I’ve been using Firefox as my primary browser for several years now, having left Chrome back in 2011. There are reasons for this beyond functionality; for example, I love Firefox as an example of true open source software and for its emphasis on security and privacy. These are places where Chrome comes in “close but not quite” and, as always, Internet Explorer is way, way off the mark. But I’ve also come across a number of add-ons that have made my Firefox use more powerful and comfortable.

The ability to split emacs windows is highly useful, whether you are using it to view related information in the same window or others. However, after the initial 50-50 split, splitting again will result in 50-25-25, 50-12.5-12.5-12.5-12.5, etc; this becomes unsightly quickly. The solution is the `balance-windows` command, bound by default to C-x++. This equalizes the sizes of all windows, without you needing to reach for the mouse to drag window boundaries.

One of my chief desires in upgrading my org-mode recently was to be able to export into markdown, as described in the documentation. Imagine my surprise when the export list didn’t mention it, it didn’t appear to be an extra package, and the shortcut didn’t work. Thankfully, a user on Stack Overflow had the answer. In short, the plethora of org-mode export options listed here are not all loaded to begin with.

I was several years into my Emacs usage before mis-types revealed the glory of the “narrow” and “widen” functions to me. Actually, it was one of those nightmares: “Whoa! Where’d my document go!? And why isn’t “undo” bringing it back?” When the tears subsided, I soon realized how useful these commands are. By selecting a region and narrowing it you focus your editing and attention on a portion of what might otherwise be massive files; by so doing, your search/replace commands and your commands to jump to buffer boundaries are contained in a useful area.

The package of org-mode that ships with my latest emacs (Fedora 20) is version 7.9. It works great, of course, but it turns out the major version revision adds a lot of extra functionality. Unfortunately, on two separate occasions my attempt to install the newest orgmode from the package gave me real problems, especially with un-initialized variables. You can see my plea for help here: org-mode broken dynamic clock: Symbol’s function definition is void: org-defvaralias.

I do most–nay, all–of my writing in Emacs, and realize that one of the things people will miss the most when coming from something like Microsoft Word or Libre Office is a spell checker. There are several great reasons not to worry about it. 1 Exercise Your Brain The fact is, dependance on spell checkers is bad for us. Just as handwriting is suffering because of the prevalence of typing, spelling is suffering because of dependence upon spell checkers.

Articles like this recent LifeHacker post point out that the recent flash of big-business password leaks not only indicates smarter hackers, but also more ammunition for the hackers since getting their hands on those passwords gives them valuable intell about what patterns most people follow in making their passwords. In other words, the XKCD methods aren’t good enough anymore. To stay more secure, you’ve got to think about two things: password generation, and password storage.

Particularly when coding and you need to make links to files or libraries, or if you use sym links to streamline your file system, it can be very useful to find the Fully Qualified Path (sometimes referred to as FQP) of a file. This command does the trick: readlink -f ./MyFile.txt

KDE is a particular desktop for Linux, and by far my favorite. One of the sorest grievances I have in other desktops, like Ubuntu’s Unity or Gnome, is the absence of such effective workspace management, like the fully customizable workspace grid. In the picture you see my social media/phone interface in one workspace, my general project list and schedule in the next, another workspace dedicated to the artificial intelligence debugging I’m working on with code, debugger, and accessory programs; my active browser for help lookup in another; and the program manual for said project in yet another work space.

Every programmer knows that each fix usually brings more problems than it corrects, especially if the project is poorly designed. Thanks to the Computer Science department at BYU for this one.