Russian date format

[tisoi.livejournal.com]

I just started a Russian class, and at the top of my homework I've been putting the date in English. I want to start doing it in Russian for practice.

A few questions...

- The correct format is 13 октября 2009-год, correct? Is год necessary? I see it quite often.

- Are the dates pronounced as ordinal or cardinal numbers? For example, would the 13 in the date above be pronounced тринадцать or тринадцатый?

- Is it acceptable to abbreviate the months? And if so, what are the correct abbreviations?

Большое спасибо!

browse the web / surf the internet / browse the internet

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

How do you say: browse the web / surf the internet / browse the internet? What are the different alternatives and which is the most common? Are any of these commonly used in everyday speech?