rlazo's blog - Free Software

Firefox downlad day

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:30:32 +0200

June 17th

Do you use google to find definitions?

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:52:19 +0200

UPDATE:For this code to work you need to include the mm-url library. The code is now fixed

If so, here's a little snippet I wrote for emacs to have all this power just one keystroke away


(require 'mm-url)
(defun google-define-word-or-phrase (query)
  (interactive "sInsert word or phrase to search: ")
  (let* ((url (concat "http://www.google.com.pe/search?hl=en&q=define%3A" 
		      (replace-regexp-in-string " " "+" query)))
	 (definition
	   (save-excursion
	     (with-temp-buffer
	       (mm-url-insert url)
	       (goto-char (point-min))
	       (if (search-forward "No definitions found of " nil t)
		   "No definitions found"
		 (buffer-substring (search-forward "<li>") (- (search-forward "<") 1)))))))
    (message "%s: %s" query definition)))

(global-set-key [f5] 'google-define-word-or-phrase)

This uses google's define: operator to look up for a word or phrase. Copy & Paste this code into your .emacs and with pressinf F5 you will be prompted for your query. Have fun

If you have any comments on the code they will be more than welcome :)

keybinding doubts? no more!

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Tue, 20 May 2008 05:12:51 +0200

Just a short one... If you have doubts about emacs keybindings, read here. Is awesome!.

Just as a site note, I found it while looking how to set WindowsKey(Super)-tab as a keybinding for lisp-complete-symbol

(define-key lisp-mode-map [s-tab] 'lisp-complete-symbol)

Really easy :)

[BEH] How to make dired open several files in the background

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Mon, 19 May 2008 06:35:22 +0200

You will need:

dired-x.el

The question

Is there some keybinding or command in Dired that open in background all marked files?

The solution

First, mark all the files you will want to open and then use 'C-u F'

Here is the link of the thread

Gnus tip: how to convert a reply to a wide reply

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Sat, 10 May 2008 07:40:48 +0200

This tip comes form the gnus mailing list from almost two years ago. I re-discover it today because, after writing a long email for a mailing list, I needed to change my original reply to a wide reply.

This is as easy as this:

Keybinding: `C-c C-f w'

Description: Insert `To' and `Cc' headers as if you were doing a wide reply even if the message was not made for a wide reply first.

The link for the original message is here

What I've been doing? Gmail-sentinel update!

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:03:26 +0200

Well, long time without a single release... What happen with the release candidate? or even with my pretty schedule for the 0.2 version? Keep reading :)

After re-reading the book "Producing Open Source Software", I got from Google last year, I realized that I was introducing too few new features for a new release. My original plan was to introduce a new feature per release... but that's not all that funny :). So I created a branch on the git repository to start to work on a real feature: the plugin system

What's new then? the plugin system basically is done, the notification is now a plugin (so if you don't like the pop-ups, is now easier than ever to disable them), a real logging system has been implemented (using python standard-library facilities) and a few other little things.

What's the catch? Well, the code is still alpha, but I decided to push my branch to the public repository for anybody to see it. I'm thinking in using threads for the plugins, so a bad plugin doesn't kill everybody. The documentation is missing, the Makefile doesn't work with this version at all, and there are some rough edges.

If you want to take a look at the branch, here is the link.

OT: You love something when you understand it

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 02:44:04 +0200

This is an off-topic post. I don't like to do OT, but this is the first and last post from my brand new math category to be posted also as an Emacs entry. A little bit of math doesn't hurt.

Have you ever wonder why does really mean the e constant? You know, besides the number 2.7182828? Well, I've found the best explanation here.

I've always loved math. Don't get me wrong, I'm pursuing a Computer Science BA degree, but there are some fundamental math concepts that I don't fully understand altought I use them. I used to be more insistent but I've somewhat lost that interest over the years. To try to revert this I'm starting this new "math" category on my blog.

[BEH] How to display info help inside a box

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:12:50 +0200

If you have ever read the emacs-help mailing list, I'm sure you have seen this picture:

That ASCII-art box is great for many things, specially when used to describe a function, variable or key. The necesary package is boxquote. And to have all its power at your fingertips, a snippet for your .emacs


;;;_. boxquote

(require 'boxquote)

(global-set-key (kbd "C-c b y")   'boxquote-yank)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c b r")   'boxquote-region)         
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c b u")   'boxquote-unbox-region)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c b t")   'boxquote-title)          
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c b i")   'boxquote-insert-file) 
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c b k")   'boxquote-kill) 
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c b s")   'boxquote-shell-command)
 
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c b b")   'boxquote-buffer)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c b p")   'boxquote-paragraph) 
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c b n")   'boxquote-narrow-to-boxquote)

(global-set-key (kbd "C-c b w")   'boxquote-where-is) 
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c b d f") 'boxquote-describe-function)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c b d k") 'boxquote-describe-key)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c b d v") 'boxquote-describe-variable)

Here is the link to the gmane archive of the original message.

