spelling

Scrabble for iPad is a faithful adaptation of that classic board game much beloved by logophiles, with tons of cool extras and several easy options for multiplayer games.

What Scrabble for iPad does best is simulate the look, feel, and even sound of the original game, with sharp HD graphics, gratifying sound effects (letter tiles pop into place with a subtle click), and an interface that will put Scrabble-lovers right at home, including a virtual tile rack that lets you rearrange letters. (And in party play mode, individual players can even use their iPhones and iPod Touches with the free … Read more

Hanging with Friends is a fun online multiplayer word game for iPhone where you can match up against your friends to play a unique version of Hangman. From the makers of the popular game, Words with Friends, this fun game lets you register an account or connect with Facebook to play against people in your friend list or other players who also own the game. You also have the option to pass-and-play on one iPhone.

Hanging with Friends has a colorful and cute interface in which avatars of you and your opponent hang from floating balloons above lava. If you … Read more

Hanging with Friends is a free, ad-supported multiplayer Hangman app from Zynga, the makers of Words with Friends and Chess with Friends.

Like many of Zynga's apps, Hanging with Friends is a slick, social machine, making it easy to play multiple, asynchronous games with many friends, whom you can quickly pull in through Facebook. (You can also play random online matchups.) The core game is fun, easy to learn, and fast-playing. And while Hanging with Friends mostly follows the traditional Hangman word-guessing format, it adds a few clever innovations: you choose four- to eight-letter words using a set of … Read more

Super Why is an interactive, educational reading game for preschoolers based on the hit PBS Kids show of the same name, featuring (much to the delight of Super Why fans, no doubt) many of the original sounds, games, and characters from the show.

Super Why gives you four different character-narrated, touch-based games, each with a different task for kids: Super Why's Story Saver (picking one of three words to correctly complete a sentence), Princess Presto's Wands-Up Writing (identifying letters by sound to spell a word, then tracing those letters with your finger), Alpha Pig's Lickety Letter Hunt (… Read more

When you initially set up your Mac, you will be asked to select one of several supported languages as the default language to use. This will set the system-wide spell checker to the desired language, and also cue other applications such as Microsoft Office to set their languages accordingly at installation time, if supported.

The language setting will not only set the system's display language, but also set up the various spell checkers used in word-processing programs like TextEdit, Pages, and Safari. Though this is convenient, there may be times when in typing documents you will need to use … Read more

We remember a time--not so long ago--when translating a text between two languages required a dictionary and a lot of patience. But now we have things like Tirgumit Right Click Free Dictionary. This handy utility makes translating between languages a breeze, whether you just need to know one word or want to translate an entire block of text.

The program's interface is attractive and intuitive, and there are several ways to access its features. If you're reading something in a foreign language and need to quickly translate a single word you don't know, simply hold down the … Read more

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

eBay launches Gifts Nearby to help you shop offline

Microsoft wants to enable the Kinect to recognize finger gestures

The new FourSquare iPhone app lets you comment on your friends' location choices

The state of Oregon will now allow spell check on state exams

And that's all folks! Loaded is on hiatus through the end of the year. We will see you at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas for new tech galore! Have happy and healthy holidays!

Rimelands: Hammer of Thor is a fantasy dungeon-crawler RPG with turn-based combat, grid-based movement, and charming art and sound.

The first in a planned Rimelands series, Hammer of Thor puts you in the role of Rose Cristo, the heroine of a Norse-themed, fairy-filled, post-apocalyptic steampunk storyline. Using experience points and a system of branching skill trees, you can advance Rose's abilities down three different "paths": Barbarian, Assassin, and Shaman, corresponding to melee, ranged, and magical combat. Each path has its own "talents"--active skills and passive boosts that make you deadlier. The game gives you … Read more

One feature in OS X that I use on a regular basis is the system-wide spell checker, which is available in any application built to include this function (an easy thing to do with Apple's developer tools). In OS X 10.5 and prior, misspelled words were marked by a dotted red underline, but in Snow Leopard the new autocorrection feature is sometimes frustrating.… Read more