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Changing Mac Key Bindings

This post explains the steps I took to make my Mac keyboard work more like a PC keyboard. The goal here is not necessarily for keys with the same names to be in the same position (e.g., the Ctrl key), but rather to have the same functionality across platforms when pressing keys located in the same positions.

Until last summer, I mainly used Windows and various distributions of Linux. Last summer I got my first laptop, a MacBook Air. I still use Windows on my desktop computer, and I have Xubuntu installed on VirtualBox virtual machines on both my desktop and laptop.

Both Windows and Linux (i.e., the distributions that I have used) have similar key bindings. For example, Ctrl-C is used for copying on Windows and it is also used for copying on every desktop environment I have used on Linux. When I started using OS X, I quickly realized that it uses a different set of key bindings. For example, the key binding for copying is Command-C, and the Command key on a Mac keyboard is located in a different position than the Ctrl key is on a PC keyboard.

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Project Euler Common Lisp Helper Functions

Project Euler is a site that has math problems that can be solved with the assistance of a computer program (solving the problems without programming would take an unreasonable amount of time). The problems are fun and they are a good way to learn a programming language and some interesting math.

A few years ago I solved the first 77 problems using Common Lisp.

I intend to eventually continue solving more, maybe switching from Lisp to Matlab, Mathematica, or some other language.

The site requests that users do not share solutions, which I have no intention of doing. However, I did accumulate some helper functions that I wrote while solving the problems, and I think they could be helpful for people getting started on Project Euler using Common Lisp.

Zipped: https://github.com/dstein64/euler-lisp-helpers/zipball/master
Repository: https://github.com/dstein64/euler-lisp-helpers

Also, check out Solving Project Euler Problems for some additional ideas.