After trying for literally hours and feeling like there’s a jackhammer pounding in my head (oh wait, that would be the jackhammer going outside the window), I believe I’ve finally found a great program for backing up the data on my PC. Can’t wait to try this out and give a full report.

What do you think? Does anyone out there use Nero software for backups? Tell me what you think of it in the comments!

Plugins with a * are ones I consider “must haves” for all WordPress sites! You can see my review of many of those on my Happy Plugins! post.

• *AddThis – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Social Media Links
• *Add Your Own Headers – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Customize per page/post meta tags
• Ad Rotate – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Rotating ad banners
• *Akismet – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage • Additional info – WordPress.com API Key
  Pre-installed WordPress Comment Spam Blocker
• *All in One SEO Pack – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  SEO friendly titles, tags, keywords and descriptions
• Article Directory – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Sitemap-like Directory of Categories on the site. Untested yet but looks promising to build a category-list directory similar to an online store.
• ArtPal – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Simple, easy-to-use PayPal links for artists selling one-of-a-kind items on their site
• Automatic SEO Links – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Turn keywords within posts into external link
• Comment Luv – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Allows other blog users to post links to specific pages of their own blog in comments
• Contact Form 7 – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Advanced contact form. (Note about Contact Form 7 and Dagon Designs Formmailer. Both are contact forms. It is not recommended to use both on the same site as both use CAPTCHA and may interfere with each other.)
• Custom rel Links – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Set your own links for “Next” and “Previous” in your header
• Datafeedr Random Ads – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Create random ad banners
• * Dagon Designs Formmailer – (Not available in directory) • Plugin Homepage
  Basic contact form. (Note about Contact Form 7 and Dagon Designs Formmailer. Both are contact forms. It is not recommended to use both on the same site as both use CAPTCHA and may interfere with each other.)
• Drain Hole – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Download manager
• FB Activity Widget – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Add Facebook comments and advanced Facebook connectivity
• * FB Like Button – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Add basic Facebook Like button to posts and pages (Note: The FB Activity Widget and FB Like Button plugins alone do not provide links to Facbook’s Analytics, but can work well with specialized code to make the Analytics work.)
• * Feedburner Feedsmith – (Not available in directory, see Google link for WordPress Download) • Plugin Homepage
  Track RSS feed analytics within your Google analytics account
• * Google XML Sitemaps – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Build an automatic XML sitemap for Google crawler
• Link Within – (Not available in directory) • Plugin Homepage
  Creates a link to top related posts with a thumbnail image from the related posts. I haven’t yet tried this plugin but I’ve been very impressed with it on other sites that I’ve seen.
• Official Statcounter Plugin – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Works with a Statcounter account for tracking site analytics
• Page Flip Image Gallery – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Creates a Flash generated image gallery with “page flip” style (I have not yet tested this plugin out, but I’m hoping it will make an interesting book or magazine “feel” for some images.)
• * PC robots.txt – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Automatically creates a robots.txt file for your site to block spam bots and allow Google crawler bots
• PHP Code Widget – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Adds a widget that will accept PHP code for the sidebars. Works just like the included WordPress HTML Text widget for PHP code.
• Recipe Press – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Create posts in recipe format for easy viewing of ingredients, directions, etc.
• Sexy Bookmarks – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Animated Social Media Bookmarks
• * Sitemap Generator – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Builds an auto-generated Sitemap for your site. (FYI: If you use an updated version, check the comments on the plugin homepage for a solution to some errors. Some code in the Sitemap PHP pages may need to be updated.)
• Smooth Slider – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Creates a mini-slideshow of Featured Posts using an image and SEO-friendly text from the post on the slider. Plugin requires knowledge and updating of PHP pages.
• Syntax Highlighter Evolved- WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  If you ever need to show CSS, PHP, or other code within a post, the sytax highlighter makes it easy to read and prevents the code from breaking “real” code on the page
• Tweet MeMe – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Adds an easy-to-use retweet button directly on posts and pages
• * Twitter Tools – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Connect your WordPress site to Twitter in several different ways. Sends posts to your Twitter account automatically, connects directly with a Bit.ly account for link analytics, adds a Twitter widget to show Twitter feed in sidebars.
• WP Polls – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Add polls to a WordPress post or page
• * WP Pretty Photo – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Creates a javascript link for images to open thumbnails in a “view window”. Requires minimal html code added to the image link. I’ve tested many javascript “pretty photo” plugins and this one is the easiest to set up and is less demanding on the server from others that I tried.
• WP Print (*) – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Makes pages and posts “printer friendly”. (Untested. If the plugin does what I’m hoping it will do, I expect to add this to my “must have” list after testing it myself.)
• * Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – WP Directory Download • Plugin Homepage
  Creates a list of the top 5 related posts based on tags and categories.

Note: I have not personally tested any of the above plugins with WordPress 3.0 or 3.0.1. All of my sites currently use 2.9.1 or 2.9.2 versions of WordPress until I can test compatibility of my plugins and my own themes. If you already have WordPress 3.0, check the directory and forums for compatibility issues. None of the links above are affiliate links, nor do I earn or receive anything for recommending these plugins. These are just ones I use, recommend or am trying out myself.

Do you know of a great plugin not listed here? Leave a comment with your own recommendations and reviews!