For small cables you don't need a cable needle, which makes knitting cables (or twisted stitches) so much easier and faster. I learnt that for my cotton hat - Sylvie Rasch shows two techniques. The first one is great for crossing two stitches - it's really fast (she fights a bit with the stitches, but I think that's cause it's cotton yarn). The second technique works when you have more stitches in a cable. It might look complicated at first, but it's way better than fiddling with an additional needle.

For the "throwers and pickers" - there surely are a lot of videos showing how to do that, take a look ;)