Emacs on G+ is Useful!

Google+ is actually quite useful. Blogs is going the ways of dinosaur. In social networks, you can write, interact with people, immediately, post pictures, hangout (real-time text chat, voice chat, video chat). And it's all much easier than running a blog. If you follow web tech communities (e.g. TechCrunch, etc.), you know that death of blogs have been written on the wall for a few years. With few exceptions, such as professional blogger. (for a fun intro of g+, see: What is Google Plus and Google+ Songs (humor).)

Anyway, i wanted to say that running a emacs page on g+ have already been useful to me, even just after a few days. I learned emacs tips. Here's today's post.

Some slightly advanced emacs tips.

① I just learned about Keyboard Macro Ring today after 10+ years emacs using. (Thanks to Jorge A Alfaro Murillo.)

② A info doc node in emacs can be referenced by a elisp expression. For example: (info "(emacs) Keyboard Macro Ring"). Put cursor at end of paren then call “eval-last-sexp” 【Ctrl+x Ctrl+e】. That'll take you to the emacs doc. The argument to “info” is string of the node's name.

③ When browsing emacs info doc inside emacs, you can get the node's name by calling “Info-copy-current-node-name” 【c】.

keyboard macro is a time saver. If you don't know the basics, see: Emacs Keyboard Macro and Examples.

My emacs g+ and Twitter pages can be found at: Xah Lee Feeds. Please Subscribe! I will still write blogs. But it's more for heavy weight tutorials, and will be focused on elisp. (because, after a few years, all emacs tips all seem to be repetitions) Brief practical daily tips goes to @ErgoEmacs Twitter and ErgoEmacs g+. Thank you for reading.

math: Zonohedrons, by Russell Towle.

zonohedrons by Russell Towle. img src

Zonohedrons, by Russell Towle.

Perm URL with updates: Russell Towle Died (1949‒2008)

web dev: border for images inside link

As of 2012-01-25, images inside link are not rendered with border now. So, you don't have to add CSS such as a.img {border:none}.

This is true for {Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari}, except Internet Explorer 9. LOL.

Test your browser at http://xahlee.org/js/image_link_no_border.html

Xah Lee Online Feeds

For Twitter users, now all my emacs related tweets will be from @ErgoEmacs. This way, those who just want emacs tips can stay focused.

For Google+ users, you might join g+ emacs page. There, i post one or two short emacs tip a day.

For a complete list of feeds of available topics, please see: Subscribe to XahLee.org Site Feed.

Thank you very much for reading!

ErgoEmacs Logo and Mascot

ErgoEmacs mascot.

drawing by David Capello.

detail at http://xahlee.org/emacs/ErgoEmacs_logo.html

• GNU Emacs Logo
• LISP Logo
• Lisp Needs A Logo
• The Purpose of Logos and Tips for Good Logo Design
• A Lambda Logo Tour (Functional Lang logo tour)

Gorgeous Chinese Dragon relief

Be surec to click on big image link to view in full screen.

Chinese Dragon relief. At Fuzhou, Fujian, China. (旗山萬佛寺, 福州, 福建, 中國). Photo by Source www.flickr.com ❐

For a short description of Chinese dragon, see: http://wordy-english.blogspot.com/2012/01/auspicious-legendary-serpentine-potent.html.

Internet Sociology: MegaUpload Crime Boss

Perm URL with updates: http://xahlee.org/w/megaupload_crime_boss.html

So, recently FBI bursted the file sharing site MegaUpload. Here's some juicy info i gathered.

• The site is the world's 72th most busy site, as ranked by traffic by Alexa.com.
• It's founder is Kim Dotcom (born Kim Schmitz; b1974), with past criminal records. With crimes such as hacking, insider trading, embezzlement.

He's got 18 expensive cars, Mercedes-Benzes, a pink 1959 Cadillac, Maserati GranCabrio, Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupé, …, totalling estimated $4.9M.

Here's a 6 min video intro.

«TV3 News report on Megaupload's Kim Dotcom on the day of his arrest in Auckland New Zealand»

Kim Dotcom Mansion at Coatesville, Auckland, New Zealand

Here's the mansion he lives in. The mansion is Worth $24 million.

