Tommy

 

Google just officially announced and released their competitor to iBooks and the Kindle platform. You can check out the announcement and details here and the actual store here.

There are four things I like about this, even though I have a growing collection of Kindle books. First, it encourages competition and development. Second, Google includes a web-based reader, which means I don’t need any kind of device other than a computer to read my books. Third, finding free (open-domain) books is much easier with Google than with the Kindle. Finally, I love that all the open-domain books that Google has been scanning over the years (such as random volumes of the Patrolagiae Graeca Hodge’s Systematic Theology) are all freely readable on any device that Google Books runs on (which is, like, all of them).

And Apple’s iBooks might as well be dead to me, since it only runs on one device. It’s the prettiest and easiest, but also the least accessible.

Your opinions?

 

That didn’t take long. The aforementioned new critical Greek New Testament has now been published in a variety of formats. You can start downloading here.

Here’s the really cool bit. Because they are providing the text in plain text, as well as other formats like PDF and XML, people have the freedom to play around with this stuff. What does that mean? It means you are not limited to Logos software (though that is available, and they have promised a free download for Logos on the iPhone). You can, for example, load a PDF onto Apple’s iBooks, and I’m sure a Kindle version is just around the corner.

And, within a couple of hours, Michael Hanel has already got a working copy running in Bibleworks, so grab that here.

For those who want to play around with the text for further distribution, you can find the license terms here. They are pretty lenient.

This is awesome stuff!

 

Yes you read that right. And if you are a regular follower of Nerdlets you can appreciate why this is significant. Up to this point there are no up-to-date critical editions of the Greek NT that are digital, freely available, and web/font friendly.

The announcement comes from Mike Holmes, the editor of this GNT, at Evangelical Textual Criticism. The text is being produced in partnership with Logos Bible Software and the Society of Biblical Literature. The details are available here.

Some highlights:

  1. Free
  2. Digital and Print Editions will be available
  3. Unicode (this is important. For an introduction to Unicode, and why it is important in biblical studies, see here.)
  4. Semi-open, liberal licensing? You be the judge. I am basing that on this paragraph: “In addition to granting professors and students permission to use the SBLGNT freely in their writings, the End-User License Agreement encourages the development of new electronic and print products based on the SBLGNT through a liberal permission and licensing policy.” That seems to follow the same pattern as other SBL rescources, like there fonts, which are freely distributed, and which users are allowed to modify and distribute as they desire. It would be helpful to get clarity on this, though. Perhaps one of the Creative Commons licenses should be selected for it? This one seems appropriate.

In short, this is all kinds of awesome. Thanks to Mike, SBL, and Logos!

 

Google has teamed up with The Israel Antiquities Authority in a project to bring the Dead Sea Scrolls into the digital age. From the Washington Post:

The Israel Antiquities Authority and Google announced Tuesday that they are collaborating to produce digitized images of the entire collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls and put them on the Internet, making the archaeological treasure available to anyone with the click of a mouse.

Anyone familiar with the Dead Sea Scrolls knows that getting access to the information they contain is cumbersome at best, and this promises to finally end that difficulty. Read the whole article for more information and really cool pictures.

HT: Evangelical Textual Criticism

 

Andy Naselli has an excellent and thorough post on using Zotero to organize your personal library. As a follow up for those interested in using Zotero in biblical studies, check out my guide here.

 

As a registered nerd I am frequently asked about laptop brands. You can find an excellent overview of the strengths and weakness of the various major manufacturers here.

I would change two ratings. (1) They gave Lenovo a B, but I would give them an A-. They make a good and sturdy laptop and have excellent customer support. The IdeaPads (particularly the Y line) are particularly nice. (2) They gave Sony an A, which I would lower to a B-. If you want an expensive laptop get one of the other A rated brands–Sony does not offer anything these other brands don’t and they have terrible customer support (in my experience).

Bottom line for me: if you want a premium but reasonably priced PC, go Lenovo or Asus. If you’re going cheap try an Acer or an on-sale HP. And shop at newegg.com

 

Google translate now offers Latin translations. Church historians rejoice!

Via: New York Times

 

Here’s a handy trick when you want to look up some bible verses in a snap.

For those who don’t know, Google’s Chrome Browser allows you to search popular sites straight from the address bar. Many sites provide search functionality by default, and Chrome automatically adds those sites to its database. But any site that is searchable can be added to Google Chrome. Here’s how to do it for the ESV Bible online.

  • First, go to the ESV website here.
  • Right click on Chrome’s address bar and then click on “Edit Search Engines…”
  • This will bring to a new dialog box. Click “Add…”

  • This will bring up yet another box, with three text boxes. For “Name” type something like “ESV Bible.” For “Shortcut” type in something short and memorable, like “b” or “esv” or “bible.” Then the real magic, for the “URL” box copy and paste the following text:

http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=%s

  • Click “OK” and you’re ready to go.
  • Now try it out. Open up a new tab and click on the URL bar. Type the keyword you entered in the previous step and then press “TAB.” Now type in what you want to search. The result should be like the picture below. Pressing return will load up the ESV Bible webpage with the results of your search.

  • For Firefox: You can do the same in Firefox, but the process is slightly simpler. Just go to the ESV website here. Then in your search box click on the left hand side drop-down arrow. You will see a list of search options, at the bottom of which will be “Add ESV Bible.” Click on that and it will be added. You can now search the esv by selecting it in the search bar. To search from the URL bar you need to set a shortcut. Click on the search engine dropdown, then “Manage Search Engines,”  then select “ESV Bible,” then “Edit Keyword,” and set that to your keyword of choice. Now type the keyword in the address bar, then your search, then return. Easy!
  • If you’re interested in this sort of thing, check out my posts on adding the Westminster Bookstore and Westminster Library to your search bar.
 

Zotero’s previously announced plans to move Zotero out of Firefox and into, well, everything is getting closer to realization. It’s a major push to make Zotero available everywhere, and to allow you to integrate your libraries and research with all sorts of different platforms and interfaces (IE, Firefox, Chrome, mobile, etc.) through a set of APIs.

I could go on an on about how great this is, but there’s no need, as David Stark has already done all the heavy lifting. He beats me to the punch every time! You can find the official announcement here, and a full and very helpful run down at ReadWriteWeb here.

 

David Stark at New Testament Interpretation reports on the (still beta) roll-out of Biblia.com, an excellent web resource for Biblical Studies. Check out the full report here, or if you’d just like to see the goods, check that out here.

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