#3 - Mouse Gestures

This lesser known but distinctive innovation of Opera’s is really worth featuring at no.3. If you have been practising the first two tips, you’ll realise it demands the use of both hands. Now that’s ok for most situations except when, like me, you sometimes want to relax and surf with mouse in one hand and cup of coffee in the other!

Link Gestures

  Open link in a new window in the foreground

1. Point to link
2. Hold down right button
3. Gesture down
4. Release

  Open link in a new window in the background 

1. Point to link
2. Hold down right button
3. Gesture down-up 
4. Release

Gestures take some retraining of surfing habits as we’re programmed to automatically head to the browser toolbar or use a keyboard shortcut. However the investment does pay off handsomely. For example, instead of having to repeatedly navigate your mouse precisely over the ‘close tab’ button on the tab corner, just gesture an ‘L’ while holding down the right mouse button from anywhere on the screen. And if you have dozens of tabs opened from using speedsurfing tips 1 and 2, you’ll find closing and scrolling through them a stroll in the park.

Again as mentioned, Opera is not for everyone. It’s a techie’s dream browser though still worth knowing about as I suspect IE and FF are dying to rip it off.

Browsers:

• Internet Explorer 7.0: Click Wheel+Move Mouse (panning)
• Mozilla Firefox: Click Wheel+Move Mouse (panning)
• Opera: Hold Right+Click Left (back), Hold Left+Click Right (forward), Hold Right+Roll Wheel (jump tabs), Hold Right+DownRight (close), Hold Right+DownUp (duplicate). See Full List

Speed Value: +180%

Rating: 5 Stars

Tips: Intro  #1  #2  #3  #4         Exit (ipodmusic)

I’ve just put this up on an experimental music page to tap on the power of the CSE. It’s pretty cool. Since free indie music is pretty much a stab in the dark, it makes perfect sense to explore it based on activity or function first and then genre.

iPod Music - iPhone Music - Car Music - Office Music - Workout Music - Jogging Music - Shopping Music - Sleeping Music - Dining Music - Love Music - Jazz Music

#2 - Ctrl+Click or Ctrl+Enter

This opens up a new window behind the exisiting window (and in IE7, FF and OP, opening a new tab behind the window). If you liked Shift+Click, you will definitely love Ctrl+Click. The full power of this function is revealed when you want to browse a full listing of, for example, the first twenty returns on Google.

Do a Ctrl+Click on all the twenty by holding down the Ctrl button and clicking in rapid succession down the list. You’ll see them opening up behind the current tab (i.e. located in the same window). This saves time waiting for pages to load only after you click them. With all the links open, you can then browse swiftly across the tabs, closing those you don’t want.

Enter something into the Google custom search engine on the left and then blitz away! (you’ll remain on this page)

If you happen to be using IE6 and below, you will need to upgrade or switch browsers to try this out. Between IE7 and Firefox2, I’d recommend the latter as it’s generally faster and more secure but try both out and see.

Browsers:

• Internet Explorer 7.0: Ctrl+Click (new rear tab)
• Mozilla Firefox: Ctrl+Click (new rear tab)
• Opera: Ctrl+Shift+Click (new rear tab)

Speed Value: +700%

Rating: 5 Stars

Tips: Intro  #1  #2  #3  #4         Exit (ipodmusic)

#1 - Shift+Click or Shift+Enter

Activating this on a hyperlink opens the link in a new window. When you’re doing a keyword search in Google or happen to be on a site that contain lots of useful links, use this function to browse the second level of links. By keeping the first page of links open you preserve your focus in surfing deeper and can just close the window when you’re done.

You also save tremendous amounts of time not having to navigate backwards using your back button thereby cutting out all the unnecessary reloading of pages. Nothing can be more frustrating than trying to decide whether to follow a new lead or return to a previous point to scan the other promising ones. Using this function, you don’t have to decide at once. Try it out and see how much faster you’re moving! Browsing through an entire Google list becomes virtually effortless.

Now if you’re running a tabbed browser (IE7 only, FF, Opera) you can try a variation of this with Ctrl+Shift+Click or Ctrl+Shift+Enter. This opens a new tab in front of the previous page instead of a new window. I personally love Opera for leading innovation on many aspects of browser functionality - it’s quite the browser for techies.

Browsers:

• Internet Explorer 7.0: Shift+Click (new window), Ctrl+Shift+Click (new tab)
• Mozilla Firefox: Shift+Click (new window), Ctrl+Shift+Click (new tab)
• Opera: Shift+Click (new window), Alt+Click (new tab)

Speed Value: +500%

Rating: 5 Stars

Tips: Intro  #1  #2  #3  #4         Exit (ipodmusic)

In an age of information glut and overload, it’s become something of a lifeskill to be able to navigate and filter quickly through lots of sites so that you get the best value for time. If you’ve never really updated your surfing and searching skills since the last century, it’s time to catch up!

Search technologies and facilities have definitely evolved and many of these innovations may not come to us ‘naturally’ unless we are specifically looking for them. In this series I will be covering ten key tips for speeding up surfing, and another ten for searching. So what’s the difference? Stay tuned and find out!

(We will be discussing features from 3 browsers: IE - Internet Explorer, FF - Mozilla Firefox, OP - Opera)

Tips: Intro  #1  #2  #3  #4         Exit (ipodmusic)

Just what do you do with inspiration?

The creative impulse comes from almost about anywhere and we often find a need to express and share it. If you have a blog, chances are DIY music is something you’d have thought about bringing into your personal publishing world. Afterall, words on a page only travel through the visual medium, and music has that strange ability to reach into the soul.

Modern technology can help us express and share our moments of inspiration in some form of DIY music and make it highly accessible. You might be curious about how far you could go with turning fragments of poetry into listenable indie pieces, and it’s not really so tough. But it’s a journey nonetheless to develop and nurture that seed of inspiration.

DIY music is the future less travelled. It’s going from expressing your personality through buying the music you like, to actually learning what goes into creating the music you like. And it might lead to you learning a little about everything from songwriting to miking, designing a home studio to distributing music online. 

The best part is, you’d have something that’s personal and performable. Who knows where this might end up? 

www.peopod.net