Web 2.0 for the "Local" Church

Christian Living, Webapps and Websites No Responses »
Sep 222008

The good folks down at Read Write Web are doing a series of articles about religious groups and web technology. Their most recent article follows the activities of LifeChurch, a megachurch in Edmond Oklahoma that has launched a series of web-based applications bundled together on a social site called LifeChurch.tv.

From the Pastor, Bobby Gruenewald:

We’re doing this at a few different levels, ranging from simple steps like tweets and internet campus e-invites to more in-depth efforts like sharing online how God is working in your life and embedding video teaching on your blog. We’re connecting daily through a live video stream to talk about next steps and pray together. LifeShare is open to anyone, anywhere, so feel free to join us by signing up.

Mostly the church has bundled together the “best of the best¨ web-apps publicly available on the net, but they have also contributed to that pool. Though not yet released, they are currently developing an attendance tracking tool called ChurchMetrics. More significant is YouVersion.com, “a revolutionary online Bible that enables community and collaboration like never before.” It is further along in development; anyone can join. It also has an iPhone app.

Check out the whole article for more detailed analysis.

Posted by Tommy at 10:34 am Tagged with: , ,

Five is not a Multiple of Forty-Two

Books No Responses »
Sep 202008

I hesitate to admit it, but this is a “nerdlets” blog, so perhaps it is safe to confess that I am a fan of the late Douglas Adams’s Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s quirky, funny, utterly depressing, and an all-around good read.

It also has a pretty definitive (if rather unhappy) conclusion in the fifth book, Mostly Harmless. So I was surprised to learn that “a new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book will be published next year.” The publisher has apparently tapped Eoin Colfer for the job.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m also a fan of Eoin Colfer. The Artemis Fowl series is very good (I’m kinda a kids-book junky, especially in the summer), but I am having a little trouble believing this is a good decision. Colfer’s books to date are entertaining, and at times edgy, but I am skeptical of his ability to summon up the nihilistic absurdism required for the Hitchhiker series.

But then again, Douglas Adams reinvented the franchise repeatedly, changing its tone and tenor for radio, then movies, etc. And before he died Adams made this comment about Mostly Harmless:

People have said, quite rightly, that Mostly Harmless is a very bleak book. And it was a bleak book. I would love to finish Hitchhiker on a slightly more upbeat note, so five seems to be a wrong kind of number, six is a better kind of number.

And its hard not to be impressed by Colfer’s humble response to the BBC:

“My first reaction was semi-outrage that anyone should be allowed to tamper with this incredible series,” he said. “But on reflection I realised that this is a wonderful opportunity to work with characters I have loved since childhood and give them something of my own voice while holding on to the spirit of Douglas Adams. I feel more pressure to perform now than I ever have with my own books,” he said, adding that he was “determined that this will be the best thing I have ever written”.

So were do I pre-order?

Posted by Tommy at 9:11 pm Tagged with:

FlashWorks Helps you Learn Greek Vocabulary

Biblical Greek, Software No Responses »
Sep 192008

I have had past experience with Mounce’s Flashworks software, a free Windows and Mac program designed to help you learn Greek, but it has gotten a serious upgrade since the last time I checked. Here’s the description on Mounce’s Website:

FlashWorks is a vocabulary drilling program. Each word is tagged for difficulty, type (noun, verb, etc.), chapter, and frequency in the Biblical text. You can then ask for any cross section you wish, such as “all verbs occurring more than 30 times in the New Testament that occur in chapters 16 through 24 in the text and which I have tagged with a difficulty rating of three through five” (five being the most difficult for you). FlashWorks remembers words as you get them right and/or wrong and can automatically set the difficulty rating.

The download is a paltry 6mb, which is a good thing. Databases for the language (i.e., the actual vocab) are downloaded separately (though Greek is included). This, again, is a good thing; it allows the program to be modular, which means the same basic program can be used to learn any language. Databases are currently available for Greek, Hebrew, French, German, and Spanish. And you can always create your own.

You will need to download and install special fonts for Greek and Hebrew (links are available on the site), although it appears that Greek is included in the install. The software uses TekniaGreek and TekniaHebrew, which points up one big disadvantage to FlashWorks and the Teknia fonts: they are not Unicode fonts. If you don’t know what this means, or don’t know why unicode is important, check out my previous introduction to Unicode. The lack of unicode support is why I did not include the Teknia fonts in my list of Great Greek Fonts.

