The Best Products For Bloggers.

Snipshot.com - web-based image editing.

Feeds: Well, I started with feedreader.com, went to bloglines.com, then newsgator.com (online), and finally feeddemon (from newsgator, US$29.99 or so). For the way I research and save new feed URls, only Feed Demon works for me. I tried Google Reader and while I love other G products, I don't like the flow of Reader.

Editor: I still use my old version of PFF (Performancing for Firefox), now called ScribeFire, but I haven't upgraded. QuickNote is a Firefox plugin that has 4 tabs, and I can paste in snippets of text for later use or reminders. You can rename the tabs as well as save their contents to a text file.

Snapshots: Wink for a screen snapshot (uses Java) and camstudio.org for screencasting. But because I do so much of this and need advanced features, I splurged US$320+ for TechSmith's SnagIt and Camtasia Studio.

I know this is Performancing and there used to be a great tool for quick blog entries from the web by the former Performancing owners and all, but Windows Live Writer is very handy.

Only complaint, the post processing is sometimes a few seconds slow, but the ability to toggle from one blog to the next is essential for anyone that writes on more than one blog, and place extra heavy emphasis on that if you write on more than 10.

Next on the list after that is Snagit and Skype :)

Finally, its not for everyone as its like learning to write all over again, but I love DNS9.

Good point, Brett. Skype or something like it is crucial. I don't hire any bloggers unless I can chat with them, preferably in voice mode.

Ryan, I use the following:

Feed Reading: Feed Demon (this is one of the best feed readers in existence, and well worth the $29.99 price) for at-the-computer reading, and newsgator (synchs with feed demon for free) for on the road reading.

Posting: Ecto for Windows. Ecto covers everything I need in a blogging client, and new features are being added with each new version. I manage all my blogs through Ecto (NOTE: Versions of WordPress between 2.1.3 and 2.2 have XML-RPC issues when some plugins are active. These issues can occasionally cause Ecto to error. Upgrading to the latest version of WordPress will fix this issue. (If not, and you are running the text-link-ads WP plugin, ensure you are using the latest version of it, as well)).

Ecto integrates well with Feed Demon.

I also use ScribeFire, so I can easily post from the browser.

For screenshots, I still do things the old fashioned way... print-screen, or alt-print-screen, paste into a blank photoshop file (or paint shop pro), crop, resize, and save.

Communication:
-EMAIL: I am a devout user of Thunderbird for email. If I'm not at home and need to check my email, I use my web host's webmail client, or I simply don't check it.
-IM: Trillian Pro manages all of my IM accounts with ease.
-VOIP/CALLS: Skype and Gizmo

PLATFORM: WordPress for my non-personal blogs, and Typo (a ruby on rails blogging platform) for my personal blog. (Typo looks like it is poised to become a great alternative to WordPress... assuming, of course, that it doesn't die the slow death that afflicts most Ruby apps.)

STATS: I still use the free extremetracking.com, and sitemeter.com for the majority of my blogs. I don't need a ton of metrics, just the basic stats is all I've ever really wanted.