JDHarper.com

If you run a blog using WordPress, you owe it to yourself to install the Hotlink Image Cacher Plugin. It’s my favorite kind of plugin: it automates a tedious task.

When you want to display an image that you find on the internet, there are two ways of going about it. First, you can just put the url for that image into an image tag (e.g. <img src="[URL]">). This is called “hotlinking,” and it’s considered bad manners, as you’re stealing someone else’s bandwidth, and it’s a bad idea since the person who’s hosting the image might change or delete it.

The right way to deal with images is to download the image to your computer, upload it to your own server, and link it from there. This way, you have control over the image and you’re not stealing bandwidth. But it’s kind of a pain, especially if you want to use several pictures.

This plugin automates good behavior: You set up your blog post using hotlinking. It automatically copies the image to your server and changes the img tag to point to your copy, and it does it without getting in the way at all. Awesome!