Akismet does a brilliant job of keeping your blog free from spam, but sometimes, just sometimes you need that little bit more. This is where a service called reCAPTCHA can come in handy. It’s a pretty cool service that lets you protect your site from bots, while at the same time help you scan books by translating words that can’t be recognised by a machine. It’s a classic case of killing two birds with one stone. Protect your blog from spam while helping to translate scanned books.

There’s a WordPress plugin for reCAPTCHA that lets you add the service to your blog in a couple of minutes. It’s installed in the standard way of uploading the contents of the ZIP up to your website and activating, but has a further step that requires an API key (which is free). After that it should all be automatic. So, if you’re tired of cleaning up comments about Nigerian generals or that diet pill that works, check out this plugin; you’ll be helping others while helping yourself.