Modify Emacs Deft for recursive directory search

Update 2014-11-18 I’ve forked the original Deft, added this recursive directory listing feature as well as support for multiple different file extensions, and pushed it all to github as deft-turbo! Deft is a neat Emacs mode for the Notational Velocity-inspired searching, browsing and editing of a directory of text files. In short, this means that simply start typing, and Deft finds the note that you were looking for. It supports straight text searching and regular expression searching, almost like my own baby nvpy.

Publish to WordPress with Emacs 24 and org2blog

I’ve recently discovered the absolute joy that is writing and publishing wordpress blog posts using Emacs 24 and org2blog. Because it took me a while to get everything (including source code syntax highlighting by the WordPress SyntaxHighlighter plugin) going, I wanted to document the whole procedure step-by-step, using org2blog of course! I’m using Emacs 24.3 (from the PPA) with Prelude on Ubuntu 12.04.4. Installing required packages org-mode is already installed in Emacs 24 with Prelude.

Syntax-highlighting markdown fenced code blocks in Emacs

The syntax-highlighted fenced code blocks in GitHub flavored markdown, or GFM, are a beautiful and useful invention. One starts a code block with three or more backticks or tildes, followed by the name of the language, and then proceeds to show one’s code, which, at least on GitHub, is then syntax highlighted. In other words, something like this in your markdown: ```python def computer_says(no): print("computer says %s" % (no,)) ``` Would become this in the preview:

Export Zotero PDFs with BibTeX key filenames

This is just in from the department of silly Zotero hacks: I’ve recently started using the brilliant papercite wordpress plugin to publish a list of my academic publications. This is awesome, because I can just export my Zotero bibliography as BibTex, and hand the bib file over to papercite! However, when one exports a bibliography from Zotero, the associated PDF files are exported with their full filenames (whatever these may be), whilst papercite expects all PDFs to be in a single directory, each named bibtex_cite_key.

impress.js with embedded live webcam

impress.js is a great system for building Prezi-like non-linear presentations using HTML5, with the added benefit that it’s open source, and your infinite canvas is in 3D. See here for the original demo. Recently I needed to give a presentation via Google Hangouts, and needed a good way to share both my impress.js presentation slides and the webcam feed of my scary talking face. Currently Google Hangouts does not support this out of the box.

d3 interpolators vs. ColorBrewer single hue sequential scales

Have you ever wondered to which extent you could emulate the beautiful ColorBrewer single hue sequential colour schemes with some form of linear interpolation between the endpoints? Wonder no more! I made you a d3 example (see here for the gist) comparing the ColorBrewer sequential single hue schemes Blues, Greens, Oranges, Purples and Reds with the d3 L*a*b*, HCL, RGB and HSL interpolators. Click on the image to go to the bl.

Skype 4.2.0.11 on Linux: Premium subscription but NO group video and NO group screen sharing

Usually we use Google Hangouts for group video calling and also for screen sharing with more than two participants. If you’re not using Google Hangouts yet for your video conferences (full video and audio with more than two participants) and software demos, you really should. It’s a great product, it works on all platforms (Windows, Linux and Mac), and it’s free. Skype for Linux 4.2.0.11 – even if you pay premium, you CAN’T group video call and you CAN’T group screen share