Monthly Archives: May 2013

Emacs Resources

Posted on 2013-05-21 by jcs

The folks over at The Emacs subreddit have posted a very nice list of Emacs resources. They’ve got distributions, tutorials, starter kits, blogs, and references. They’re taking suggestions for additions so let them know if they missed anything important to … Continue reading →

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A Fast Open for init.el

Posted on 2013-05-20 by jcs

Like me, Bozhidar Batsov is always fiddling with his init.el file. As a result, he’s devised a way to open it quickly. He wrote a bit of Elisp to load it and bound the Elisp to the simple key sequence … Continue reading →

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The Coding Standard From Hell

Posted on 2013-05-19 by jcs

You say you hate your organization’s coding standards? You say they make the code harder to understand and maintain? You say they could only have been devised by a particularly moronic version of the pointy haired boss? Stop your whining … Continue reading →

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Password Myths

Posted on 2013-05-18 by jcs

As you all know too well, I am very interested in password technology. Certainly, passwords aren’t, by themselves, the answer to security but they can help if people pick them sensibly and Web sites handle them is a secure manner. … Continue reading →

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Key-Chord Mode

Posted on 2013-05-17 by jcs

One of my favorite Emacs Rocks! videos is #7, Mind Exploded, in which Sveen talks about key-chord mode. Right after I saw the video, I loaded key-chord-mode, wrote about it, and have been using it ever since. I’m mentioning it … Continue reading →

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StrongBox

Posted on 2013-05-16 by jcs

Two years ago I wrote about WSJ SafeHouse, an effort on the part of the Wall Street Journal to start their own version of Wikileaks. The idea was that prospective whistle blowers would have a safe way to send documents … Continue reading →

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Emacs Hash Tables

Posted on 2013-05-15 by jcs

One of the most useful data structures in Computer Science is the hash table. I’ve been using them for my entire career and have implemented close to a hundred instances in several languages. That’s not as necessary these days as … Continue reading →

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Lexical Status on the Mode Line

Posted on 2013-05-14 by jcs

Those of you who watched Nic Ferrier’s video on the difference between lexical and dynamic scope that I wrote about the other day may have noticed that his buffers indicated whether the buffer had lexical (LEX) or dynamic (DYN) scope. … Continue reading →

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Emacs Redux Redux

Posted on 2013-05-13 by jcs

I’ve written about Emacs Redux a couple of times before. Bozhidar Batsov continues to post a panoply of really useful Emacs tips. Consider this a reminder to subscribe if you haven’t already. If you’re looking for a turnkey Emacs configuration, … Continue reading →

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Surprise!

Posted on 2013-05-12 by jcs

Here’s a surprise. Netflix is offering further proof—if you needed it—that piracy is mostly a phenomenon of the content industry’s own making. Netflix reports that when they enter a new territory, BitTorrent traffic is drastically reduced. This suggests, as we’ve … Continue reading →

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