Blog finished - opinions please.

SpaceGirl wrote

> Morning Just away to my bed now! That bottle of wine went down wayyy
> to easy lol. & I can still type. miracle.

I'll be retiring very soon too. No booze tonight, the bottle of port I had
last week was enough to last me!

--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com

Norman L. DeForest wrote:

> I have a DOS version of the American Heritage Dictionary installed on
> my hard drive.

You should try getting a "dict" client:

http://www.dict.org/links.html

Then you just type "dict term" at the command line to get the definition
from several dictionaries (and other resources) of the term. The
dictionaries aren't stored on your computer -- it connects to a dict
server to retrieve the defintion. However, for speed and convenience, you
can run your own dict server if you like (each of the dictionaries are
a few megabytes in size), and can pick and choose which dictionaries
you'd like to include.

Freely available dictionaries include:

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
The WordNet Database
Collaborative International Dictionary of English
FOLDOC
The Elements Database
The 1995 CIA World Factbook
Ambrose Beirce's Devil's Dictionary
Moby Thesaurus II

"dict" is one of those command-line tools I can't live without!

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact

On Sat, 15 Oct 2005, Toby Inkster wrote:

> Norman L. DeForest wrote:
>
> > I have a DOS version of the American Heritage Dictionary installed on
> > my hard drive.
>
> You should try getting a "dict" client:
>
> http://www.dict.org/links.html
>
> Then you just type "dict term" at the command line to get the definition
> from several dictionaries (and other resources) of the term. The
> dictionaries aren't stored on your computer -- it connects to a dict
> server to retrieve the defintion. However, for speed and convenience, you
> can run your own dict server if you like (each of the dictionaries are
> a few megabytes in size), and can pick and choose which dictionaries
> you'd like to include.
[snip list of dictionaries]

I have a sneaky hunch that this wouldn't work when I'm off-line or when
I'm logged into my text account with a terminal emulator (which is almost
all of the time).

I would have to log off my text account, start up my firewall, log into my
PPP account, execute the "dict" command (and capture the results), log off
my PPP account, shut down the firewall, and then log back onto my text
account and get back to whatever I was doing there.

It's easier to hit Alt-J for a 4DOS shell, issue an "e:" command, type
"ah" and hit TAB for 4DOS to complete the "AHD\" directory name (the "CD "
isn't necessary with 4DOS), press enter, enter "ahd /r" to get into the
dictionary, and then look up what I want. ESC enough times gets me out of
AHD and an 'x' alias for "exit" returns me to the terminal program.

I may one day automate the directory change and entry into AHD with an
alias and shorten things even more.

Besides, does the "dict" program allow wildcards if one is not sure of
the spelling?

But I'll keep your suggestion in mind if I ever get a faster (and safer)
PPP connection and I start using that more often so thanks for the tip.
(I may add this tip to my Books and Stamps page for others to use after
checking it out.)

--
``Why don't you find a more appropiate newsgroup to post this tripe into?
This is a meeting place for a totally differnt kind of "vision impairment".
Catch my drift?'' -- "jim" in alt.disability.blind.social regarding an
off-topic religious/political post, March 28, 2005