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Archive for 2004-08
GMail Invitations
2004-08-31 18:19Old Dog Looking For New Tricks
2004-08-18 18:21
So, I’ve decided that I need a more powerful editor than notepad/write/word/excel, so I’m biting the bullet and learning emacs.
What do I want? A powerful, customizable, scriptable editor that takes advantage of my existing Windows muscle memory and world view.
Yes, I know I should learn to live with the way Emacs is. But I’d rather it and Windows compromise.
These are the questions that I have after a few days of use. I haven’t researched all of these yet.
- How Do I?
- Enter filenames with spaces? The space character auto-completes.
- Toggle word-wrap on the keyboard? Not the word wrapping that is done automatically to add a newline at the end of the line, but word wrapping in the window.
- Toggle view whitespace on the keyboard?
- Set up printing? Preferably in a windows like manner. Once I figure it out, bind it to C-p.
- Automatic Cr/Lf translation. See FAQ.
- Spell check?
The Tools | Spell Check menu item doesn’t work.
Searching for program: no such file or directory ispell - Enable detection if a file has changed on disk, and prompt for what to do?
- Use the possible choices C-x C-f brings up in a split window?
- Search and replace with impunity?
- Sort the current region?
- Set bookmarks in a document and jump around between them?
- Customization
- Solved
Bind close current buffer to C-F4 (initially: unused).
(global-set-key [(control F4)] 'kill-this-buffer) - Solved
Bind undo to C-z (initially: suspend / minimize window).
(global-set-key [(control z)] 'undo) - Why isn’t selection highlighted when I use the space bar to start a mark?
.emacs contains:
(transient-mark-mode t)(delete-selection-mode t) - Remap C-M- keys that conflict with Windows Shortcuts. Fix either the shortcuts or emacs.
- Ctrl+Tab to switch buffers. Ctrl+Shift+Tab to back switch.
(global-set-key [(control tab)] 'bury-buffer)Doesn’t quite work the way I want mind you. - Bind select all to C-A (initially: beginning of line).
- Solved
Bind Shift-Arrow to select.
(pc-selection-mode) - Bind cut/copy/paste to C-X/C/V.
(global-set-key [(control v)] 'yank) - Get M-y highlight what it just yanked back. Can I bind C-S-v to this instead? Why does C-h c C-S-v report ‘yank’ just like C-v?
- Get Alt-w to not deselect?
- Put buffer name, filename and dirty marker in the title bar.
- Bind save to C-s (initially: isearch-forward).
- Bind isearch-forward to C-f (initially: char-forward).
- Bind isearch-forward to F3 and S-F3 to isearch-backward.
- Jim S. remaps C-g to goto line. What does he use as keyboard-quit instead?
- C-x C-f How do I make it such that / or \ or Tab completes, and space does not.
- Map F1 to help, C-h can be used for something else.
- Prompt for save on kill modified buffer?
- How do I find a list of colours that can be modified for each mode?
- Solved
Bind close current buffer to C-F4 (initially: unused).
- But I Like Windows…
- Can Emacs work like a real MDI app?
- How to make the caret a line, not a block in insert mode?
- Yes no cancel prompts use message boxes?
- Can the mode line be made into a more Windows-like status bar?
- Have the scrolling work smoother. Not jump when I’m at the bottom of the page.
- Shell
- Why doesn’t tab completion of filenames work?
- Why is the command re-echoed?
- Concepts
- Explain to me the concept of selection or region.
- Can I get emacs to work as if it had a proper cyclic clipboard?
- Why doesn’t C-h a font-lock-support find font-lock-support-mode?
- In text mode, why does Tab do weird indentation from my point of view? How do I tweak it in certain modes so it inserts a tab if it can’t smart indent, or just insert a tab, period? How do I make TAB block indent and Shift-Tab block outdent like VS.Net?
- C-i and C-m are interpreted as TAB and RET respectively. Can I bind either of these C-keys separately from TAB and RET?
- To Read / To Do
- Emacs Info (C-h i).
- Read more info documents.
- Get my .emacs configuration under SCC.
- Emacs manual.
- O’Reilly Book?
- Ask S.G. for his .emacs file.
- Is there an emacs ‘tip of the day’ functionality?
- Elisp tutorial.
- HTML Mode
- How to have the ending tag entered when you finish the beginning tag?
- How to have the quotes entered when you type attribute=?
- Get CSS mode working.
- Autocompletion of tags in HTML mode?
Now Written Rules
2004-08-18 18:19
Side note: To add insult to injury, while I was out sick last week, my poor fish at work starved to death.
<Grr />
A couple of thoughts that came to me on the drive into work today.
First, if you’re guessing something, and you start to exhaustively list through the search space I reserve the right to lie to you. I’ll tell you this as soon as I figure that you no longer have specific reasons for making your guesses other that they fit in the search space.
Second, the rules of the game are almost always negotiable. I need to remember this much more. Life’s one big Kobashi Maru. I’ve been having thoughts along these lines since seeing Spider Man 2. The movie was quite good, but asks, as movies do, for suspension of disbelief, even if you do take for granted parts of the comic-book world the movie is set it. I’ve come to realize that a lot of life calls for suspension of disbelief. Things don’t have to be true, guaranteed, ironclad, or 100%. Things just have to work well enough to… well… work. Patience, Lewis. We’re only human.
