We are only scratching the surface with the built-in OS X Dictionary application. Dictionary is integrated into the system so if you need to define a word while surfing with Safari, all you need to do is select that word and press Command+Control+D. It even works directly in Spotlight without opening the Dictionary application.
If you’ve always wanted to look up another language besides English, you have several options:
When you talk for a living, it’s usually a good idea to know the proper pronunciation of the words you’re using. As a radio newscaster, I come across the occasional word that baffles me, either because I’ve never seen it before, or because I’ve seen it written, but have never heard it pronounced.
Case in point, recently a Canadian tourist fell off a building and died in the resort city of Cebu, Philippines. I’d never heard of Cebu before. Often a quick Google search for something like “pronounce Cebu” will provide a link or two with a written pronunciation guide, but there’s nothing like actually hearing someone who knows, pronounce the word.
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, there existed a light-weight browser that lived in the deep shadows of Internet Explorer. It was based on the source code of Netscape, a fallen bird which fell prey to Microsoft. It had a wonderful feature - the ability to increase features by installing extensions. Fast-forward to 2008, and that browser is now known to the world as Mozilla Firefox.
It is obvious that Firefox has much more functionality because of these addons. Add to it the fact that the primary reason for not switching from Firefox to alternate browsers is the addons and you will get an idea of how great the concept of addons is.
You may be well familiar with biggies like Youtube, Digg, Wikipedia, and StumbleUpon. They are all big and 100% user-powered websites. However, what about the smaller ones, focused on a single aspect and still able to attract a huge user base. So here you go, six really cool and fast growing communy-powered websites that you should definitely see.
1. Instructables - Extremely useful, entertaining and rather addictive online community where people share what they do and how they do it. Here you can find hundreds of excellent home-made DIY (Do It Yourself) guides detailing how to turn some of the garage junk into cool stuf, like invisible book shelf, hairspray-powered potato cannon or even making a wallet (from an old keyboard). See pic below.
As Wikipedia grows more and more in momentum, people will start to use Wikipedia as their one and only source of information (of which I am becoming increasingly guilty of). But the internet doesn’t begin and end with Wikipedia.
Here’s some other reference websites worth a look, sites you can make use of.
1. Dictionary.com - One of my favourites. Also includes Thesaurus.com and Reference.com. Has email subscription services and RSS feeds.
2. About.com - This site has become much more commercialized over the years with more and more advertising. But nevertheless, you can find a wealth of information on numerous subjects, with more subjects being added all the time.
UrbanDictionary is another web service which truly illustrates the power behind user generated content. By giving power to users this website managed to build a practical words reference and entertainment platform, as Digg (profile) did with news, del.icio.us (profile) with bookmarks and Wikipedia (profile) with content. This website can actually be thought as a little funny sibling of wikipedia.
UrbanDictionary is quite popular website where users are able to to provide their own definitions for words. Terms are not limited to standard english language words but also any kind of sayings, comments, slangs and jargons that are used by people. After being online for a while it produced huge database with original, unique and in some cases funny and yet practical definitions. For instance, term porsche has several definitions 3 of which are:
