I lot of dedicated Entrecard users find a driving obligation to return the favor when someone drops a card on them. For the last few days, I have been dropping like a madman, and found quite a few ways to speed up the process without “cheating” or missing out on a chance to find a new interesting article to read. Here are my steps.

1) Use the Firefox browser. This is crucial, as the next two tips require the Firefox browser. Also, it loads tabs much quicker than its major competitor.

2) Find another browser that you are comfortable with. Right now, I’m typing this post in the new Google Chrome browser, but use Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari… whatever you feel comfortable with. You’ll be loading several pages at a time in Firefox, and this tends to slow it down a LOT if you are trying to use other tabs for your day to day browsing.

3) Install the Entrecard toolbar. This gives you quick and easy access to your favorites, and your inbox for dropping.

4) Install the imgLikeOpera plugin for Firefox. This is a key speed boost. A good 90% of the time spent loading a webpage are on images, and this plugin allows you to set images to not load by default, and change the settings back and forth very easily with just a few clicks. Once this is installed, you’ll want to configure it to allow images from Entrecard to show up, or else you won’t be able to drop.

Click Tools->Add-ons. Click the “options” button for imgLikeOpera, and then go to the “filters” tab. Type “entrecard.com” in the filter box, change the drop down to “[1] load all images”, and click add. This ensures that no matter what settings you choose, the Entrecard widget will still load. Going back to the main tab, “Cache, misc”, you’ll see the drop down for “default policy for new window/tab”. This is where you’ll switch back and forth from speed browsing, and normal browsing. “Don’t load images” for fast browsing, “Load all images” for normal day to day browsing.

5) Know your keyboard shortcuts. In Firefox, hitting CTRL-Tab will switch you to the next open tab, and CTRL-W will close the current page. ALT-Tab will switch you back and forth between Windows programs, and the space bar is just like hitting page down in most web browsers. CTRL-D will add a bookmark of the current page you are on for later reading. Holding CTRL while clicking a link will open that link in a new window in most tab-enabled browsers.

6) Drop away! Using the Entrecard toolbar, you can open 10 windows at a time in the category of your choosing. I usually load up 10 pages, then click the button again once it lets me, and let 20 pages load up in the background. I switch over to my Google browser and check my ad stats, or write a new blog entry, and check back about 60 seconds later. (Slow internet connections or older computers may have to wait a bit longer). I have one hand on the left side of the keyboard for CTRL-TAB and the space bar, and one hand on the mouse, I can usually drop all 20 in about 20 seconds or so. After I drop them all, I then tab through all the windows one more time, making sure the drops did in fact go through, and checking for new articles I haven’t read. I quickly CTRL-D those that I have an interest in reading, Hit CTRL-W a handful of times, and do it all again. Overall, it takes about 5 minutes of my time to drop 20 cards or so, and I’m productive in between as well.

If you think I don’t read posts because of this speedy process… think again. It was an article that fellow Entrecarder Laura over at Confessions of a Diet Coke Addict wrote that inspired me to share this post while doing my dropping routine. I hope this helps save her some time, as well as the rest of you fellow Carders. Happy Dropping!

(I dropped 117 cards while writing this article)

Tags: blogging, Blogroll, dropping, entrecard, internet, tips