Proficient use of keyboard shortcuts is a hallmark of the diehard PC user. By using these commands, the hands don't have to ever leave their position on the keyboard, and general PC use becomes much faster.

Now think about what these users are doing with their feet. Probably nothing, right?

Finding your way around online as quickly as you can is becoming more and more important. Current net users want to zip from site to site without worrying about remembering addresses or working out where they're stored in bookmarks.

SiteLauncher for Firefox and SiteLauncher for Chrome are browser extensions that provide fast access and keyboard shortcuts to your most popular sites. It's already chock full of useful  bookmarks, but you can add your own and customize all the existing ones too.

Nitro PDF Software has released version 2.0 of its popular free PDF editor/creator software, Nitro PDF Reader. Available in separate 32-bit and 64-bit builds, Nitro PDF Reader 2.0 is actually the first stable release of the software -- previous 1.x versions were classed as beta.

PDF Reader 2.0 offers PDF conversion, creation and editing tools in addition to its basic viewing capabilities. Nitro markets the software as "no strings attached" software because of its extended functionality and lack of registration nags or ad-supported components. Version 2.0 includes some notable performance improvements, particularly in the field of PDF creation -- as well as a number of new features.

Microsoft this week is upgrading its free consumer cloud storage and collaboration service SkyDrive, making it faster, cleaner, and more competitive with services such as Amazon Cloud Drive, Apple iCloud, and Dropbox.

"While we have always focused on improving the performance of our websites, it was clear that we had reached a point where the kinds of performance gains we were hoping for would not come without an assessment of our entire experience from the ground up," Omar Shahine wrote in the Windows Live Blog yesterday. "SkyDrive has been around since 2007 and was simply not built for the modern web."

The "lulz" for LulzSec may be about to end as worldwide authorities begin a push to apprehend those responsible. The British Metropolitan Police Service -- better known as Scotland Yard -- said Tuesday that it had arrested a 19-year-old man believed to be one of the lead individuals within the hacking collective.

UK law enforcement was under increasing pressure to find those responsible after LulzSec said that it planned to release the entire database from Britain's 2011 census. That would have meant some 62 million people could have their personal data exposed, the biggest hack yet for the group.

Today, Apple debuted Final Cut Pro X for the ridiculously low price of $299.99, along with Compressor 4 and Motion 5 -- $49.99 each. The previous version, available as a suite, sold for $999. The price cut reflects Apple passing savings onto customers through the Mac App Store. But digital distribution also is a means of compelling people using older Mac OS X versions to upgrade.

Final Cut X is available via digital download, exclusively for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard customers and perhaps those folks lucky enough to be testing successor Lion. The price reduction is no means the first and unlikely the last. For example, Apple dropped photo-editing suite Aperture's price from $199 to $79 when Mac App Store launched in January. Presumably, Apple is passing savings onto customers. Digital download means Apple doesn't have to manufacture disks and boxes or distribute them.

Image-Line studios on Tuesday released FL Studio Mobile and FL Studio Mobile HD, the first mobile versions of the company's popular Windows-based music production and beatmaking software FL Studio, which is now in its 13th year on the market.

Like many other iOS music apps, FL Studio Mobile can be used as a multi-track sequencer to create music from scratch, giving users resizable piano keys and assignable drum pads to link to the app's built-in synthesizers. The major difference that FL Studio Mobile offers over other music creation apps, however, is its interaction with the desktop software. Projects created in the desktop version of FL Studio can be exported and loaded into FL Studio Mobile for manipulation on the go, and vice-versa.

Nokia deserves the award for most mixed-marketing messaging, by today announcing the luscious N9 smartphone. What a beauty, too. Just one problem: It runs MeeGo, which is effectively DOA since Windows Phone will soon be Nokia's primary mobile operating system. The N9 is the handset that most any technophile should want to buy and probably won't. Why invest your hard-earned cash in MeeGo, when Nokia won't?