USD$24M mansion, at Coatesville, Auckland, New Zealand. ❐ ✈ ⊕ img src

«This aerial shot shows Kim Dotcom's house in Coatesville, northwest of Auckland, New Zealand on Friday, Jan. 20, 2012.» (Natalie Slade / NZ Herald / AP) img src

Megaupload Hong Kong office. ❐ img src

According to time.com: «$12,000: The alleged cost per day of the Hong Kong luxury hotel room hosting Megaupload's main office.»

---

Some excerpts from Wikipedia:

In 2001, Schmitz purchased $375,000 worth of shares of the nearly bankrupt company LetsBuyIt.com and subsequently announced his intention to invest EUR 50 million in the company. Unknown to others, Schmitz did not have the funds available to invest, although the announcement caused the share value of LetsBuyIt.com to jump by nearly 300%. Schmitz quickly sold the shares and profited $1.5 million as a result.

MegaUpload logo.

Megaupload bosses, left to right: Bram van der Kolk, Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann, Kim Dotcom. ❐ img src

On 21 March 2005, Schmitz founded Megaupload Limited, a Hong Kong-based file hosting and sharing business that eventually became the 13th most popular site on the internet[23] with over 150 employees, US $175 million revenues,[24] 50 million visitors daily,[23] and estimated to be responsible at its peak for 4% of all internet traffic.[23][25]

Megaupload site screenshot on 2012-01-21.

References

• Megaupload Founder Kim Dotcom, By the Numbers (2012-01-21) By Nick Carbone. @ Source newsfeed.time.com
• Google cut off Megaupload's ad money voluntarily back in 2007 (2012-01-20) By Nate Anderson. @ Source arstechnica.com
• File-sharing kingpin arrested in New Zealand at US request (2012-01-20) @ Source m.nbr.co.nz
• Kim Schmitz

• SOPA: Stop or Start Online Piracy Act?
• Anonymous vs Google: the Origin ＆ Culture of Anonymous
• Computer Hacking: Lulz Security Farewell Note

Xah's Emacs Tutorial Update

I have a new version of my emacs tutorial ready.

If you've bought it before, please just email to xah@xahlee.org with subject “emacs tutorial upgrade”. I'll email you the download location. Sorry i don't have a automatic update system. So just send the email please if you would like the updated version.

If you haven't bought it, you can get it for just $10. See: Buy Xah Emacs Tutorial. As far as i know it's more complete and detailed tutorial than any emacs book, printed or not, especially the elisp section.

Thank you for support!

Chinese Hand-Exercise Iron Ball (Baoding Ball)

❐ img src

When talking a walk, i usually carry Chinese hand exercise iron balls. It makes me looks like a Asian sage. (don't buy those with decorative inlaid brass wire (called Cloisonné) on the ball surface. They look pretty, but if you dropped or chipped the ball, the metal wire may stick out. Get pure marble or metal ball. Also, most of them chime. I prefer them not, especially if you work in the office.)

• “Chinese Exercise Ball (Stone)” amazon
• “Chinese Exercise Ball (Metal)” amazon

This is good for you emacs slaves. Save your pinky!

for a gorgeous sci-fi looking one, see: http://xahlee.org/arts/chinese_baoding_ball.html

Emacs Tip: A Hotkey for “repeat-complex-command”

There's a emacs command repeat-complex-command.

I actually never used it. But in a recent post by Dan Espen (Source groups.google.com), it seems useful.

To make it useful, you should give it a easy hotkey, such as F5.

I'm already starting to use it and found it useful.

Here's why it's useful. In many emacs commands, after you call the command, you have to give arguments. For example, the query-replace. To do the same replacement again, you have to call it again, then use ↑ to go back to previous arg, Enter, then same for replacement.

but with repeat-complex-command, you don't have to input the args again.

In some ancient keyboard such as Sun Microsystem's Type 6 Keyboard, there's a key labeled “Again” that is bound to repeat-complex-command. But that key doesn't exist on PC keyboard today. So, you can bind it to F5 for example, or a single key on the number pad.

If you don't know how to set keys, see: Emacs: How to Define Keyboard Shortcuts.