Category Archives: General

Installing Aspell

Posted on 2012-06-17 by jcs

As I posted yesterday, it turns out that I have some old 32 bit software left over from Fink installs on my machines. As far as I know, none of it was being used except for Ispell. Once I got … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged Emacs | 2 Comments

Replacing a Region With the Last Kill

Posted on 2012-06-14 by jcs

I learned a another neat trick from Aaron Hawley’s Giant Emacs Reference Sheet. This is another of those tricks, like the revert buffer shortcut, that uses keystrokes intended to do something else in a novel way to accomplish something unexpected. … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged Emacs | 4 Comments

A Page on Emacs 24’s New Features

Posted on 2012-06-13 by jcs

Xah Lee has started a page on New Features in Emacs 24. He’s promising to add to it every few days so it might be a good place to go to get familiar with some of Emacs 24’s new goodies … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged Emacs | 3 Comments

Muscle Memory

Posted on 2012-06-12 by jcs

I can so empathize.

Posted in General | Tagged Emacs | 1 Comment

Living Without Flash

Posted on 2012-06-11 by jcs

Let’s face it: Flash is a mess. Hardly a week goes by without a new exploit and its performance problems are legion. Steve Jobs famously hated Flash and refused to allow its use in iOS. My Linux distribution strongly recommends … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged Security | 2 Comments

Emacs 24.1 Has Been Released

Posted on 2012-06-10 by jcs

Emacs 24.1 is ready for download from the usual places. There’s all kinds of little improvements that we’ve talked about from time to time but the main features, as described by the release notice, are: The new packaging system. This … Continue reading →

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Emacs `display-battery-mode`

Posted on 2012-06-09 by jcs

I have occasionally run across the Emacs display-battery-mode command—it’s in Aaron Hawley’s excellent reference sheet, for example. I never bothered really looking at it because my MacBook Pro already has an battery status icon on the menu bar. Today, out … Continue reading →

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Blind Tennis

Posted on 2012-06-08 by jcs

The next time you’re tempted to whine about how hard a task is; how it’s simply impossible; how obviously no one could be expected to do it: remember this. I know I will.

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Password Advice

Posted on 2012-06-07 by jcs

There’s been a lot of snark going around the last few days over this password help screen from the Texas Attorney General’s Child Support Services Web Page. Child Support Services are, of course, doing the best they can to preserve … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged Security | Leave a comment

The Emacs `comment-dwim` Command

Posted on 2012-06-05 by jcs

I really like the Emacs comment-dwim command. The dwim—do what I mean—neatly captures the idea of the command. It looks at the context in which it is called and then does the right thing™. Most often, I highlight a region … Continue reading →