I wish the Windows Clipboard would implement a version of the kill ring. I really, really hate not having previous cuts and copies available. As a rather clumsy work-around I keep an emacs scratch file open on my task bar and copy stuff I might need more than once to it.

The ditto clipboard manager for Windows http://ditto-cp.sourceforge.net/ has completely solved this problem for me.

Sounds like you want XKeymacs it gives Emacs keyboard commands to all Windows applications, including a kill ring.

http://www.cam.hi-ho.ne.jp/oishi/indexen.html

Same with the Mac clipboard.

The pro version of Alfred has this functionality built in: http://www.alfredapp.com/powerpack/

I will try this out, thanks.

Look up Clipboard Manager by Jan Zeman. It runs in the Windows sidebar.

I've had success with http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/ before. I just have been using emacs for almost everything so have not tried this with Lion.

I haven't used Emacs, but I've worked with people who have, and the one thing that made me think 'wow' was this. So many times have I yanked something, deleted some white space or some such, and then lost it.

If (like me) you are a Vim user, there is a plugin to replicate this functionality called YankRing. Highly recommended! http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1234

The register 0-9 store the last ten deletes (yanks?) in Vim. This serves the same purpose as the kill ring.

Oh yes. The only thing I wish vi had was a key that let you traverse these so you don't have to remember exactly how many yanks ago you yanked something.

Yeah, that confuses me on a regular basis, too.

As best I understand the emacs functionality, vim's numbered registers are its analogue: http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/change.html#registers.