Generally speaking, the Internet is a beautiful technology. Using it, anyone can make his or her thoughts and opinions available to the rest of mankind. Thanks to graphical HTML editors and blogging tools, anyone with half a mind can post content to the web.
In fact, posting to the web may have actually gotten a little too easy. People now freely post data with little regard for their spelling. While ones ideas might be effectively conveyed without proper spelling, even the most intelligent ideas instantly loses credibility when authors show their ignorance of the English language.
Believe me, I am the last person who should ever criticize another for spelling. I enjoy writing, but my spelling is almost a laughing matter. I realized at an early age that I was born with that portion of my brain missing. If it weren’t for the modern word processor, I would be much less inclined to share my opinions in written form.
As I browse the web, it becomes instantly apparent that massive portions of the population share my inability to spell even simple words. That’s why I actually get excited when I find good spell checking features in applications that I use every day.
Consider your web browser. You use it every day to read content from all over the web. Many people also use it to post messages to web forms, blogs, or forums. Did you know that out of the 5 major web browsers on the Macintosh platform, only Safari includes support for spellchecking? Mozilla, Internet Explorer, Netscape, and even Firefox currently lack the feature entirely!
Safari’s spell checking support is simple, but comprehensive. It’s a little known feature that let users spell check anything they enter into a web page. It can be activated at any time by hitting COMMAND+: to bring up the spell-check dialog. Or, hit COMMAND+; to spell-check without the dialog. My personal favorite is the live spell check that can only be toggled from the browser’s menu. Just select Edit -> Spelling -> Check Spelling As You Type and spelling is checked as it is typed. If you make a mistake, it is underlined in red. Right click on the word, and you are offered a list of likely corrections. This is similar to how the spellchecker works in Apple’s iChat, or Microsoft’s Word. In my opinion, this is one of the most productive spellchecking interfaces developed to date.
It’s a powerful feature that is often overlooked. It’s also a feature that’s should be offered in all web browsers. It’s definitely a feature that most of us need to become more familiar with.
