So here I present to you 21 Cool Ass WordPress Plugins. Your blog is incomplete without these:

1. All-in-One SEO Pack

The All-in-One SEO Pack is the ultimate SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plugin out there. It automatically optimizes your blog for search engines, and has several options for the more advanced users.

2. Akismet

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not, and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s Comments admin screen. With the ever increasing amount of spam on the web, you’d be dumb not to get this plugin.

3. FeedBurner FeedSmith

The FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin detects all ways to access your feed (e.g. yoursite.com/feed/ or yoursite.com/wp-rss2.php etc) and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber. It will forward for your main posts feed, and optionally, your comments feed as well.

4. Google XML Sitemaps Generator

The Google XML Sitemaps Generator plugin generates an XML sitemap of your WordPress blog. Ask, Google, Yahoo!, and MSN support this format. Having an XML sitemap and submitting it to the search engines that support it can really increase your blog’s search engine visibility, especially when it’s new.

5. WordPress.com Stats

WordPress.com Stats is a traffic statistics plugin that shows only the most popular metrics a blogger wants to track – such as page views, referrers, top posts & pages, search engine terms, and clicks – and provides them in a clear and concise interface.

6. Sociable

Sociable automatically adds links to your favorite social bookmarking sites on your posts, pages, and in your RSS feed. You can choose from 99 different social bookmarking sites.

7. WP Super Cache

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Digg Effect and the Slashdot Effect. They can cause a server meltdown, and if you’re on shared hosting, get your ass kicked out. To Digg-proof your blog, get WP Super Cache. It reduces the load on your server b generating static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress blog.

8. One Click

The One-Click plugin allows you to upload themes and plugins straight to your WordPress blog from the browser. Just upload the zip file, and it’ll automatically unzip the contents and install the plugin for you. Now you never have to use FTP again!

9. Dashboard Widget Manager

Ever felt your dashboard was too cluttered? Then download Dashboard Widget Manager. It allows you to remove unnecessary widgets from your dashboard so it’ll look clean and load faster.

10. Exec-PHP

Exec-PHP lets you execute PHP code in posts, pages, and in the text widgets of your sidebar.

11. Google Analytics for WordPress

The Google Analytics for WordPress plugin lets you insert the Google Analytics code automatically throughout your blog. It discounts your own visits, automatically tracks and segments all outbound links from within posts, comment author links, links within comments, blogroll links, and downloads. It even allows you to track AdSense clicks, add extra search engines, and track image search queries.

12. Lighter Menus

Lighter Menus creates drop down menus instead of the regular admin menus for WordPress, so you can browse items in one click. It’s fast to load, adaptable to color schemes, and comes with some sleek icons.

13. PageMash

Customize the order of your pages, manage their parent structure, and hide them, all using PageMash. It features an Ajax drag-and-drop administrative interface, and is a great tool to re-arrange the order of your pages quickly.

14. Simple Trackback Validation

The Simple Trackback Validation plugin helps to eliminate trackback spam by performing a simple a simple but effective test on all incoming trackbacks.

15. WP-Spam Free

Fed up of all that comment spam? Stop wasting time checking and clearing your Akismet spam queue every day and download WP-SpamFree. It will eliminate 99% – 100% of the comment spam you receive. Yep, I’m not joking. And it does it without captchas! WP-SpamFree uses a combo of JavaScript and cookies to stop the spambots. Since 99% of the spambots out there can’t process JavaScript, they won’t be able to submit comments. It also doesn’t slow down your blog one bit.

From the day I’ve installed WP-SpamFree, I’ve received zero comment spam! I highly recommend you get this one, unless you’re masochistic.

16. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) inserts a list of related posts below each post on your blog, and in your blog’s RSS feed. It’s extremely configurable, and a must-have.

17. Contact Form 7

Even though there are tens of contact form plugins out there, I’ve always liked Contact Form 7. The problem with most contact form plugins is that either they are too simple or way too complex. Contact Form 7, on the other hand, is extensible yet easy-to-use. It supports Ajax-powered submitting, multiple forms, CAPTCHAS, and Akismet spam filtering.

18. Manageable

Manage allows inline editing of the date, title, categories, tags, status, and more of both posts and pages without ever having to leave the “Manage” admin section. No need to load each post or page individually. Simply double-click anywhere in the post or page row and when you’re done, press enter.

19. WordPress Database Backup

You should always backup your WordPress database regularly. However, doing it manually every time can be difficult and time consuming. The WordPress Database Backup plugin lets you easily backup your WordPress database tables. You can even schedule a backup, and it’ll email the file to you every day!

