I just found out about a another cool emacs plugin: WindMove This packages allows you to switch windows withouth using C-x o. WindMove is included with emacs, just include the following code in your .emacs: (when (fboundp ‘windmove-default-keybindings) (windmove-default-keybindings)) More info @ http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/WindMove
The latest emacs pretest version (23.0.95) includes EasyPG making it easier to encrypt/decrypt files almost transparently. You just have to C-x C-f a file and C-x C-s and EasyPG takes care of the rest for you.
I usually use emacs for my normal tex(t)’ing/programming tasks, but I often make use of other simpler text editor to do simpler edits over text files. When using my Macbook, I use Smultron. So far, I think Smultron is an excellent tool for my simple text editing needs.