chord

key-chord.el - map pairs of simultaneously pressed keys to commands

This is so cool.

compilation

I am a massive fan of compilation mode in Emacs, and use it constantly. I have compile and recompile mapped to F11 and F12, so I just have to reach up to compile the current project:

(global-set-key [f11] 'compile)
(global-set-key [f12] 'recompile)

On my Microsoft Natural 4000 keyboard, I found I needed the following:

; sness - for some reason my Microsoft Natural 4000 maps f11 to S-f1
(global-set-key [S-f1] 'compile)
(global-set-key [S-f2] 'recompile)

Here are a couple of my other customizations:

;;
;; compilation
;;
(setq compilation-scroll-output t)
(setq compilation-window-height 16)