20. OIO Publisher

OIO Publisher is the ultimate ad management plugin. It’s great for those who want to sell ads on their blog by themselves. The great thing about OIO is that it removes all the hassle one gets from self-selling ad space: you only have to approve purchases. OIO Publisher handles everything else. Using OIO, you can sell reviews, links, ads, and even your own products! Heck, it even allows you to create your own affiliate program, so other people can sell your ads and products for you.

21. SRG Clean Archives

The SRG Clean Archives plugin displays your archive listings in a clean and uniform fashion, that’s search engine and user-friendly, on a dedicated page or in your sidebar. If you’re still manually updating your archives page, stop doing it!

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of social media, and I’m reminded of where we were in the mid-90s with the advent of the web. I lived and worked through Web 1.0, and am feeling a sense of déjà vu as we play out the same routines with Web 2.0 and beyond: social media is getting the same basic adoption patterns, the same reactions and overreactions. It’s just different tools and terminology. We have a long way to go before everyone and their cousin uses social networks more than they email, or tweets more than they call, but nobody can deny the way we communicate has once again been changed forever.

Here’s how I’d illustrate where we are in terms of social media tool adoption and integration into the fabric of our work and lives, as compared to early web adoption:

When I listen to people get all excited about social media as if it were some newfangled discovery, I keep wanting to say “It’s just online community. We’ve had that for over 20 years now. We’re just getting it via new applications with more integrated features. But it’s community!” Friends, fans and followers? We used to call them community members or our online friends.

Despite having been in this same place before, I have to admit I’m still excited about the possibilities. My concern is where things could be headed if we’re not smart about how we use the new tools at our disposal — we could end up repeating many of the mistakes made during the Web 1.0 years. With that in mind, here are my ten things to avoid in social media:

• Avoid the fishbowl syndrome. Those of us “in the know” are starting to like the sound of our own voices, but we’re really just preaching to the converted (yes, just like I’m probably doing now). Just because we know about social media doesn’t mean everyone does, or even cares about it. We need to jump out of our fishbowls and smell the air of reality. Get out into the world beyond your tweeps. It will do you good.
• Avoid glut and overload. Just because it’s there, it doesn’t mean you have to be on it. It’s our own fault that we are overloaded by every new social network or social tool out there, because we keep joining them. We don’t need them all and neither do our clients. A few strategically and thoughtfully selected networks, applications or tools can go much further than dozens of them. You don’t have to be everywhere.
• Avoid knee-jerk reactions. Don’t be so fast to say “yes” to social media, but don’t be so fast to say “no” either. Like with any good business — or life — decision, take your time, weigh the aspects and options, do your homework, turn to trusted friends and advisers, then make a deliberate decision. Don’t get a Facebook Page just because everyone else has one. Understand what you are trying to achieve, research if your audience is not only on Facebook but actually paying attention to anything other than their virtual farm crops, then plan your approach. Planning takes time.
• Avoid overreaching and overstating. Just because we feel social media is important doesn’t mean it is to everyone else. Those of us using the tools are doing so for a myriad of reasons, so we can’t lump everyone on a social network or with a blog into one box. Good communications and good customer service are still where it’s at. The delivery methods have changed rapidly, but it still boils down to the Golden Rule: the “Please” and “Thank You,” and the smile.
• Avoid the shingle phenomenon. Don’t join the people who add “Social Media” next to their title or company name and suddenly, they’re an expert. Or worse, they shell out a few thousand to someone else who claims to offer Social Media Certification, then they sucker in a bunch of unsuspecting clients and bring them on a reckless ride after only 40 hours of “intensive training.” Just don’t do it.
• Avoid the big plunge. I’ve always advised my clients to dip a toe into the water first to see if it’s warm. Don’t just pull out all the stops with social media. Use a phased approach to adopt new tools, technologies and tactics. You need to warm up, work out the kinks. Jumping into the deep end before you can swim only means you’re likely to drown.
• Avoid the quick hit. Social media is not a campaign; it’s a commitment. Plan for the long term. Take your time, and be deliberate about your actions. Measure. Evaluate. Improve what you are doing. Listen. Respond. Interact. Connect. Be there for the long haul. Learn and grow with your audience, your customers, your constituents. You now have unprecedented access to your customers. Use wisely.
• Avoid the numbers game. Sure you can use automated following tools and maybe get a slew of people following you back. But they’re not listening. They don’t care. I’ve always said that I’d rather have 100 friends, fans or followers who care than 1000 who ignore me.  Social media is not about the big numbers but what you do with the numbers you have — and what they do in return. Devoted actions of a few can have an exponential impact, far greater than inaction by many.
• Avoid the silos. Do not relegate social media to an afterthought. Do not get your communications or marketing team together, and then give the social media team the notes. Someone with social media savvy needs to be at the table from the start. Their knowledge and experience can better inform your brainstorming, can open new doors, can enhance old tactics or eliminate them all together.
• Avoid one-size-fits-all thinking. What’s good for your neighbor may not be good for you. What is good for one of your clients isn’t necessarily the right thing for all the rest. While it is tempting to squeeze social media into a formula or to make a template and mass produce campaigns, each company or organization or individual deserves a plan customized to their needs, tailored for their distinct audiences, and made to fit their capabilities. Greed drives automation, and automation drives mediocrity at best, expensive failures at worst.

