Image Credit: jasohill

Every blogger has a tool or two to get the best out of their blog. They can cost you a couple hundred dollars, or cost you nothing, these tools can save you time (and money if you choose the easy way out). I would like to share with my readers, and to bloggers who are looking forward to run a anime and/or gaming blog of their own, 7 Blogging (Media and Gaming) Tools of the Trade.

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1. Blogger – Blogger was the first free blog hosting service I used for my first blog, which eventually made way for CEN.TAKU.ME. You can do almost anything you can do with a blog hosted on your own domain name with the WordPress software. There’s no limitations on bandwidth or disk space.
2. Backpack – I use Backpack for writing new blog posts on the Writeboard and adding notes and to-do lists from any computer I have access to. There’s also a paid option for more features, but you can get the most out of the free version.
3. Photobucket – Photobucket provides hosting for images and videos. If you’re looking for a place to host your pictures for free, this is the place. However, if you want to host videos, you may want to host them elsewhere, such as YouTube or MySpace. Photobucket’s video hosting has limitations, unless you have a paid account. On the other hand, Photobucket is perfect for hosting a screenshot.
4. FastStone Image Viewer – I call this the swiss army knife for batch editing images. You can rename, resize, convert, and crop photos as you would with Photoshop. You can also take screen captures of your screen: windows, regions, free-hand, menus and full screen.
5. The GIMP – Possibly the best, Open Source alternative to Adobe Photoshop. If you had little experience with Photoshop, you can easily pick up where you left off with GIMP. There are a few features missing that Photoshop has, but it’s better than paying $300+ once you get the hang of it.
6. KMPlayer – Not to be confused with the KMPlayer for KDE (Linux). It’s a media player with a WinAmp feel to it. You can take screenshots of videos, ala PowerDVD or Media Player Classic. Just like MPC, KMPlayer can play .MOV (Quicktime Movie Format) and .RM (RealMedia/Player Format) files, as well as display subtitle files. KMPlayer can also play various audio files, so you can rock to your favorite music artist while blogging, or gaming~…
7. Xfire – Xfire is the MSN Messenger of gaming. You can keep in touch with your friends within any game at the same time. If you have a blog or a MySpace, you can show off your signature of games you played in the last week to the public! You can also take screenshots and upload them to your Xfire profile. The newer versions of Xfire can capture videos as well. It’s in beta, but it’s worth a try if you’re looking for alternatives to Fraps or GameCam.

These tools are really handy. I spent a lot of time using these services to get an aura of a professional blogger. By using these tools, I gained extra confidence to blog about my favorite niches. See if these can change your stance as a blogger, and you will be prepared for the future! ^_^