Technology

Bible Software in the Classroom

Computers in The Classroom

There's a post on the Logos Blog about Logos in the Classroom. Actually it's a commercial for a 15 minute talk by Senior VP Dale Pritchett, which itself is basically a commercial aimed at Seminary professors to convince them to replace their single classroom textbooks with the full Logos Digital Library. If you have the 15 minutes you should listen. If you only have about 7, do a quick read of the PDF transcript.
I have two simple observations to make.

Upgrade the audio please

The audio is probably over compressed. It's either that or the audio is the result of several takes and a bad patch job. Dale comes into various sentences sounding completely different and it seems with different breathing patterns; almost as if they've taken two or more clips and sliced and diced them into one speech. The only reason I mention this is because I found it annoying to listen to. I'm tempted to say it's over compressed because I've experienced the same phenomena with other Logos media. Michael Heiser's excellent lecture "The concept of the Godhead in the Old Testament" was plagued in it's Camtasia format with horrible over compression that introduced all sorts of nasty audio artifacts into the speech. It's worth downloading the MP3 on that one instead of listening to the stream.

Yes, But...

I agree wholeheartedly with the principle message of Mr. Pritchett's speech. But I also see a problem

Sierra Bluetooth Keyboard AKA: Driver Heck

cover of Sierra Bluetooth Keyboard AKA: Driver HeckStowaway Sierra Bluetooth Kbd

rating:
asin: B000FG44BA
binding: Electronics

Pros: Excellent Physical design, compact, efficient
Cons: detachable stand is prone to loss, the driver - a thousand curses upon it - is buggy beyond reason.

From a hardware perspective this is the best keyboard available. Long ago I had the original which physically plugged into the Handspring Visor. It still functions (both of them) and in terms of design has proven itself to be rugged. So when I saw this come to market I snatched it up without a second thought.

Eat Your Heart Out Iphone

This is not normally a tech blog but how can I resist a great chance to bash the iphone?  Check out Opera Mini™ 4 beta.  It will cost you $499 (or $599) less than the iphone.  And you won't have to fork out another 1500 bucks over the lifetime of your two year contract. 

My Next Computer doesn't exist yet

I'm an avid computer user. I Spend hours in front of Bibleworks and Logos (not to mention openoffice.org writer) in order to study and understand God's word so that I can teach others. When I'm done for the day I'd love to pick my computer up and just read a book. But since I've got a desktop (and an old notebook which is too big) that just isn't likely. My Treo works for reading books and I do actually read allot on it, but it is way too small.

A Splash of Gratitude

There's no dainty way to say it.

Thessalonica for OpenOffice.org

Thessalonica for OpenOffice.org is a great little utility for working with Polytonic Greek in Openoffice.org<

System47 screen saver


Dead Drives Tell No Tales

Last night I was putting the finishing touches on my first sermon in the DaVinci code series. It was on Gnosticism. In the middle of a save my hard drive started clicking. Windows threw a BSOD and the hard drive died on the spot. Lost. My last Backup was two weeks ago. Pretty much just before I started working on the whole series. I've lost all the research to a month of messages.
...
I've gone through all the classic symptoms of denial, anger, acceptance etc. There's nothing else to do for it. Even the old "stick it in the freezer trick" accomplished nothing whatsoever.
The LORD has given and the LORD has taken away. Blessed Be the Name of the LORD.