Monthly Archives: October 2017

C-q and ASCII in Emacs

Posted on 2017-10-11 by jcs

LigerLearn has a nice video on using Ctrl+q in Emacs to insert arbitrary ASCII (or even Unicode) characters into the current buffer. The video begins with a discussion of ASCII control characters and the “caret notation” used to represent them. … Continue reading →

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Bookmarks, Eshell, and Docker

Posted on 2017-10-10 by jcs

Fuco1 is really good at investigating how Emacs’ systems work and extending them to better suit his workflow. The latest example of this—or at least the latest that I know of—is his work in extending the Emacs bookmark system. The … Continue reading →

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Unix History

Posted on 2017-10-09 by jcs

The other day I saw a reference to this great history of Unix. It’s Chapter 2 from Eric Raymond’s The Art of Unix Programming. I hadn’t read it for some time and enjoyed it all over again. Many—or maybe even … Continue reading →

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Kontra Nails It on Open Offices

Posted on 2017-10-08 by jcs

How many bean counters does it take to finally grok giant open-space office layouts are counterproductive? — Kontra (@counternotions) October 8, 2017 He also points to this New York Times article on office design, which describes a movement away from … Continue reading →

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Org Mode Completion

Posted on 2017-10-07 by jcs

By far the most useful weapon in my Emacs efficiency arsenal is abo-abo’s Ivy library and associated utilities. Everything from simple string searches with swiper to finding files with counsel-M-x is easier and faster than before. Therefore, when abo-abo suggests … Continue reading →

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Emacs for Everything

Posted on 2017-10-06 by jcs

Over at the Emacs reddit, ambrevar has a nice essay entitled Emacs Everywhere. This essay is a followup to his previous essay on Eshell that I wrote about previously. In it, he describes why he moved almost all his computing … Continue reading →

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Org Mode 9.1.2

Posted on 2017-10-05 by jcs

Bastien brings us the news that Org Mode 9.1.2 is available. #emacs #orgmode 9.1.2, a bugfix release, is out. Enjoy! — Bastien Guerry (@bzg2) October 4, 2017 It’s a bug fix and is already on Melpa if you like to … Continue reading →

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Working With Log Files in Emacs

Posted on 2017-10-04 by jcs

Lee Hinman over at writequit.org has an excellent post on working with log files in Emacs. By “log file” he really means “structured text” so, for example, most of his techniques work for things like JSON as well. The post … Continue reading →

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Doubleclick Whines

Posted on 2017-10-03 by jcs

The IETF has a new draft standard on browser cookies and Doubleclick is whining. The standard would eliminate—or at least make more difficult—the ability of Doubleclick and other advertisers to deposit tracking cookies on our machines. If you aren’t in … Continue reading →

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Adding Hyper and Super Keys for Emacs

Posted on 2017-10-02 by jcs

I’ve written about this before but it was a few years ago so it’s worth repeating for new Emacs and/or Mac users. One problem with Emacs is that it’s hard to find enough shortcut keys. Having Hyper and Super keys … Continue reading →

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