Where do you think social media is right now? And what are you definitely trying to avoid?

Apple finally unveiled its tablet computer, the iPad. Thus concludes Phase 1 of the standard Apple new-category roll-out: months of feverish speculation and hype online, without any official indication by Apple that the product even exists.

Now Phase 2 can begin: the bashing by the bloggers who’ve never even tried it: “No physical keyboard!” “No removable battery!” “Way too expensive!” “Doesn’t multitask!” “No memory-card slot!”

That will last until the iPad actually goes on sale in April. Then, if history is any guide, Phase 3 will begin: positive reviews, people lining up to buy the thing, and the mysterious disappearance of the basher-bloggers.

The iPad is, as predicted, essentially a giant iPod Touch: aluminum-backed, half-inch thin, with a 10-inch screen surrounded by a shiny black border. At the bottom, there’s the standard iPod/iPhone connector and a single Home button. It will be available in models ranging from $499 (16 gigs of memory, Wi-Fi) to $830 (64 gigs of memory, Wi-Fi and 3G cellular).

The cellular signal will be provided by AT&T for $15 a month (250 megabytes of data transferred — think e-mail only) or $30 a month, unlimited. Amazingly, those AT&T deals involve no contract. You can cancel whenever you like. And since this thing isn’t a phone, you don’t have to worry about dropped calls; you’re paying exclusively for Internet service.

There’s no reason you couldn’t use it to make calls using Skype, of course — Apple says that virtually all of the existing 140,000 iPhone apps run fine on the iPad. (You can run them either at regular tiny size, or blown up double with some loss of clarity.)

Then again, you might look a little bizarre walking through the airport holding this giant clipboard up to your ear.

Until I saw the demo, I wondered why you’d want an iPad instead of a laptop. After all, the price is about the same. And once you add a carrying case to the iPad — wouldn’t you worry about that glass screen bouncing around in your briefcase or backpack naked? — it’s about the same bulk and weight as a laptop.

Now, though, it looks like Apple really has created something new. Criticisms of “Like a laptop” and “a big iPod Touch” don’t really do justice to the possibilities.

The iPad as an e-book reader is a no-brainer. It’s just infinitely better-looking and more responsive than the Kindle, not to mention it has color and doesn’t require external illumination. (Book fans should note, however, that the iPad e-bookstore won’t offer bestsellers at $10 each, like Amazon and Barnes & Noble do. And although Apple says the iPad has a 10-hour battery life, it hasn’t yet said “doing what.” Playing video eats up battery a lot faster than reading e-books.)

Web browsing, painting programs, TV and movies, newspapers and magazines all seem like naturals on this 1.5-pound machine, too. The New York Times app is especially appealing to me — and yes, this is my completely independent opinion — because it seems to work like the much-adored Times Reader app for computers.

Overall, the iPad seems like a dream screen for reading and watching—at some loss of convenience in creating. True, there’s an on-screen keyboard, big enough to type on with both hands in the usual way. And Apple will offer a specialized multitouch word processor, spreadsheet and presentation app for $10 each. But I’m guessing that, with no mouse and no physical keys to feel, writing and editing will be more effort than on a laptop. (Apple will also sell an external keyboard that holds the iPad upright as you type. Then again, if you need to carry all that around, maybe a laptop would make more sense.)

But these are just the wild speculations of a guy who’s never even tried the thing. (Believe me, I’ll review it when I get one.)

My main message to fanboys is this: it’s too early to draw any conclusions. Apple hasn’t given the thing to any reviewers yet, there are no iPad-only apps yet (there will be), the e-bookstore hasn’t gone online yet, and so on. So hyperventilating is not yet the appropriate reaction.

At the same time, the bashers should be careful, too. As we enter Phase 2, remember how silly you all looked when you all predicted the iPhone’s demise in that period before it went on sale.

Like the iPhone, the iPad is really a vessel, a tool, a 1.5-pound sack of potential. It may become many things. It may change an industry or two, or it may not. It may introduce a new category — something between phone and laptop — or it may not. And anyone who claims to know what will happen will wind up looking like a fool.