Installers are available for Windows and Mac, and it works beautifully in Wine on Linux (on Ubuntu). And did I mention it is free?

I do have a few qualms. The interface is terribly ugly, and the whole thing could use a usability overhall.  Making your own word lists could be easier. I would love to be able to select/tag words in order to create a chapter-specific Machen vocab list, for example, but as it is that would be too time consuming. But it gets the job done, and that’s the important thing with Greek: memorize the vocab, then you can move on to more important matters!

Posted by Tommy at 9:40 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Sing your way to Greek Proficiency

Biblical Greek No Responses »
Sep 172008

Check out this interview with Kenneth Berding, “author” of Sing and Learn New Testament Greek. The interview deals with this recently released audio CD, which puts the fundamentals of Greek Grammar to music. (I tell my students that, as a general rule, the more active you are in the memorization process, the better, so this sounds like a good idea to me).

A more general interview with Ken Berding, in two parts, can be found here and here. These deal more with the methodology by which we learn languages, and they also get into Berding’s take on why learning Greek is important for pastors.

Posted by Tommy at 11:01 am Tagged with: ,

Avoid Attachment Embarrassment

Webapps and Websites 2 Responses »
Sep 162008

From Cnet:

There’s really nothing worse than sending out an important e-mail with mention of an attachment then forgetting to actually attach the file that goes with it. To that end, a brilliant new Gmail labs feature is an opt-in nagger that will give you a warning pop-up if you try to send without a file and have used the word “attached” somewhere in the message.

Read the whole Cnet Article, or just follow this guide to set things up on your gmail account.

If anybody knows of a similar plugin for Thunderbird, post in the comments!

Posted by Tommy at 10:13 pm Tagged with: ,

Convert Non-unicode text to Unicode

Biblical Greek, Software No Responses »
Sep 162008

I have posted a series of guides on setting up a Unicode Greek Keyboard, complete with recommended fonts (here, here, and here). But what if you got there too late, and already have a host of documents in non-Unicode fonts? Well, here is a list of converters available, on a font by font basis, that will help you make the switch.

Posted by Tommy at 10:21 am Tagged with: , , ,

RefTagger Creates Bible Verse Popups for your Blog

Software 4 Responses »
Sep 132008

If you run a WordPress Blog you may be interested in Logos Bible Software’s RefTagger. It’s a handy little tool that automatically highlights and hyperlinks any biblical references in your blog. So if, for example, I begin to ramble about Heb. 2:9, the plugin will provide my readers with a popup so they know what I am talking about. Clicking on the link takes you to BibleGateway.com.

RefTagger is free, and has a number of wonderful options. You can select your preferred Bible Version (a global setting; you can’t change it on a case-by-case basis). You can also include links to the Libronix libarary, though I don’t have this software so cannot test it. Options are available for installing on other blogging software, but it is more difficult (copy/paste code in the right location).

Give it a run. It makes posting Bible-related content that much easier.

Posted by Tommy at 8:03 am Tagged with: , , , ,

Make Your Own Flashcards with Teach 2000

Biblical Greek, Software No Responses »
Sep 122008

Its not the most user-friendly piece of software, but if you are interested in making your own flashcard sets, check out this post. It includes Unicode support, so Greek cards should not be a problem, provided you follow my guide to setting up a Unicode Greek Keyboard.

Greek students might also be interested in this post on effective vocabulary memorization, and this one about Greek Flash Card systems.

Posted by Tommy at 10:39 am Tagged with: , , ,

Reading Greek Online

Biblical Greek, Webapps and Websites 2 Responses »
Sep 112008

Bibleworks, Accordance, Logos, and other Bible software (my only experience is with Bibleworks) offer unmatched functionality and ease-of-use, but are relatively expensive and are tied to certain operating systems. There are alternatives, two of which offer a similar suite of basic features.

