Often we take for granted the faceless (and sometimes nameless) programmers who provide us with all the wonderful tools, utilities, and scripts that we find freely available on the internet. Take for example the tools used on this very blog that you’re reading. Anyone who uses WordPress, and takes advantage of even a fraction of the free Themes and Plugins, knows what I’m talking about. But while they are free for us to use, someone put in some long hours to produce the code that enables us to have our own little happy home on the ‘net.

So this year I decided to save a bit of my Christmas budget and spend it on on donations to the coders whose tools I use most, to help them start off the New Year with a smile. I’d also like to spotlight one whose name is all over my Plugins list!

Anyone who uses WordPress plugins is probably familier with Lester “GaMerZ” Chan, a student in Singapore who, amongst his many talents, produces some of the coolest and most useful plugins, such as WP-Print, WP-Polls, WP-PostRatings, WP-Stats, WP-Sticky, and a number of other great WordPress Plugins.

Take stock of all the plugins, tools, and code snippets you use – have you remembered to send the person responsible for them a thank you, and maybe a small token of appreciation? Very few coders get rich from their freelance projects, but the small trickle of donations keeps them motivated to continue to support them, and to write new freebies for us too.

So to all you generous coders out there – my best wishes for a prosperous New Year, and if I come across your site and goodies, and use them, rest assured I’ll send you a few dollars.