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December 28, 2024

KittyKitty

2024 Review

The Major Changes

Two major changes happened over 2024. The introduction of the ZSA Moonlander Next-gen Ergonomics zsa.io to the hardware stack, and the other was GNU Emacs - GNU Project.

ZSA Moonlander

I had been using the Planck from ZSA. It is a great keyboard but I wanted to try out a split keyboard and had been drooling over the Moonlander for a while. I acquired it in July.

Took me a few weeks to get comfortable in it. Having used the Planck for about two years, I am used to the ortholinear setup. The Moonlander has so many extra keys, that it took some getting used to. Of course, that process was also accompanied by a ton of tweaks to the keyboard. The Moonlander is completely programmable through Oryx The ZSA Keyboard Configurator.

Programmable means choices. I had to answer basic questions like:

  • Where do I put the space bar?
  • What about the modifier keys? Do I need a right ⌘ key? Or a right ⌃ key?

Choices which had to be tried out for a while before I could make an informed one. Took a while and it is still an ongoing process.

I love the keyboard. Just absolutely love it. It has made my pain in my fingers and wrists go away. I am usually on the keyboard for more than 14 hours a day. Yeah, I know, I need a life. This is the best investment I have made on my health in a long while. Feels fantastic.

Things which make this keyboard perfect:

  • No Shift key required. Auto-shift is a god-send. A little longer press on a key and it types the character with the shift key held down. The downside? I can’t use any other keyboard. Using the keyboard on the Air, I find myself holding on to a key expecting the Auto-shift behavior and nothing happens. Deeply frustrating.
  • The ability to get the extra keys to do the usual things which I do on a regular basis is a killer feature. One key for Alfred - Productivity App for macOS. One key for Keyboard Maestro 11.0.3 Work Faster with Macros for macOS.
  • The Hyper key and the Meh key.
  • For the Emacs user, multiple Esc keys, and a dedicated C-g key.

If you are interested in improving your input device, I would recommend the Moonlander with glowing praise.

This is an interesting article on Your first month with a ZSA Keyboard.

If you want to check out my configuration, here it is.

Emacs

If you follow my blog, you know this story. I am all-in on Emacs at this stage. I wish I had made this move earlier on in life. But I am making up. Took a deep-dive into it for it to stick.

I will tell you a story.

I had just posted the article Part Five of My Battles with Emacs - Bicycle For Your Mind when I got email from someone I did not know. He recommended the Consult-notes package and gave me a bit of code:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp
(defun lookup-word-at-point ()
  "Lookup word at point in OSX Dictionary"
  (interactive)
  (call-process-shell-command (format "open dict:///%s/" (word-at-point))))
#+end_src

Out of the blue, one of the OG’s of the Emacs world, Mr. Howard Melman sent me email. Encouraging me and giving me advice. How cool is that? I was floored. There are a whole bunch of people who are Emacs-gurus and they help unknown newbies get comfortable with Emacs. I am so thankful to these folks. They make the journey rewarding. Thank you Mr. Melman.

Thank you Mr. Protesilaos Stavrou.
Thank you Mr. David Wilson.
Thank you Mr. Mike Zamansky.
Thank you Ms. Sasha Chua.
Thank you Mr. Rainer Konig.

Thank you all for teaching me stuff.

This list can be a lot longer. In fact, I will make this a recurring part of the Much Ado About Emacs series. There are a lot of people to thank.

Anyway, I am enjoying my time in Emacs. Learning new things, trying out new things. Loving the act of writing. An unexpected by-product? Emacs makes me write more. The environment is created by me (with a lot of help from other folks). There is no friction. It is perfectly designed for me and my writing. I love it here.

The Others

These are the ones which get used everyday.

I have a ton of other software installed but they get sporadic use.

macOS is blessed with a vibrant eco-system of software and I am thankful to the developers. They make my life better.

macosxguru at the gmail thingie.

Thanks: to Photo by Ludvig Hedenborg: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-hands-holding-cute-kitten-16191918/


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