The Resurgence Greek Project

The Resurgence Greek Project (RGP) is a quick, easy to use, and full-featured source for reading the NT. RGP offers simple searching, flash card generation, vocab lists, and other handy features. It provides the morphology and definition of words on rollover (which is very convenient). The major disadvantage is that it does not use the USB/NA Greek text. Instead, it uses Tischendorf’s 8th edition by default, and provides options for using Codex Sinaiticus, both of which are in the public domain. This is not a major problem, and it is understandable given the free nature of the service, and Perseus does provide some (pretty basic) text-critical analysis.

The text is Unicode, so you should have no problem in copying and pasting.

The RGP’s search features are pretty limited, but you can search for words by inflected form or by lexical form, and it also provides you with some statistical analysis.

Another great feature is the extensive flashcard modules. In addition to standard vocabulary lists, the RGP has the ability to create a vocabulary list based upon any selection of text. You can generate vocab cards for the book of James, for example, or all words in Romans that occur 15 times or less. This is a really great feature for studying.

The major disadvantage is the lack of other Greek texts, particularly those relevant to NT backgrounds. Also, the only available lexicons are Liddell Scott and Thayer’s, and while Liddell Scott is fine (if a little inconvenient, see below), Thayer’s has too many deficiencies to be reliable.

The Perseus Project

The Perseus Project is much more ambitious. It provides the entire NT (find that here), but in addition includes almost every Ancient Greek work available to us, from Euripedes, to Josephus’s Antiquities, to the early church fathers, and all in either Greek or English (and some other languages). You can browse their collection of Ancient Greek texts here, and they have other collections available as well.

Like Zhubert.com, the Perseus Project provides morphological analysis and definition, though this information is not displayed by rollover. Instead, a pop-up window provides the information whenever you click on the word. Also, the default lexicon is the Liddell Scout (Middle Liddell), which is a great lexicon, but not tailored to NT use like BDAG. You can find NT/Koine definitions in Middle Liddell, of course, but they are sometimes buried.

The search features are quite impressive. You can search by inflected form or by lemma, but the real advantage here is the ability to see how a word is used in other Greek texts. Since Perseus includes so many Greek works, you can search across a wide range of boundaries. (This can be a disadvantage, however, if not united with a little linguistic common since; Herodotus’s λογος is not the same as that of the NT).

The other major advantage to the Perseus Project is that it is completely Open Source. You can download the whole project, from the software to the texts (they are all in the public domain), and run it from your own computer (get the software here, and the texts here). Doing so will set you back a Gig or two, but it might be worth it, because one major disadvantage of their web site is its general slugishness (demand seems to consistently outweigh their bandwidth).

Conclusions

For basic reading of the NT in Greek I heartily recommend The Resurgence Greek Project. Its the easiest to use, has the most features relevant to seminary students, and is quick and responsive. If you want more extensive search features, or would like to read other Greek texts (such as those by the Church Fathers, or Greek 2nd Temple Literature), then check out the Perseus Project.

Posted by Tommy at 10:16 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,

Dropbox: Part Sync, Part Backup, All Good

Software, Webapps and Websites 4 Responses »
Sep 112008

Backup is important. You never know when your hard drive will give out (and it will, someday), or when some killer virus is going to wipe your data, or when you are going to be a bonehead and accidentally delete that all-important file.

Backup is important, but an online backup offers further advantages. It can be slow, to be sure, but it protects you in ways that other backups can’t (fire, theft, etc.). It’s a good idea to have your vital information, your most valuable pictures, etc. in a safe and secure location. Services like Mozy Home provide a wonderful and feature-rich online backup solution (and its free). But it has its drawbacks (Windows only, slow, does not sync between computers).

Introducing Dropbox

There is a new site, however, that offers something more, and holds great promise for the futre. Check out the folks over at Dropbox. I have been playing around with their services for a while now and have been very impressed, and today marks the release of their services to the public (still beta, but public beta).

Backup

What is Dropbox? At the minimum it is an automatic online backup of your important data. Dropbox creates a folder on your hard drive. Whatever you put in this folder is automatically synced with your account online. In short, anything you put in the dropbox on your computer is automatically mirrored to a secure, private, and encrypted location online, accessible to you for anywhere in the world.

Sync

The beauty of dropbox is that it offers more than this.

In the first place, you can link multiple computers to the same account. So, for example, let’s say I have both my home and office computers linked to the same online Dropbox. If I add or change a file in the Dropbox on my home computer, it will be automatically uploaded to the online Dropbox, and in turn automatically downloaded by my work computer. All my data is in sync between multiple computers.

