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Christmas was a good time for giving some dollars to the authors of the plugins for WordPress that I use for this blog. With 1384 alternatives in the plugins repository, it might take some time to identify which are the best answers to your needs.
After some months of testing and daily usage, I completed my selection and I filled a list of plugins worthy a contribution.

I slightly had to change my original plan when I discovered that there wasn’t any PayPal button in several cases. For the sake of roundness, I kept searching till I completed 10 donations and I added an extra list of 5 other valuable plugins. Before going into the details, I want to thank the whole WordPress community and all the developers that are contributing to improve the quality of bloggers’ life.

My little budget dedicated to WP developers was a way to express appreciation, to support future evolutions and it’s also a message for other WP users: I really mean that these plugins are good! There are for sure many other great alternatives or other plugins that do wonderful things, I’m just sharing my experience and telling you what I use and what I would recommend at present.

I gave my little contribution for these fabulous plugins

1 – Akismet* – Antispam
The definitive solution for spam in comments. It just works immediately and effectively. You can use it also for having forms filtered: Contact Form 7 has native support for it.

2 – Admin Drop Down Menu – Admin tool
A witty shortcut for navigating in WP administration. It enables you to jump directly to sub-sections, without passing from home pages. Smart and handy.

3 – FAlbum – Flickr album
The most complete option for photos from your Flickr account. It keeps albums, titles, descriptions, comments, overlaying notes but not yet collections. See it in action here ».

4 – Feed Locations – (Edit Jan 2008: replaced by FeedSmith) Statistics
For statistics of people reading your blog through a rss reader, you would appreciate if they all were subscribed to the same feedburner url ».

5 – Let It Snow! – Gadget
I was desperately looking for the 10th item when I came across this cute snow generator. You can see it in action on this blog till probably the mid of January. (Edit: just disabled)

6 – Google Analytics for WordPress** – Statistics
Super easy to set-up, witty options for accurate tracking of pages and downloads. It connects seamlessly your Google Analytics account with your blog.

7 – Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator – Search Engine Optimization
With a good degree of customization and control on external pages, it generates a clean sitemap (used by search engine crawlers). See it in action here ».

8 – PB-embedFlash – Flash embedding tool
One single plugin for embedding all the players (like from youtube, slideshare and others) or any flash content with handy parameters (like size and variables).

9 – Subscribe to Comments – Comments tool
I guess that the checkbox (“Notify me of followup comments via e-mail”), that you find under any comment form in my blog, is self explaining…

10 – WordTube – (Edit: I switched to Pb-embedFlash) Flash video tool
Complete management tool for flash video: from the upload of the FLV to the embed in any post with a clean player. See it in action here ».

11 – All in One SEO Pack – Search Engine Optimization
The definitive kit for controlling on a per post basis title, description and keywords embedded as metadata (useful for search engine crawlers). Frequently updated.
Edit 03/04/2008: donation made (paypal button just appeared).

I would have supported them if they had a PayPal button

12 – Contact Form 7 1.7.3 – Form tool
Complete form manager, with customizable fields, check-boxes, pull-down menus, captcha engine and Askimet connection. Very frequently updated. See it in action here ».

13 – I Love Social Bookmarking – Social linking
It adds handy links to social networks, with a lovely look adjustable with css and admin options. See it in action pointing your mouse over “Share this page” at the end of this post.

14 – Shylock Adsense Plugin** – Advertising tool
With rules for governing the presence of advertisement on a per date, template or post base, it’s a highly customizable tool for managing Ads from Google.

15 – WordPress.com Stats* – Statistics
For a daily quick overview of the visits on your blog. Simple and effective, often more meaningful then complex statistics with millions of details.

Notes

* = it requires a free registration on wordpress.com (which is different from the one on wordpress.org).
** = it requires specific code that you will find in the related service from Google.
I have extensively tested all the plugins on WordPress 2.3.1 and I just upgraded to version 2.3.2 without noticing any problem. These pages are happily hosted on MediaTemple and run under PHP 5.
The opening illustration was created by Dan Philibin in his tutorial How to Make the “Flare” Effect.