By the specs, the N9 is one impressive handset and worthy of being a Nokia flagship handset. Quick specs: 3.9-inch AMOLED display -- curved Gorilla glass -- with 854 x 480 resolution; 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 OMAP3630 processor; 1GB RAM; 16GB or 64GB storage; 8-megapixel rear-facing camera -- Carl Zeiss f/2.2 lens with 2x LED flash; front-facing camera for video conferencing; 720p video recording; Near-Field Communications; Bluetooth 2.1; GPS: 1450 mA battery; and MeeGo 1.2 "Harmattan."

Today Groupon finally responded to naysayers expressing deep caution about its upcoming IPO -- the so-called great cash grab before burning through venture financing. Groupon coyly used the so-called "quiet period" defense for defying news media requests for comment about its business model. I'm confused. Didn't the Security and Exchange Commission largely eliminate the quiet period six years ago?

"The 'Quiet Period' is the time right before a company 'goes public', during which it is legally prohibited from saying anything to the press that may make the company look 'good', 'successful', or 'not currently on fire'", according to a blog post on Groupon's website.

The much prophesized life in the cloud is now all but upon us. Software in its traditional form is still popular, but it is losing ground to web-based apps. Sites such as Google Docs and Aviary, go a long way to proving that working with online applications does not mean having to make compromises. As the Internet is now more important than ever, it is entirely possible that your web browser is your most frequently used program -- something Google is exploiting with its Chromebook. Using Webian Shell, you can achieve the same with your current computer.

The application has really been designed for use on publically accessible terminals that do not need to be used for anything other than internet access, or running a limited number of web apps, but there is no reason that it cannot be put to good use at home. As it is likely that you spend a large proportion of your time online, it seem pointless to clutter you screen with other distractions such as the Windows taskbar or OS X's dock.

Anonymous, the hacker collective famous for performing cyber attacks as public retribution, has reportedly teamed up with LulzSec, the hacker group that attacks mostly for entertainment, for a mission going by the title AntiSec (Anti-Security) which seeks to expose any government-classified information that can be stolen.

LulzSec, which has recently stolen headlines for a rash of denial of service attacks issued an AntiSec manifesto today, asking everyone to join the rebellion.

Mobile network LightSquared today said it has a solution to the problem of interference with Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers that will allow the company to proceed with the construction of its new hybrid satellite/cellular data network.

LightSquared has been trying to answer the United States' massive mobile data bandwidth demands by combining satellite and cellular network services that creatively utilize the free spaces in the L-Band wireless spectrum where it could obtain licenses. But a report last week from the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Systems Engineering Forum (NPEF) assessed LightSquared's network technology, and found that it caused significant interference to defense and agriculture-related GPS satellites.

If your business isn't spending big on cloud computing perhaps it should, or will. Today, IDC forecast that public IT cloud spending would reach $72.9 billion in four years, up from $21.5 billion in 2010. That works out to 27.6 percent compound annual growth rate, which the analyst firm applied to five categories.

Those categories -- applications, application development and deployment, systems infrastructure software, basic storage and servers -- will account for nearly 50 percent in new net growth on IT spending, not just cloud computing, IDC claims. Software-as-a-service will account for about three quarters of public IT cloud spending.

Adobe quietly released an update to its Flash Builder and Flex framework on Monday that lets developers create and deploy apps for Apple's iOS and RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook OS in addition to Android, which it has supported since April.

Statistically, developers who design and release apps for multiple mobile platforms make up only a small portion of the community. But in terms of influence, these are actually some of the biggest companies in the field today, and it is not uncommon for the most popular app on one platform to also be the most popular app on MOST mobile platforms.

A new Windows beta of its Skype's popular instant messaging and voice and video mail client is now available. If you're one of the 92 percent of online social networkers using Facebook (according to Pew Internet), this release could be for you. Skype for Windows 5.5 Beta big new benefit is deeper integration with Facebook.

These closer ties include the ability to take part in instant chats with Facebook contacts, plus access Facebook news feed within Skype itself. Skype 5.5 also makes it possible to both Like and comment on Facebook statuses. All of this extra integration is rounded off by a new dedicated Facebook tab, which gives users access to all of their Facebook friends.