Big Leaps with Zotero

 Software, Tech/Gadgets, Webapps and Websites  2 Responses »
Sep 302008
 

I am repeatedly impressed by the work going on at Zotero. The latest feature: online access to your data. That’s right, the data that you have synced with Zotero’s servers can now be accessed anywhere in the world; all you need is a web browser.

And here’s the beauty of it: any browser will do, even portable ones. More particularly, you can view and update your Zotero data from your iPhone or iPod Touch.

This has enormous possibility for pastors and academics. Think of all the times during the day when you have that brainstorm idea for a sermon example or theology paper, and no where to write it down. I have been carrying a tiny (wallet-sized) pen and mini-post-it-notes to make sure no brain bubbles are lost in the course of the day, but now there is no need. Simply access your Zotero database on your iPod Touch, add a little note under your sermon/paper entry (I have a seperate Zotero folder for each paper I write or sermon I preach), and you have an instant and always up-to-date repository of analogies and ideas.

Now if someone would only donate an iPod Touch to Nerdlets, I could write a full review!

Read the details of the newest updates, including a link to get things started, here.

Posted by Tommy at 7:05 pm  Tagged with: , , ,

RefTagger Now Supports Movable Type

 Software, Webapps and Websites  No Responses »
Sep 302008
 

Previously mentioned RefTagger now supports Movable Type, so if you use that platform, check out Logos’s recent how to.

Posted by Tommy at 11:34 am  Tagged with: , , , , ,

Google Audio Indexing and the Church

 Webapps and Websites  No Responses »
Sep 302008
 

Here is a nice little snippet about Google’s new audio indexing technology from Justin Taylor’s blog, complete with a couple of ideas about how it might be useful for pastors and churches.

Posted by Tommy at 11:20 am  Tagged with:

Another Web-based Bible Application

 Biblical Greek, Webapps and Websites  2 Responses »
Sep 262008
 

Logos software is up with the times. From their blog:

Most of us still use desktop applications when we want to do serious work, but web applications are improving rapidly and fast becoming viable alternatives, at least when it comes to basic functionality. Desktop applications simply can’t compete with the convenience of being able to access your data from any computer connected to the web.

So they have launched the Beta of Bible.Logos.com , which looks pretty fantastic. The fonts are easy to read and the site is well laid out. Searching is similarly simple and responsive. Switching between versions is quick and easy, and there are many versions to choose from, including a variety of Greek texts.

The Greek features are fairly limited in comparison with The Resurgence Greek Project (see my review of that site), and while the interface is easy to use, searching is not yet very advanced. The Greek text is Unicode compliant, which is a good thing.

The big feature is promised integration with the recently released RefTagger, which allows you to automatically create bible-verse popups on your blog.

Logos’s recent contributions to Bible software are encouraging and important; finally a company is working hard to bring biblical research into the modern age. For more information, check out the full post on their blog.

Posted by Tommy at 1:16 pm  Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Follow Me on Twitter

 Webapps and Websites  3 Responses »
Sep 252008
 

OK, I’m taking the plunge. Follow me on Twitter, especially if you want to keep up with this blog (and don’t want to subscribe).

If you haven’t heard of Twitter, it’s a “micro-blogging” (or “life-streaming”) service that allows you to post mini-updates about your current state of being. It has a variety of uses–from simply telling your friends where you’re at, to informing the world that you have a new blog post, to reporting news and current events. This flexibility is the result of its simplicity: posts have to be short and sweet, and the more abbreviations (lol, afk, .02, asaygt, awgthtgtta) the better, and you can post from anywhere (email, internet, cell-phone, etc.), and because it’s all so easy people post enormous amounts of material (which is both an advantage and a disadvantage).

Using twitter is easy. You simply create a (free) account, and then update at will (you can use any one of a number of twitter clients to make this easier, and plugins are available for almost every platform imaginable (from email clients to other social platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, and FriendFeed). Once you are set up and “tweeting” you can start following other Twitter-ers, and they start following you. It’s less headache than blogging, less social than Facebook/MySpace, but it lets you keep others easily and instantly informed about what you’re up to on your blog, at your work, and in your life.

To be honest, I resisted Twitter for awhile, especially because of a slew of problems they have had recently. But those problems have recently been fixed, and so I’m taking the plunge. Time will tell if its useful. In the mean time, I need the followers!.

Posted by Tommy at 9:47 pm  Tagged with: , , , ,

File Conversion Tools You Should Bookmark

 Webapps and Websites  No Responses »
Sep 252008
 

“How do I convert format x to format y?” I get that a lot, and I have already posted a couple of ways to turn Word docs into pdfs. Here are a couple of other services that can convert files from one format to another.

  • From Lifehacker:

    Zamzar is a web-based file conversion tool that can convert your video, audio, images, and documents from nearly any format to nearly any format you like. For example, if you’ve never felt that you could quite figure out how to convert that video you took on your cameraphone to a format you can play on your iPod, Zamzar can do it for you.

  • Convert by email! That’s right, just attach a file to an email and send it to a specific address and your files will be converted and sent back to you quickly and easily. This can also be handy for transferring or backing up files, and it supports a wide range of formats. Read about it here.
Posted by Tommy at 9:28 am  Tagged with: , ,

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: , ,

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: ,

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  5 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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