For Reading

Online Anywhere: Google Reader
iPad: Pulse and/or Flipboard (currently limited to select RSS news feeds)
Multiplatform: Firefox with Brief
Macintosh: NetNewsWire
PC: FeedDemon

For Writing

Firefox with ScribeFire
Firefox is a web browser. Firefox with the Scribefire plug-in is the easiest way to create, tag, and upload blog posts. Load portable Firefox + Scribefire on a thumb drive and you can take it wherever you go.

For Hosting & Design

Newbie
Start with the free Posterous, Tumblr, or Blogger, then migrate to WordPress when serious.

WordPress Plug-ins

The power of WordPress (self-hosted) lies within themes and plug-ins.

• Headway Theme: A theme ideal for beginners who are coming from Typepad, Blogger, etc., who want to focus more on creating great content instead of code! The visual editor makes it a breeze
• Akismet plug-in: Fights the spam. Free for individuals, cheap for businesses.
• Cute Profiles plug-in: Adds floating social media icons to your entire site. (example left)
• Disqus Comment System plug-in: The most widely used commenting system because of the number of options and threaded (easy-to-read) conversations.
• ShareThis plug-in: Get rid of individual plug-ins for Facebook, Twitter, etc. and consolidate with this one that adds sharing options to the bottom of every post.
• WP to Twitter plug-in: Automatically update Twitter with your new blog posts. Complete control over the tweet.
• Yet Another Related Posts plug-in: Finds older posts that might be relevant and of interest to your readers for your new posts. A great way to recycle your old content.