not hurt publishers.

b, Amazon starts to support the ePub format so that books I buy from the Apple store will also be readable on my Kindle. I’m grateful to Amazon for the Kindle, but not so grateful that I’m going to forgo reading a book if it is published in the ‘wrong’ format.

And yeah, I still want an iPad…

Other People’s Opinions:
This one talks about iPad vs Kindle very differently