bottling properly...???...

I've been reading a lot of different ways to bottle in here. Everything from tablets, extract, cane sugar and even flipping the bottles upside down and letting them foam up then capping and shaking the bottles up every few days to keep the carbing going. What ever happened to just putting 3/4 cup corn sugar in the bottling bucket, siphoning, filling, capping, then just letting them sit for a few weeks? Should I be shaking them up and all this other crazy stuff I'm hearing about in here or just do it by the book? Thanks.

Shaking the bottles will only take the CO2 out of solution which is counter to what your trying to do. Stick with 3/4C priming sugar boiled in a little bit of water and add it to your beer in the bottling buket before filling. I usually keg my beer but I always make a tad bit more than 5gal so I can bottle a few. For just a few beers I use carb tabs which just makes the process a little easier.

The "shaking" thing is just to rouse the yeast, if carbonation seems to be going slow after the 3 week period. And it shouldn't be a shake, just a gentle swirl.

The DME, cane sugar, etc are just alternative fermentables. Corn sugar works just fine, but some people like to use other things, or happen to have it on hand.