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BDicty and LexSpell
July 28, 2004
That’s very important for today’s increasingly mobile society; our “always on” connected lifestyle with wireless access, instant messaging, and email has in some ways devolved into a hopelessly mistake-ridden life, at least in the sense of spelling and grammar. I must admit to being guilty of composing messages and yes, sometimes even articles for this site, that I don’t read over a second time. And how many of us can relate to the fact that we’re seeing more and more signs posted in public spaces with spelling errors? It’s a growing epidemic, and one that probably has my third grade English teacher spinning in her grave.Fortunately at least a little help is available in the form of two applications for Palm OS devices, BDicty and LexSpell. BDicty is a dictionary program, while LexSpell is a spell checker that works in all text-based Palm OS applications. I’ll take a closer look at each in turn.
BDicty
BDicty is a dictionary program that offers a wide variety of choices. You can either use the free public version or the $10 professional version and then load the dictionaries you wish to use. You can get everything from Arabic to Hungarian, Indonesian to Romanian, and Swedish to Welsh. There are also several foreign language phrasebooks and free dictionaries as well, including Internet and computer terms, Bible Names, rhyming terms, and medical abbreviations.
The program can be used in two different ways, either as a standalone dictionary or as a “quick lookup” of a word in another Palm OS application, using the command bar. BDicty is nicely laid out and easy to use as a regular program; just choose the dictionary you’re interested in at the top and then start entering the first few letters of the word. Once you see the one you’re looking for, just tap the word in order to see the definition. There are a few special features to note, however, as BDicty in many ways surpasses your standard paper dictionary. Small icons at the top of the screen provide a variety of options, such as allowing you to select a word in the definition and look it up in the dictionary or even add your own definition to the word. A small arrow icon just to the right of the text entry field allows you to quickly go back to words you have previously looked up. And a handy eraser clears the field so that you can enter another word.
The foreign language tools deserve a closer look. The phrasebooks are organized into categories such as basic expressions, money, getting around, and shopping. Choose a category and a list of appropriate phrases comes up instantly. They provide a handy quick reference for travelers, but unfortunately there is no phonetic pronunciation guide. Without at least some idea of how to say the phrase, the best option is to show the screen to the person you’re trying to communicate with, or else invest in one of Beik’s Talking Phrasebooks. Students will be happy to know that there are also verb conjugators and references relating to irregular verbs as well.
Prices vary for the dictionaries and phraseboks, and dictionary bundles provide the best deals. If you’re a student or mobile professional, or if you travel frequently to foreign countries, you’ll likely find BDicty and some of its dictionaries to be quite helpful. Even if you don’t fall into one of those categories, you may just want to give it a try just to increase your vocabulary— I personally would rather use my Tapwave Zodiac to look something up instead of taking that dusty old dictionary off the shelf.
PocketGoddess Rating for BDicty: 
LexSpell
LexSpell is a spelling program for Palm OS devices that can be used with any other text-based Palm OS application. Once installed and enabled by running LexSpell once, it can be invoked anywhere by using the command bar and tapping on the appropriate icon. That means that it works in Memo Pad, Date Book, Agendus, etc. If LexSpell won’t actually perform a full spelling check in your application, then it will still pop up a box that allows you to enter a word you’re unsure about, or paste it from the clipboard, and perform a spell check on that text.
The preference settings enable you to choose from a variety of options, such as whether you want suggestions to be offered on a phonetic or typographical basis, and which balance you prefer between speed and accuracy for suggestions. If you want things to move as fast as possible, you would choose “Fast but less accurate” which means that LexSpell will highlight the incorrect word and allow you to come up with the correction. If you’re a terrible speller, you might choose “Slow but more accurate” so that the program would come up with more suggestions for you and you can choose the right one instead of having to come up with your own answer.
In my tests I found LexSpell to be both very fast and a pure joy to use. I choose the medium setting, “moderately fast and accurate” and it was perfect for my needs. I have a rather informal writing style, so I found that I had to add the various contractions and slang terms that I use to the lexicon, but that was a simple matter of tapping the “Add” button in LexSpell. Everything else operated just as I would have expected a desktop spellchecker in Microsoft Word, with the choice to accept a choice from a list of suggestions as well as the ability to ignore certain words, such as proer names. LexSpell requires 105K for the application and 307K for the American English lexicon, and can be purchased for $14.95 at the Beiks web site.
PocketGoddess Rating for LexSpell:
Conclusion
Both programs are easy to use and provide the right options without overwhelming the user. It’s obvious that the developers know what they’re doing, and the design certainly provides the proof. If you’re a student or mobile professional who often composes or edits documents on a Palm OS handheld, you need both of these applications to make sure that your writing is both polished and letter perfect.
