Nerdlets

Firefox 3.5 is Faster, Slicker, and Ready to Download

Tommy — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:45:25 +0000

The latest version of Firefox is ready for download, and it will be worth the time.

There is a lot to love about the new release, but perhaps the most important improvement is speed. Speed matters now more than ever. We’re not talking about download speeds here, but more important things like application speed—how fast your browser can process Flash videos, or javascript applications. Why does this matter to you? Because most of the websites you browse every day, like Facebook or Hulu, use a lot of programming technologies that your browser has to process. Since we are all doing more and more computing tasks online, like reading email, updating our facebook accounts, or watching movies, browser speed takes on a whole new meaning, and Firefox 3.5 is noticeably faster.

There are a whole host of other important updates, which you can read about here.

You can download the latest version here.

Goldsworthy: Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics

Tommy — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:28:50 +0000

The Phone Gets an Upgrade: Google Voice

Tommy — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:59:59 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

If you haven’t already heard about Google Voice, now is the time to play catch-up, and this is an excellent article for doing so (complete with video). Long story short, it’s gonna be awesome, and you should make every effort to get a Google number as soon as it’s available to you.

Too lazy to read the article? Here are some features:

* transcribed voicemails: whenever somebody leaves a voicemail, GV will transcribe the message as best it can (this only works for English right now). These transcripts are then forwarded to your email account and you can also opt to receive an SMS notification.
* listening in to voicemails: whenever you receive a call and decide to let it go to voicemail, you can also choose to listen in and even pick up the call if it turns out to be an important message. This feels just like the old days when answering machines with tapes were still a novelty.
* call screening: one neat option in GV is the ability to screen calls. If you activate this feature, callers will be prompted to leave their name once they call, and once you pick up the phone, GV will play the name back and you can choose if you want the call to go to voicemail or if you want to actually speak to this person. You can opt to let all unknown callers who are not in your Google address book go through this procedure or just those calls from callers who have blocked their caller ID.
* recording calls: at any time during a call, you can press 4 and the call will be recorded. This only works for calls you receive on your phone for now, and doesn’t work for outgoing calls.
* conference calls: just ask participants to call your GV number and once more callers call in, you can just conference them in – this works for up to 4 callers.
* switching phones: if you want to switch phones during a call (say you took a call on your home phone and decide you want to take a walk and continue the call on your cell), just press * and all the other phones will ring.
* SMS: you can send and receive text messages from your GV account
* integration with Google Contacts
* it just works: the call quality is good, we didn’t experience any outages during the last few months, and calls aren’t dropped. GV does what it says it does, and it does it well.

Lawsuit against Zotero Dismissed

Tommy — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:40:08 +0000

Good news! The lawsuit filed against the developers of Zotero (which I wrote about here) by the makers of EndNote has been dismissed. There are few details as yet–like whether or not the suit will be refiled–but hopefully this is a sign of things to come. From ArsTechnica:

Thomson Reuters, which makes EndNote, an academic reference management product, had filed suit against George Mason University, claiming that its support of the open source Zotero project, which imports EndNote files, was in contravention of the university’s license to EndNote. The suit, which requested an injunction against the distribution of Zotero, has now been dismissed. Depending on whether Thomson Reuters appeals or refiles the suit, this may leave Zotero in the clear.

Need a little more background?

Academic reference managers, which allow their users to keep track of the publications that they cite when writing up their own research, are a fairly specialized market. EndNote has a number of features that make it a compelling option, including a series of filters for online search queries and tight integration with document preparation software, notably Microsoft Word. It also offers one of the few cross-platform options on the market, and has a large library of reference styles to match the formats used by different journals. But there is also a degree of product lock-in, as many researchers have built up libraries of thousands of references over the years.

Zotero undoubtedly looks a bit threatening to Thomson Reuters, as it has a number of these features. It operates as a browser plug-in, which allows it to cross platforms easily and integrate well with online searches; it is also able to import EndNote reference databases. But the key feature that got it into legal trouble was the fact that it was able to import and use EndNote reference style files.

The full article is worth reading, especially since some reflection is offered by the authors regarding the merits of the lawsuit.

Exegetical Insight: Luke 8:10

Tommy — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:53:04 +0000

Every once-and-a-while I have an edifying experience in the course of grading. It’s rare, but it happens. In the course of reading over Luke 8:10, which my Greek students had to translate for their exam, I was forced to ask (and answer) a basic question. The question is begged by the Greek, but not by the English. Here is the verse:

Ὑμῖν δέδοται γνῶναι τὰ μυστήρια τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ, τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς ἐν παραβολαῖς,

The question is: What has been left out of the second phrase, which is an incomplete idea? What has been elided from τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς ἐν παραβολαῖς? Or, to put the same question another way: what are Jesus’s parable about? Are they morality tales? Proverbial remarks? Timeless truths?

The answer lies in the parallel between the two clauses, and, in particular, between their prominent datives (notice that the datives come first in each clause).

So the first phrase is “to you”, that is, to the disciples (and those who trust in the traditions they teach: Jude 20-23). The second phrase is about “the others.” The first phrase lacks a propositional phrase, the second a direct object. So the disciples are given something, but the others, though given the same thing, receive it through an indirect medium, the parable.

So what are Jesus’s parable about? If you had to put the central message of Jesus’s parable into a few words, what would those words be?

