It seems like every day I’m discovering new WordPress plugins that I have a need or desire for.   Today was no exception!   If you are someone that has made a number of downloads available to the public on your WordPress blog (WordPress themes, WordPress plugins, eBooks, etc.), you will probably also find this plugin very useful.

The plugin I am referencing is the WordPress Download Manager plugin, which was designed to help you give you statistics and manage your downloads.  Once activated, this plugin gives you a download manager in your WordPress dashboard that supports the following extensions:  .zip, .pdf, .mp3, .rar.  You can upload multiple downloads, create download categories, and even make your own custom download URL’s.

This plugin also calculates your downloads for you and displays your download statistics on the front page of your dashboard.

This guest post was written by Ben Fraley of Ben Fraley.com, where he enjoys writing about WordPress. If you have webmaster or WordPress knowledge and are interested in writing a post for Hack WordPress, please contact us.

Ok so, true to form, here’s my first review of a Wordpress tool for Hack Wordpress. It’s a Firefox extension called “Zemanta,” and if you like Wordpress, you just gotta get this. What it does it suggest links, tags, categories, even pictures for your blog post AS YOU TYPE IT. That’s correct, it doesn’t even wait for you to be done, and you don’t have to go searching yourself. It does it for you. It’s just awesome.

The extension installs into Firefox, and goes seamlessly into the Wordpress (2.3 and 2.5) admin section without any installation into Wordpress itself (I guess it’s not as much a Wordpress plugin as it is a Firefox plugin for Wordpress. Semantics ). Very easy, and very, VERY useful.