Google Reader's Amazing Shortcuts
So, in my previous post I mentioned that GReader is awesome but failed to mention exactly why I’ve become so attached to it. In a word: shortcuts. It uses vi style keyboard shortcuts so ‘j’ moves to the next post while ‘k’ moves to the previous. ‘ga’ takes you to all feeds while ‘gs’ takes you to your stared items. Confused? Hit ‘?’ and a web 2.0-ified overlay will tell you all you ever needed to know.
It may seem simple but it’s incredibly powerful and allows you to plow through feeds at unbelievable speed without ever needing to move your hands away from the keyboard.
Speaking of vi, if you have never tried vi (or one of its variants, particularly vim) and you code (or do any amount of text editing) then you owe it to yourself to learn it. When doing large amounts of text edity there should be no reason to reach for the mouse or use contorted hard to reach shortcuts (ctr+alt+shift+F12) that take you away from the home row.
Note that I wrote “learn” not “try”. If you “try” vi you will run away in tears (How the crap do I save the blasted file!). Vi’s learning curve is steep but completely worth it. There are some good tutorials/cheetsheets here if you feel so inclined.