In nearly all the responses to the recent SOPA/PIPA blackout I've read recently, from both sides, there is a disturbing undercurrent and dangerous assumption being made about the legislation – that somehow it is necessary on some level for Congress to address piracy, and that this round of legislation is just too heavy handed and needs to be tweaked. Even those calling for the death of SOPA/PIPA entirely often couch their statements in a “clearly, piracy is a problem that needs to be addressed but” disclaimer.

Columns. While it may seem like a good idea to a graphic designer, the idea of newspaper-style columns strikes fear in the hearts of themers everywhere. In particular, you may run into an instance where you need a list view to be A-L in the first column, then M-Z in the second column. I'll walk you through a method for doing just that, using a little PHP. Note that this is for Drupal 7, but is easily adaptable for Drupal 6.

I will note first that there are a couple other quickie options that might work for your situation.

A blogroll is useful for many different reasons but it is mainly based on creating links to other websites. They can be a great promotional aid and may help readers find related content that could be useful to them.

Blogroll Auto Linker – This great tool is useful in making it possible to easily link to another site in your posts by using your blogroll. This also allows you to use the auto link feature with smart tags by putting the name of the blog in brackets.

Having a chat running on your website is a great way to keep visitors entertained and engaged with your writing. You can offer chat in various locations and visitors can chat amongst themselves.

Geesee Chat – This is basically a chat client that is available to use with many different platforms including WordPress. It is very useful in keeping in touch with your readers and allowing them to talk with each other to discuss your writing.

WordPress blogs are prone to being attacked in many ways. One simple way to protect your blog as well as the readers who visit your page is by integrating an antivirus plugin. These plugins are great for use towards virus protection from spammers and more.

Anti Virus – This is a useful plugin to help protect your blog from spammers and virus infections. It detects permalink backdoor viruses and much more. You can even run a manual virus test with instant results.

The ability to track who the top commentators are on your WordPress blog is very useful for many reasons. There are plugins that are designed to help you accomplish knowing who these top commentators are.

Top Commentators Widget – This is a great plugin widget that allows you to display the top commentators on your WordPress blog site sidebar. This is a great way to help them get recognized if they have contributed a lot to your blog comments.

Pagination is important for any blog that does not need a large list of comments on a single page. It also offers the ability to index multiple “pages” of comments on popular search engines.

Paginated Comments – This plugin is designed to allow you to break up your comments into pages that are designed with search engine optimization in mind. It is a very powerful tool for blogs with large amounts of comments on their posts.

Having new members register with your WordPress blog to allow them to submit posts is a great way to get more content for free. This can also be a risk in itself so having a way to screen out risky people is best with plugins.

WP Members – This is a special plugin that only allows those who are registered with WordPress to be able to view your blog posts. This is only recommended if it is a website that is only used for blogging.

Sticky posts are a great way to keep a more important post up on top of your post listings to ensure that readers are able to see the post first when visiting your WordPress blog. You can easily make posts into stickies with special plugins.

WP Sticky – This is a plugin designed to make it simple to make a post a sticky on your WordPress blog. It is very useful for creating stickies very quickly when needed.

Search enhancement plugins are very important for WordPress as they allow multiple enhancements on making searches within the page. This can be beneficial for search engines as well by making the page searchable.

Search Engine Query in WordPress – This little gem makes it possible to suggest items from your WordPress posts that offer suggestions for related posts when a reader comes in through a search engine.

It’s not often you find articles related to WordPress search on the web for some reason. I don’t know why is this the case, but I’ll try to fill that gap here. Read below to find useful information on how and why it is important to add a good WordPress search box for your blog.

Why is a Good Search Box Important For Your Blog?

There are 3 reasons:

Templates make it possible to quickly create styled posts that do not require much more than writing the content and adding in your images. This makes it much simpler for many writers, especially if they create their post templates by hand and want it ready for use right away.

Post Templates – This changes the post template for individual posts or even for entire categories if you specify. This is very useful for blogs that need to change the default template for their posts quickly.

The non-profit organization faces unique challenges with any web project. There are budget and internal skill limitations not typically faced by a for-profit entity. We've addressed what you need to know about the project process and begun to tell you how to manage it more successfully.

Many companies make use of podcasting which is simply a way of distributing information through sound clips or videos that can be used on popular devices such as the Apple iPod.

Podcasting – This plugin takes a file from anywhere on the web and offers it through an iTunes like feed on your WordPress blog. This is useful to also play the file on the web with a special player that is included.

Download management on your WordPress blog is essential, especially if you are hosting many files that tax on your data transfer allowance. The can also be used to limit the amount of files downloaded by specific users, IP addresses and much more.

Downloads Manager – Easy to implement plugin that is designed to offer downloads to the public. Allows the admin to monitor how many downloads of a specific file have occurred.

Print plugins for WordPress can have a wide range of options for your blog when someone wishes to print your posts. You can add information that is not shown on your original posts or simply make it easier for readers to pick and print what they need off of your blog site.

WP Print – This plugin makes it possible to print out the blog post without all of the extra formatting on the page. It is a great tool to make it simple for readers to print information.

CAPTCHA WordPress tools are designed to prevent unwanted spam posts, registrations and comments on your WordPress blog site. This can be used by any blog with the appropriate plugins put into place.

Simple CAPTCHA – A very simple and secure plugin that allows the prevention of spam posts on your WordPress blog. It is very easy to use by simply installing and activating the plugin.

Editor's Note: This is the first in an ongoing series about what our team does in their spare time to help good causes.

Photo: Amanda and Nus in the Free Geek Twin Cities firehouse.

Having a way to display your blog posts for foreign readers which use a language other than your own is important. This way you can target a much larger audience with your blog posts.

Auto Translator – This translator is easy to use and installs a set of flags that allow the visitors to select their country to draw the translation from an automatic translation service with some limitations to accuracy.

Polls are a useful way to not only know that users are reading your posts, but to also learn their opinions if they do not post in your blog. The following plugins are great for taking polls.

WP Polls – A great plugin that is highly customizable in both options and visual styles. Takes advantage of Ajax powered coding to ensure the poll works how you want it to work.

Formatting everything in blog posts separately for a review can be very tiresome. Having the ability to easily create reviews is important for many review sites.

Stumble Reviews – Allows you to show reviews about your WordPress blog on from Stumbleupon toolbar users on your blogs. Improves the look and feel of your WordPress blog with these reviews by real people.

Video can be a useful tool to keep visitors on the blog for longer periods of time. It also offers diversions and flare to an otherwise plain WordPress blog.

Embedded Video – Support for over 20 video portal websites with this plugin to embed into your WordPress blog posts.

Improving the loading time of your WordPress blog is important. Caching systems offer your blog visitors a chance to see everything before it gets stale in their browser and they navigate away.

WP Cache – This is an advanced page caching system for your WordPress blog which allows your blog to load much more efficiently and quickly.

The social bookmark is essential to have increased exposure with large audiences. The usual response is a surge of readers visiting and commenting on blog posts featured in social bookmarks.

Social Bookmarks – A useful plugin to help offer readers of your WordPress blog the ability to share your blog with others through social bookmarking websites. Offers support for other social bookmarking sites with special installable packs.