A quick note: eshell alias

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:28:46 +0200

Update: while reading this wiki entry I found that you need to quote your alias only if you are writing it directly on the prompt. On the alias file you don't quote anything. In fact, you don't need to modify the alias file by hand because emacs writes it for any alias you define on the prompt.

(This is mostly a personal note but it may be useful to somebody else)

I'm not sure that everybody knows (the manual version I have doesn't mencion it) but to configure an alias for eshell is as easy as this:

On the .eshell/alias file just add

alias ls ls -la $*

This is a taken from this blog post. You can read there a more lispy way of doing it.

Also, take a look at this interesting this wiki entry

gmail-sentinel 0.2 RC

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:37:25 +0200

A quick update. I missed the schedule by some days, but here is the release candidate for the 0.2 version.

Fixed bug #4
New TODO file, with ideas for new features. If you want to help and don't know where to start this is for you

Grab it while it's hot!

BEH: eshell and su

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 02:01:08 +0200

With this entry a new category for emacs related posts will begin here. Bits from emacs.help are tips and tricks found while reading the emacs.help mailing list

Well, this tips is how to use su inside eshell

From the post: "...Doing su or sudo su does not work like you expect. This works under the normal shell (M-x shell). I am su:ing quite much ..." If you have tried, using su inside eshell is quite paintful, and doesn't work very well. But, come on, there should be a way of doing it, right?

From the reply: "...Tramp 2.1 supports it. Try "cd/sudo::" in eshell..." And that's it! you have a fully functional 'suded' eshell with completition available.

gmail-sentinel 0.2 beta 2

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 04:29:47 +0100

Wow!, Now it's time for a second beta release. The changes with the previous release are:

New translations: it (thanks to giacomomargarito) and sk (thanks to shamotj)
A new HACKING file.

I didn't expect to have translations so fast, and I have to apology because I didn't followed the issue tracker too close (I didn't configured the alerts). I hope the new HACKING file will make life easier to anybody who wants to contribute.

Here is the link for the new tarball

Warning: This is a beta version, it may kill eat your dog and steal your wallet. If you find a bug, please report it at our bug tracker

gmail-sentinel-0.2 beta release

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:48:03 +0100

Today I've made available for testing the 0.2_beta release of gmail-sentinel. Among the new features we have:

Ability to see all the new messages through the notification pop-up. Now gmail-sentinel features buttons on the notification itself so you can move forward and backwards to see all messages.
A "open" button that launches the configured browser and opens the selected messages. Your message one-click away
Other minor things...

If everything goes ok, I'll have a RC by Monday and a final 0.2 release by next monday. There will be no new features until 0.2 release, just bug fixes.

Here is the mandatory screenshot:

Announce: gmail-sentinel 0.1

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:19:46 +0100

I'm glad to announce the first (yet alpha) release of GoogleMail Sentinel (gmail-sentinel).

From it's homepage: "GoogleMail Sentinel is a mail notifier for Google Mail (Gmail) that creates an icon in your Taskbar and features popup alerts when there's new mail in your GoogleMail (Gmail) account".

It's not yet ready for mass consumption but it's good enough for casual testing. And if you write python and want an easy project to start coding this is a great one. Very simple, few lines of code and a helpful upstream ;)

gmail-sentinel is my first publicly released piece of code that I wrote to scratch a personal itch. Although is not the first time I write some code, it's the first time I'm managing every single aspect of the process (finding hosting, writing an entry to freshmeat, etc.)

Emacs and libnotify

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:25:29 +0100

libnotify and notification-daemon are part of the galago project, a "desktop presence framework". libnotify shows popup windows on your desktop to alert you from some event, like new mail or an IM. I like the idea of use a single program to manage all your desktop notifications instead of having to implement the same code over and over again on all your apps. AFAIK libnotify is desktop-agnostic so it should work on GNOME, KDE, Xfce, etc.

What about emacs? Well, if you use jabber.el for jabber chatting, erc or rcirc for IRC you can use libnotify to do some fancy notifications.

For erc this guy hacked the libnotify support. I haven't tested personally but seems interesting.

For rcirc there's a wiki page about rcircNotify

For jabber.el I wrote a libnotify alert, here it is the wiki page for it.