The third in a series of posts where I put together a list of what I perceive to be useful links for people looking to get the most out of their online activities. This time round we look at widgets for your blog sidebar, adding a Digg WordPress plugin to your site, how to create a video tutorial, how to find a forum for your niche website and how to design for Web 2.0

I’m not a massive fan of widgets or blog bling, to be honest. In a lot of cases I think that it distracts the reader from the important stuff i.e. the post that you’ve spent hours crafting. However, and don’t ask me why, I love the idea of having a clock in my sidebar. I mean not to the point where I’ll actually put it on this site but maybe I might on some of my others. You can pick one up from ClockLink.

Talking of widgets, you can slap some Google stuff on your site too although they call them Google Gadgets. There’s over 2500 of these bad boys so you’re bound to find something you like.

If you’re a big fan of Digg and run your own WordPress blog then why not use the Digg This WordPress plugin? This makes it nice and easy for reader to Digg your article so why wouldn’t you use it? Well apart from looking like Billy No Mates when nobody ever Diggs your stuff

Something which I’ve thought about doing on some of my other sites is to run a video tutorial on how to perform some basic operations in certain software applications but I’d not found a decent piece of software to capture mouse operations. Well that was until I found CamStudio. It produces an AVI file and then converts to a much leaner, bandwidth friendly SWF file. Absolutely brilliant. The best thing about it? It’s free!

One way of generating traffic to your website or blog is to join forums relating to your subject matter and including your URL in your auto signature. The Find Your Forum site enables you to search for forums in your area of expertise. Remember, though, that most forums will ban you if you attempt to spam them so be careful with how you promote your site on them.

Web 2.0 - all the cool kids are talking about it. Let’s forget all the business of what is Web 2.0 and how it will affect webmasters earning potential, the most important thing is the colour scheme, right? Well here’s your very own Web 2.0 colour palette. Actually, whilst you’re about it, why not have a read of the excellent Web 2.0 style guide?

Tech Tags : Google, Widgets, Digg, WordPress, WordPress Plugin, Video Capture, Web Forums, Web 2.0, Web Design