http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss https://mbork.pl/Homepage Strona domowa Marcina Borkowskiego Sat, 11 Jul 2026 06:52:02 GMT Sat, 11 Jul 2026 06:52:02 GMT Oddmuse https://mbork.pl/2026-07-11_Fast_spell-checking_in_Emacs_with_Jinx https://mbork.pl/2026-07-11_Fast_spell-checking_in_Emacs_with_Jinx Emacs has had a spell-checker for a very long time. In fact, I’ve been using ispell-word for at least several years now, as I have mentioned for example here. However, I’ve only used Flyspell mode once, over two decades ago, when I tried it out on a machine with maybe 8MB RAM and a Pentium-class processor clocked at about 100MHz and decided that it’s too slow to be really useful. Well, things have changed a bit since then, haven’t they? Sat, 11 Jul 2026 06:52:02 GMT https://mbork.pl/Comments_on_2026-07-11_Fast_spell-checking_in_Emacs_with_Jinx mbork new major 1 https://mbork.pl?action=history;id=2026-07-11_Fast_spell-checking_in_Emacs_with_Jinx https://mbork.pl?action=browse;diff=1;id=2026-07-11_Fast_spell-checking_in_Emacs_with_Jinx https://mbork.pl/2026-07-06_Bank_statement_analyzer https://mbork.pl/2026-07-06_Bank_statement_analyzer Some time ago, a friend of mine asked if I know an app which could allow him to analyze his spending based on bank statements. I did a quick research and I found a few tools like this, but nothing looked good enough for me to safely recommend it to him. Fortunately for him, he asked me that question in the exact moment in my life when (a) I had a lot of free time and (b) I wanted to spend it learning some potentially useful new skills. It didn’t take me long to decide to code such a tool myself. Mon, 06 Jul 2026 20:04:14 GMT https://mbork.pl/Comments_on_2026-07-06_Bank_statement_analyzer mbork new major 1 https://mbork.pl?action=history;id=2026-07-06_Bank_statement_analyzer https://mbork.pl?action=browse;diff=1;id=2026-07-06_Bank_statement_analyzer https://mbork.pl/2026-06-29_opening_pdfs_in_pdf-tools https://mbork.pl/2026-06-29_opening_pdfs_in_pdf-tools As I wrote many times, I use pdf-tools as main pdf viewer. I thought that one thing that would be nice is being able to open pdfs in it from outside Emacs. For example, texdoc could use it instead of Evince (which is pretty nice, but it’s not Emacs!). Mon, 29 Jun 2026 19:27:57 GMT https://mbork.pl/Comments_on_2026-06-29_opening_pdfs_in_pdf-tools mbork new major 1 https://mbork.pl?action=history;id=2026-06-29_opening_pdfs_in_pdf-tools https://mbork.pl?action=browse;diff=1;id=2026-06-29_opening_pdfs_in_pdf-tools https://mbork.pl/2026-06-22_Disabling_minor_modes_with_local_variables https://mbork.pl/2026-06-22_Disabling_minor_modes_with_local_variables I’ve known about file local variables for a long time. I also knew about the eval keyword, which can be used as a file variable, but instead of binding the given value to the (non-existent) variable eval, Emacs evaluates it. This is often useful, but the usefulness is diminished by the fact that Emacs nags the user whether it is safe to evaluate a form provided that way. (Of course, it is reasonable security-wise, and that’s why I didn’t set enable-local-variables to :all – I still prefer the nagging to the risk of executing untrusted code!) There is, however, one case where the eval form seems safe and useful enough to grant an exception: enabling or disabling minor modes. Mon, 22 Jun 2026 17:19:29 GMT https://mbork.pl/Comments_on_2026-06-22_Disabling_minor_modes_with_local_variables mbork new major 1 https://mbork.pl?action=history;id=2026-06-22_Disabling_minor_modes_with_local_variables https://mbork.pl?action=browse;diff=1;id=2026-06-22_Disabling_minor_modes_with_local_variables