Another side-thought. Watching memes propagate is fascinating. Sometimes you need to ask questions to figure out whether the meme is propagating or not, and sometimes you end up Heisenberging parts of the whole. Still fascinating.
Busy, Busy, Busy
2004-08-11 18:23
Haven’t written in a long, long, while.
Been busy with new hobbies and friends, both old and new.
Work has sucked.
I’ve been under the weather.
Friday
It seem like a long time ago, but it was still a pretty shitty day. I shouldn’t've expected it to be all roses, but I did, and it wasn’t. Started the day itself off at 00:00 by thinking about work and crying myself to sleep ’cause of it. Then, the reality of the day started. Work sucked. I was pretty much in tears at my desk, and came very close to quitting. I essentially tried the workplace equivalent of suicide-by-cop, but my boss called me on it and it didn’t work. I’m still not sure if I’m happy or sad that it didn’t. Prolly sad.
Saturday
Our summer party. All in all it went quite well. Sadly, there was no elephant. Interestingly, each clique of friends seemed to think there were two cliques at the party: clique and non-clique. Work and non-work, gamers and non-gamers, dancers and non-dancers, geeks and non-geeks. Furniture was broken (and fixed the next day), drinks were consumed, food was grilled, people danced, gamed, played cards, and were merry. Someone threw-up. Feet were put in mouth.
All in all, a good party.
Sunday
I like that it takes very little time for our apartment to be set up for, and recover from, a party. Played some Tigris & Euphrates for the first time in ages. Babbled to Dina, Heather, & Dan about my job.
Monday
Went for a walk around Walden Pond with Heather. Quite nice. Prompted me to order prescription swim goggles. They were amazingly cheap, only $25 including shipping for different (very strong) diopters for each lens. Now I just have to find time to go swimming there.
Walked with Dina to see Bourne Supremacy. Not as good as the original, and the camera work was annoying, but all in all still a good movie. Mind you, going to movies is getting expensive. It was nice to go for a relaxed walk together.
Tuesday
Went for a walk around Fresh Pond with Heather and discussed my job a bit.
Squares was quite low energy. Our regular caller wasn’t there, and the guest caller wasn’t quite used to us. There were also some things that felt like really bad flow to me.
Friday
Drinking with V and the gang. I blacked out somewhat, and was hungover the next day. It’s the second time I’ve had memory lapses in the last month due to relatively mild drinking. Part of me feels I should cut back on drinking a bit.
- Drinking while out costs money, and we’re trying to save for various things.
- It’s a lot of calories, and I’m trying to slim down / tone up.
- I’m more prone to idiotic behaviour, memory lapses, and hangovers than I used to be.
Saturday
After the afore mentioned hangover subsided enough for me to get into a car, we went up to Jim’s hanger so I could learn to change the oil in our car. Spilled oil on his hanger floor twice, once when emptying out the oil-tray used to catch the oil from the car, and the other when no one told me that removing the oil-filter was messy. I’ve done it once. Now I think I can go back to paying someone to do it.
Brian D. was visiting from New Jersey. Was nice to see him again.
Wednesday To Sunday
Went to my cousin’s wedding in Los Angeles. Was fun to see most of the cousins again. Dina & I rented a convertible, twas fun modulo the sunburn on the first day. We also didn’t get to drive along route 1, so I guess we’ll have to rent another one sometime.
The turnout was interesting. Only my mom and the groom’s father were there representing the aunts and uncles. Otherwise, the cousins were all there pretty much on their own and self-sufficient, the older ones, or the ones with cars, driving around the younger ones. My mom gets called “Lola” which literally means grandmother, but in the Filipino culture, is usually used for someone two generations older than you. I get called “Tito Nick”. Literally “Uncle Nick”, in practice, used for any close friend or relative who is a generation older.
I guess I have to get used to the fact that as a generation, us cousins are growing up.
The wedding itself was beautiful. The ceremony was in the Crystal Cathedral in Santa Ana, and the reception was in a beautiful hotel. Pictures soon.
Sunday
Small housewarming supper at Smooth & Yumi’s. Tasty. Who knew Jeff could cook. I spent a lot of time angsting about a friend who might be in a messed up situation.
Monday
Apparently, I’m going to be an uncle. Vic’s SO is pregnant. Congrats!
Tuesday
Sick. Thought it was allergies. Apparently is something worse. Missed squares. :-(
Wednesday (i.e., Today)
Worse sick. Worked a bit from home this morning, but stopped once it was evident that I was approaching the line of doing more harm than good. Going to miss A2 review this evening. Grr. I’m falling behind on my goal of learning C1 by the end of August.
Job
I used to like my job. It was a challenge. I was doing well at it. Then I did well enough that I got assigned to something hard. The Peter Principle hard at work.
I really should quit, take a month or so off so the burn-out wears off, and then find somewhere where I don’t feel I’ve fucked up so badly.
Worst part is, I still have no idea what to do at work to fix things despite the fact that my boss-boss has taken steps to fix things. I don’t have the skills to do what I’m tasked with. I don’t like it. It’s upgrading the financial accounting system. If this gets screwed up, it has the potential to get screwed up big time. The team dynamics are all screwed up.
I feel like I’ve burned through most of the credibility I’ve built up. I was up for a promotion this June, now that’s fucked. It’ll be at least another year before I’m up for the same promotion.
<sigh />