some other questions from a VIM user

[wang yin]

Thank you all who answer my question about the vi "o" command. :)

I'm reading the book "Emacs in 24 hours" and the info pages eagerly now.
But I must get my current programming problems solved.

I think post questions here can help me into the love of Emacs soon.
Now I have new questions:

1. How can I move to the beginning of the first non-blank character fast 
in Emacs?

2. Why does my Meta key stopped functionning in this session? M-x can't 
work now! I don't know what's special I have done. I just tried to bind 
the open-line-a-la-vi function to C-j just now. Now M-e, M-a, M-x, 
M-backspace, C-M-f, ... they don't work now. I know the problem will 
be solved in my next run. But I want to know when this should happen?

Thank you and I'll go on reading my book :)
(fill-region)...
Oh, sorry. my Meta key can't work for me. So I don't know how to 
break the lines... I break them manually :p

-- 
Wang Yin
DA Lab, Tsinghua University,
100084
Beijing China