Google have released the beta3 of their toolbar, which integrates a spell checker for your web boxes. That is a superb idea, especially for bloggers.
Unfortunately the toolbar is Internet Explorer only, which meant that I was spell-checker-less. That, my friends, I was not going to stand for.
After a bit of hunting I found Rite Of Tongue, a phrase checker powered by either google or yahoo, depending on which you choose in the settings.
It’s not quite a spell checker, but it does a very good job of pointing out blindingly obvious spelling mistakes and can be dead handy as the alternate spellings are similar to what you might see if you tried to search for a mis-typed word on Yahoo! Search.
So, anyone interested in developing a bona-fide spell checking extension for firefox?
Ron | 20-Apr-05 at 11:10 am | Permalink
Firefox? What’s that? :-)
Isn’t it a top secret Russian MIG, stolen by Mitchell Gant which is, to all intents and purposes,…invisible?
Splee | 20-Apr-05 at 11:22 am | Permalink
Just because you love your IE Ron. Considering you’re a man in IT I’m dissapointed that IE hasn’t driven you loopy already. :P
witho | 20-Apr-05 at 11:44 am | Permalink
I use my eyes and brain as spell checkers
Splee | 20-Apr-05 at 11:48 am | Permalink
That’s what technology is for Witho! It means you no longer need to use your brain if you don’t want to. Learning grammar and spelling is an outmoded concept.
Ron | 20-Apr-05 at 3:19 pm | Permalink
I know IE has a dodgy implementation of HTML and CSS and all it’s security holes and foibles and so on and so on.
But Firefox evangelists are like all evangelists. Annoying! :-)
I know Firefox has a better - stricter - rendering engine etc etc, but I find it slowish (for some reason), and I don’t like the download UI. I like the idea of tabbed browsing more than the reality because when I mistakenly close one window I’ve also closed 4 others….
And IE7 will be out soonish to make everything better…
witho | 20-Apr-05 at 3:59 pm | Permalink
I think there is ample proof out there on the internet and in my electronic interactions with people who use spellcheckers that reliance on them as a substitute for reading what you’ve just written is a recipe for shoddiness. (Hmmm, did I spell that right? ;))
Splee | 20-Apr-05 at 4:14 pm | Permalink
Witho: I’m confuzzled… is it me or did that comment make little sense? Maybe that was the joke, eh?
Col: I’m not an evangelist… I just prefer it.
witho | 20-Apr-05 at 4:54 pm | Permalink
It makes sense to me, but it would, wouldn’t it?
What I’m saying is that too much reliance on spell-checkers is bad.
Splee | 20-Apr-05 at 5:02 pm | Permalink
I agree Witho, my comment above was sarky to the extreme ;)
I always know I’ve spelt a word wrong. You know when you look at a word and think to yourself, “now that’s just not right“. I just need the reference to look up the correct spelling.
Andy Skelton | 21-Apr-05 at 5:49 pm | Permalink
How about something that checks your spelling no matter where you’re typing? I haven’t gotten down to using it as a spellchecker yet, but ActiveWords tells me it can replace commonly misspelled words as you type them. It’s a neat program anyway and worth checking out.
Blue Witch | 23-Apr-05 at 10:27 pm | Permalink
Witchy likes SPELL checkers - no more wonky spells! Yippee!!!