The answer lies in the question posed by the second clause of our Greek sentence. What is given to the others ἐν παραβολαῖς? The answer: τὰ μυστήρια τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ.

Mysteries about God’s Kingdom.

New Digital Greek Text Available

Tommy — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:56:28 +0000

Copies of Westcott/Hort and Tischendorf have long been available online in digital form. Tragelles’s Greek New Testament predates both of these and is now available as a digital (Unicode!) text. Even better: the text is open licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license, which means you can use it, modify it, and distribute it to your heart’s content; just don’t try to make money off it!

You can download the digital text here. More information is available here and here.

Michael Hanel already has a Bibleworks version ready for download here. And this is a great candidate for an eBook, so I will begin working on that soon (hopefully).

Multitasking Mondays: Sync Contacts with Funambol

Tommy — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:00:37 +0000

It’s amazing how much your productivity increases when you have all the information for all your contacts on all your devices.

There is literally only one service that provides this functionality. And its free.

Try funambol.

There’s an iPhone app. Which syncs with Outlook. Or your smartphone. Or your Blackberry. And with some modern mobile phones.

And, of course, with Thunderbird.

No guide here; your on your own (Sorry—time constraints, but Google is your friend). I just wanted everyone to know that this is out there, and that chances are, it will help.

Zotero 2.0 Launches (What a Pleasant Surprise!)

Tommy — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:24:45 +0000

Get the latest from Zotero

Zotero has just released the beta of their 2.0 upgrade, and it looks awesome. Here is the announcement.

The most important upgrade is the promised addition of groups and collaboration.

Groups provide a powerful way to share collections with a class, work closely with a colleague on a project, keep track of conversations in your field more broadly, and keep tabs on what people at your institution or in your department are working on. To copy items into any of your groups just drag and drop items from your library into any of your group libraries and subcollections. Below you can see an image of your groups inside Zotero.

Your group can be published as a web page, either public or private. I am really looking forward to trying this out (and reporting back here at Nerdlets). The promise for teaching is extraordinary! It could provide a whole new level of interaction in the classroom, not to mention among colleagues and fellow researchers.

Other features are also in the works:

As we refine this beta release, the Zotero team will roll out its recommendation engine, a storage solution for sharing attached files, more ways to navigate through collections online, and the ability to view feeds from public groups and libraries.

Stay tuned for updates. I look forward to posting a full review and guide in the near future.

You can get the latest release here. I have a quick-start guide posted here.

Exegetical Insight, Lost Edition

Tommy — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:24:59 +0000

Though perhaps not as significant as yesterday’s exegetical insight, I put myself to the task of translating Jacob’s tapestry from last night’s lost (that pause button is wonderful, isn’t it!).

So here goes. First I transcribed it into miniscules:

θεοι τοσα δοιεν οσα φρεσι σησι μενοινας

So it’s two clauses:

θεοι τοσα δοιεν
οσα φρεσι σησι μενοινας

The latter clause is a relative clause, with μενοινας as the main verb. It’s a standard progressive active indicative, 3nd singular from μενοινάω, “to desire eagerly, be bent on a thing” according to Middle Liddell. The adjective σησι is just a possessive, with φρεσι as its head noun. So the phrase is something like “whatever/as much as you desire for your heart.”

Now to the main clause. δοιεν took me awhile because it’s an optative (not used to those in the NT). But the root δο is your clue, and it’s listed in Great Scott: Aor. act opt. 3rd plural from διδωμι. I think τοσα is nueter plural, the antecedent of οσα.

So here is my translation

May the gods give [to you] as many things as you desire for you heart.

Or more idiomatically (removing the repetitive relative pronoun and treating the dative of advantage as idiomatic):

May the gods give to you all your heart’s desire.

Or you could just search on the transliteration in the Perseus Project (I assumed it was a quote from something). It’s from Homer, Od. 6.180. Here.

Update: The bottom line, by the way, is the following

θεοι δε τοι ολβια δοιεν

This one is much easier. ὄλβιος, α, ον, used substantively here, means “blessing,” or “riches”. This line is actually listed in Middle Liddell as an example, and is also from the Odyssey. So the translation:

And may the gods give you riches/blessing.

Nerdlets Makes the Biblioblog List

Tommy — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:00:17 +0000

The good folks over at Biblioblog have added Nerdlets to their list of Biblical Studies Blogs. Sure we’re just “related blogs” (under the “techie” category) for now, but maybe someday we’ll be upgraded!

Every month Biblioblog posts the Top 50 BiblioBlogs based on their specified constraints.

A blog is included in the rankings if it contains substantial content related to biblical studies or closely related fields, evidences a scholarly approach to biblical studies (not requiring academic qualifications, but excluding blogs with mainly homiletic or devotional content, unscholarly approaches, or a primarily theological focus), and is currently active and posting.

Ranking is based on information supplied by Alexa for the current month. Blogs are ordered by the monthly traffic rankings provided by Alexa, a website which provides traffic rankings for each website or blog. In the occasional event that only the 3-monthly results are available in any particular month (not the monthly results), we will use the 3-monthly results as a proxy for the monthly results.

The Inspiration for almost everything about Nerdlets...

I have found this to be a great site to find new content—perhaps youre favorite author or professor has a site you don’t know about—so check out the complete list. For a competing list try here.