i put third party .el files in .emacs.d and then set the load path in the first line of my .emacs file

   (setq load-path (append load-path (list "/Users/diN0bot/.emacs.d")))

some useful .el's auto-save-list/ highlight-current-line.el auto_save_list/ psvn.el backup-file-list/ pycomplete.el cpp-font-lock.el python-mode.el django-mode.el vc-.el doctest-mode.el zenburn.el

rebindings are useful, such ctrl-q for M-x goto-line: (global-set-key "\C-q" 'goto-line)

I cribbed the following from someone else, but i find it most awesome:

; ===== Put auto-save, backup files in one place ===

;; Put autosave files (ie #foo#) in one place, not ;; scattered all over the file system! (defvar autosave-dir (concat "/Users/diN0bot/.emacs.d/auto-save-list/"))

(make-directory autosave-dir t)

(defun auto-save-file-name-p (filename) (string-match "^#.*#$" (file-name-nondirectory filename)))

(defun make-auto-save-file-name () (concat autosave-dir (if buffer-file-name (concat "#" (file-name-nondirectory buffer-file-name) "#") (expand-file-name (concat "#%" (buffer-name) "#")))))

;; Put backup files (ie foo~) in one place too. (The backup-directory-alist ;; list contains regexp=>directory mappings; filenames matching a regexp are ;; backed up in the corresponding directory. Emacs will mkdir it if necessary.) (defvar backup-dir (concat "/Users/diN0bot/.emacs.d/backup-file-list/")) (setq backup-directory-alist (list (cons "." backup-dir)))