Furthermore, Dropbox knows when I modify files and acts accordingly. Let’s say a have an article that I am writing in my dropbox. Whenever I make even the slightest modification to the file on my home computer, that modification is immediately uploaded to the web. This is what is called “real-time” backup. The Dropbox software can sense anytime a file has changed, and mirrors that change online.

And here is the real cool bit: it also keeps a record of the modification in case you do something stupid. Say you accidentally deleted a couple of important paragraphs of your article and could not recover the original? Well, those changes will be reflected in your online dropbox, but the original will be there too, so in just a couple of clicks you can recover you old data. The Dropbox FAQ puts it well:

All your files are not only backed up but all prior versions are preserved. So if you delete something or even just save a bad change you can restore a file in a few clicks via the web interface.

The web interface (which looks a lot like Facebook) gives you a running commentary of all the changes that have been made, and is both good-looking and intuitive.

You can also mark certain folders as shared, allowing you to distribute files, as well as back them up. This could be particularly useful for photos, for example. Just mark your photo folder as shared, distribute the web address to your friends and family, and suddenly you have a private Flickr alternative.

More Advantages

Another important feature of Dropbox is that it only uploads the data that has changed, not entire files. Here, again, is the description provided by the FAQ:

Does Dropbox always upload/download the entire file any time a change is made? Nope, Dropbox tries its best to be smart about how much gets uploaded to our servers for the best possible performance. Before transfer, we compare the new file to the previous version and only send the (binary) diff.

What does this mean? It means that if you only changed one letter of that article, Dropbox only uploads that one letter to your online Dropbox. That saves an enormous amount of bandwidth, which means that once your original upload is complete, you can expect Dropbox to use minimal system resources. It won’t slow down your computer, and it won’t tie down you internet. Still worried? The Dropbox preferences dialog allows you to cap the speed at which it uploads data, allowing you to have it running at all times, even if you’re streaming movies from the internet or downloading email.

Security is also not an issue. All your data is password-protected and encrypted on Amazon’s excellent S3 storage servers.

Linux Users

There are a couple of added advantages available to you if you run a Linux-based operating system. These advantages are available because of the way Linux handles links. In short: Dropbox follows all sym-links. Don’t know what that means? Well, in Linux you can link to a file and the Operating System treats that link as if it was the file itself. Clicking on a link to a folder is as good as clicking on the folder itself.  Long story short, you can place links to folders into your Desktop Dropbox and they will be backed-up and synced just like regular files. IThe rub is that if you run Linux you don’t have to change how your files are organized in order to use Dropbox, and that makes things a lot easier. Just drag links to your important folders and they will be automatically synced just like a regular folder.

How I Roll

I have two dropbox accounts, one is tied to my Laptop, on which I do all my work for school, write articles, prepare lessons for class, and, of course, hack at my dissertation. I now sleep peacefully at night knowing that all this, and especially my dissertation, is automatically backed-up in a secure location. If our house catches fire, I no longer have to run back for my laptop after heroically saving my wife, child, and dog. If my laptop gets stolen, drowned, shot at, etc. I still have access to all my data, and without any trouble whatsoever. As a cherry on top, I have my work desktop linked to this account, so I can access my files at school even without my laptop, and know everything will get synced up in the end.

I also have Dropbox installed on our home Desktop. I don’t really need syncing or anything here; really I just want our important files backuped-up online. So I have my backup software (Cobian 9) run a separate backup into my Dropbox folder. It filters out any large files (pictures, mp3s, etc) and sends the rest to the Dropbox, which is then in turn backed-up online—two simultaneous backups, one local, the other remote. Very nice.

Conclusions

Dropbox is really great Software/Webware. They provide clients for Windows, Linux, and Mac, and all are interoperable with the others (i.e. you can sync between different systems). There is currently a 2GB limit, but the storage and service is perfectly free. The company has promised that they will always offer this free storage, and that they will additionally allow you to upgrade to more storage (for a fee) in the future.

If you want more information, check out their FAQ here. For the latest news, their blog is here. You can also take a tour. And if you’re ready to download, go here.

Posted by Tommy at 6:22 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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