My kingdom for a spell-checker

I've often thought it would be handy to have a spell-checker that could correct text in online dialogues, like comments threads and chat rooms. After a little research, I found a good one - and it's free!

The program is ieSpell, which works with Internet Explorer. It can be downloaded here.

Some of the freeware I've tried has been disappointing, but this nifty little program works just fine.

Comments

[John]

Just so you know, the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox (www.mozilla.com/firefox/) has a spell checker built in.

[Michael H]

Firefox Rox! (It caught that one!)

[Greg Taylor]

MP wrote:

"The program is ieSpell, which works with Internet Explorer. It can be downloaded here."

Well, you do cover some strange topics here MP...but people using IE? That's just sick. I shiver to think that people would do that to themselves...
;)

Thanks for mentioning the Randi article...we're getting linked from quite a few places, the article has had over 10,000 reads already.

Kind regards,
Greg

[Jimbo]

If you use Mac OS X, you get spellcheck in any text entry box "for free" - it's part of the operating system.

[Roger Knights]

Hi Greg. I put up a link to your thread yesterday on a Boing Boing thread on Randi, so some of your reads came from there. Here's the link back to the BB thread:

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/24/amazing-randis-podca.html

It's too bad none of the online spell checkers consult the user's exception dictionary in Word, so they flag items that they shouldn't.

[Roger Knights]

Sorry I didn't know how to make my URL above into a live link with tags. Can someone do it for me, or tell me how? (I thought I knew, but appare3ntly not.)

[Greg Taylor]

Hi Roger,

Thanks, I did see that the other day. I talked to David Pescovitz about a Boing Boing entry on the article, but he hasn't posted anything yet so I'm not sure if he sees it as relevant to the BB audience.

Apart from that though, we got a good link-up from MSNBC science editor Alan Boyle on his http://www.cosmiclog.com>Cosmic Log, and also from Coast to Coast AM and The Anomalist. It helps to have our own substantial audience as well of course!

Thanks again for spreading word. I've just noticed that the article has also been mentioned on http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=107234>the JREF forum. As always, makes for interesting reading...
;)

Kind regards,
Greg

p.s. To post links, you need to add HTML tags (the old A href etc).

[Ryan]

@Roger Knights
I will post tomorrow and tell you how to embed a hyperlink.

And yes, Firefox and SeaMonkey are great -- and both have had spell checking for a while now.

[Ryan]

@Roger K

1. Layout View

You wrote:

I didn't know how to make my URL above into a live link with tags. Can someone do it for me, or tell me how? (I thought I knew, but apparently not.)

A link.

This text is in italics, this is in bold

----

2. HTML View

Note: Replace all ( ) with < >

You wrote:

(blockquote)I didn't know how to make my URL above into a live link with tags. Can someone do it for me, or tell me how? (I thought I knew, but apparently not.)(/blockquote)

A (a href='http://clusty.com/')link(/a).

Note: Using a word processor might be a problem because of the way they use '' marks, a text editor is better.

(i)This text is in italics(/i), (b)this is in bold(/b)

----

If you use Firefox you can select view → page source to view the HTML.

Regards,
Ryan

[Roger Knights]

Thanks. OK, here's the link to the Boing Boing thread on Randi where I made a couple of posts, including a link to the Dark Grail thread:

link

[Ryan]

Hi Roger,

For future reference: where I have have written the word 'link' in the HMTL -- you can use whatever word or phrase you want e.g. 'Boing Boing', 'Randi thread', etc.

[jollyroger]

HOW DO YOU DO... LANGUAGE

I gave my spell checker the authority of a judge, feeling I have to argue my case at every fragment and semi colon bad usage. But personally my spell checker’s seriously disabled. For one, it’s an American and thus frequently masturbates over the letter z. Two, it loves to connect and split words when I like them the way they are. After I disagree with it’s correction and we move on, it not only highlights that expression not been in it’s Delaware Dictionary It goes back to it believing that I’ve collected my senses realised my misguided misgivings offering me the same standardization. This twat’s seriously deluded. It’s got no qualifications and it doesn’t even speak!

And while we’re here. Why do we hang onto odd things like Times New Roman. Romans didn’t even have Times New Roman cos it was invented in 1933. So why do we have to keep using it, it’s cottage cheese.

... more at lifestyleguides.blogspot.com