OK, so some friends and family have been asking me how I keep up with so much stuff online and still get anything done.

(I do get things done by the way.)

So I would like to offer…

Jason’s Shack ‘o’ Browsing Tips!

• tip the first: Mozilla Firefox! This is the most important step you can take towards a speedier and more productive online experience. The majority of the following tips will not help you without Firefox as your browser. Believe me, you will not regret it. Firefox includes built-in pop-up blocking and an integrated search bar (which defaults to Google), and has a vast number of extensions available for further customisation. And for those few sites that only work in IE, the number of those sites is decreasing every day — the very small amount of time that you need to spend using IE to access these sites will be more than paid back through the time-savings you will have through using Firefox. Go download it. Right now.
• tip the second: Tabbed browsing. No more clicking back and forth between pages as you try to read a page and follow the links in the page. Simply open the links in a new tab and continue on. And being able to save a set of tabs as a single bookmarks, or even set your homepage to be a whole set of bookmarks, is just dandy. Flip between tabs using the mouse, or even better by hitting ctrl-tab. To open a link in a new tab with your mouse, either press ctrl as you click the left mouse button or click on the center button or scroll wheel. Using your keyboard, press ctrl as you type Enter.
• tip the third: Keyboard shortcuts. Learn them and use them. Your mouse is only slowing you down. The ones that I use the most are ctrl-l and ctrl-k . ctrl-l moves the focus to the location bar (sometimes it’s a whole lot faster to just type the address of the site you are looking for rather than mouse through all your bookmarks). ctrl-k moves the focus to the search bar. Alt-left-arrow moves you back to your previous page and alt-right-arrow move you forward a page.
• tip the fourth: RSS and Bloglines.com. More and more websites are publishing their content through RSS feeds, which is an XML format that allows content to be syndicated and viewed through a variety of services. The medium that I use the most is Bloglines.com, which is a web-based feed reader — you create a free account with Bloglines and subscribe to the feeds that you want to read. Bloglines then periodically checks the feeds for your subscribed sites for updated content. Then, when you go to your Bloglines page, you are shown the sites which have new content and can view the new content directly in your Bloglines page. This works best for sites that are primarily text-based content, but there are feeds for photo galleries, comic strips, and many other forms of content. This is a huge time saver — rather than checking each individual site in your list of bookmarks for new content, you only have to go to one site for all updates. (Further info available through RSS feeds)
• tip the fifth: SuperDragAndGo. SuperDragAndGo is a Firefox extension that allows you to select a piece of text or a URL on a webpage and “throw it” (drag it slightly). Once “thrown”, if the text is a website address or a link, it will open a new tab to that site. For all other text, it will do a Google Search on the selected text. So if you find a phrase that you want to do a search on, you just select it and drag it slightly — voila! a search is initiated. (And throwing an image will open up a dialogue box to save the image to your computer.)
• tip the sixth: Find-as-you-Type. In Firefox, go to Tools > Options > Advanced. There, under the Accessibility tab you will see a checkbox next to “Begin finding as you begin typing”. Check this box. Then, when you are on a page, just begin typing the word you are looking for and it will begin an incremental search throughout the document. Type “j”, and it will go to the first word beginning with “j”. Type “a”, it will move to the first word beginning with “ja”. Delete “a” and it goes back to “j”. And so on. It makes searching within a single page a single-step process and far more intuitive — you just type what you want to find. What could be simpler that that?
• tip the seventh: Keywords. One last Firefox tip! In your Bookmarks, if you select Properties, one of the available properties of each link is a keyword. This keyword can be whatever you want it to be. So if you are regularly heading over to lifehacker.com for a dose of lifehackery, set the keyword for your Lifehacker bookmark to “1″. Then, you can simply enter ctrl-l to move to the location bar, type”1″ and then Enter, and you’re on your way!

While these are not all of my browsing secrets (I can’t give away all the magic), you will definitely find these will enable you to make your time online much more productive.

(i.e. You’ll have more time to look at cute pictures of cats.)

• Fafblog! : “It’s not really so bad after the zombies take over”

You ever have a day that feels like a zombie day? Everything’s draggy, you can’t get motivated, you crave human flesh…

Yeah, me too.

However, I do draw the line at brains before sundown.

Went a little crazy when I heard commentary last night putting the Tom Cruise microphone squirt at a small step below John Lennon being assassinated by Mark David Chapman.

It could have been a cheesy little prank pulled by what will most likely be a pretty weak comedy show.

But now? Now, it’s getting funnier and funnier every time I see it.

Look at that picture again. Now picture Tom Cruise getting mad. See? Funny.

Now look again. Even funnier!

And now he wants them prosecuted! Funniest!

(Image courtesy of Defamer)

Ahhh… the fine art of cutting.

Simply put, you want to get to a place where you are open to receive a disc from the handler. If your opponent is marking you aggressively, this can be hard.

There are a number of things you can do to increase the effectiveness of your cuts:

• Don’t fake too much: too much time spent faking leads to stall counts wasted and time spent clogging up the cutting lane.
• Boulder cuts are your friend. Don’t take one or two steps in a direction as a fake — take 4 or 5 or 6. Really commit. Then, if your mark is right on you, a 180 degree turn in the other direction and your defender is usually in the dust. (And if they haven’t bit on your 4 to 6 step fake, don’t make it a fake. Just keep on going. Even easier.)
• One the other side of things from the boulder cut, if you want to run straight in towards the handler and your defender is between you and the disc, run right at them and past their shoulder. In the time it takes for them to turn around, you have a couple of extra steps towards that reception. (A quick head fake to the opposite shoulder often gives you an extra moment here as well.)
• Finish your cut: many players, most notably newer players, don’t continue their cuts far enough. For example, they cut from a point on the break-side of the field and get to just in-line with the handler and give up the cut, before they ever actually crossed into the force-side of the field. Cut all the way to where the cut will be most successful.
• Your mark is always coming up behind you, so don’t stop running. I know you think they’re not. They are. They are always coming. So don’t stop running at that disc until it is in your solid two-handed catch. (I know, I know, you’re certain you lost them on the other side of the field. Just… don’t stop.)
• Watch your defenders eyes: It’s true — the best cut is when your mark is not looking at you. You don’t need to do anything at this point other than make your cut. Easy. Except… you have got to be aware of these moments when they come and at the very moment they happen. You need to be watching your player very carefully and yet still still have a solid picture of what is happening on the field. (It doesn’t help to be able to escape your mark only to run right into traffic.) When you get the field sense to use this, it will be your best friend. (It’s the secret of lazy wily vets everywhere.)
• Most importantly for all types of cuts… commit, commit, commit. Jogging is never the right choice on a cut. When you jog, your defender knows where you are and has no trouble positioning themselves in order to minimise your effectiveness. And if you are jogging, your weak cut is taking up even more time in the cutting lane that could be used for a cut from a teammate. On the other hand, a solid hard cut will either get you in the open or, at the very least, force your defender to take you seriously — hard cuts will keep your defender from poaching because they will have to judge you as a threat. (And if they don’t stop poaching, it’s your god-given right to make them pay for it.)

(P.S. These tips are courtesy of all those players those who have been kind enough to mentor me over the years. Special thanks go out right now to William, whose Ulty articles inspired me to throw up some of my own tips.)

(P.P.S. All of these tips go double for me.)