Top 10 Must-Have Apps for a Web Publisher

I am a web publisher. That means that I publish things for others to read, just like any other person in the press, but that I use the internet as my medium. Less red tape. Less committee. Just me, typing my thoughts or findings, and posting them for others to read and respond to.

Now, in this business, you not only need to be able to publish to the web, but you need to also design your site and administrate the business end of it. This takes software and the use of that software at my computer (as the size of my ass can attest to).

So, here is my top 10 list of applications which just make my job oh so much easier as a web publisher.

1. Dreamweaver. Formerly a Macromedia product and now owned by Adobe, Dreamweaver is the best web design program out there as far as I’m concerned. Frontpage was a piece of crap. I heard Expressions was better, but I have not personally tried it yet.
2. TopStyle. This is a great CSS editor for Windows.
3. ColorCop. This small little utility is super useful when you need to find out the color code of any color visible on your screen. Want to precisely match a visual element you see on the web? Just grab ColorCop’s pointer to that point, release the mouse cursor, and you have the exact color code.
4. Wordpress. This is, of course, the web-based blogger software of significant popularity. And for good reason. It simply blows the other options away in terms of ease of use and availability of add-ons and community support. A web publisher needs to be able to easily bring content to the web, and it doesn’t get much easier than Wordpress.
5. Gmail. Even though it is a web-based app, I put this one into the must-have category. The joys of using a web-based email client where somebody else makes it work is immeasurable. If you want, you can also hook your domain up to Google Apps and get the full Google office suite for your whole domain.
6. Trillian Basic. This is a chat client that can connect to multiple networks. Almost any web publisher is going to need to communicate to others on the web. I personally like Trillian because it can dock to the side of my screen and not move. It seems few others do that, and I have no idea why.
7. Google Desktop. Depending on the size of your website and the number of files you work with, it might get to be an incredibly daunting task to try to find half the crap you SWEAR you saved on your computer. Google Desktops brings the power of Google search to your file system. And it does work. It uses a pretty small footprint in Windows, so it won’t slow you down. And, no, using Google Desktop does not mean that Google is indexing all your files on their servers.
8. Camtasia Studio 4. If you want to make screencasting videos for the web, Camtasia is the defacto standard. And their video editor isn’t half bad either.
9. Google Reader. Again, web-based, but any publisher online needs to stay up-to-date with what others are talking about. It is the only way you can remain current and relevant to your community. Google Reader is an excellent way to bring content to you from RSS feeds. Subscribe to relevant sites and easily keep track of them. It is a huge time saver. And I like how you can read your feeds from your cell phone if you have some time to kill somewhere without a full computer around.
10. Yahoo Music Jukebox. Sitting on the computer all day means you might need some entertainment while you work. My personal fave is Yahoo Music Jukebox. While the streaming media service is not free, it does offer an endless supply of music of any genre I want. I can also play particular albums or artists to suit my mood. Great to work with.

So, what apps might you recommend?

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