Free Bible Tools - Part 3: Mobile Bibles

If you've got a PDA or Mobile Device (Palm Pilot, Windows Mobile, even iPods and web browsing mobiles), then chances are you can carry the Bible everywhere with you.

For the Palm Pilot, some great free software is available. PalmBible+ lets you install English versions, including the ESV, and Greek (Westcott Hort or UBS3 - plain or parsed) and Hebrew (BHS) from this page. And you can have the original language and the English scrolling in parallel on the one screen.

If you're using either Windows Mobile or the older PocketPC, then you can use lots of e-Sword modules - see here. I haven't got a Windows based mobile device, but this looks like a pretty impressive piece of software. It seems to do most things the desktop version of e-Sword does, including Greek, Hebrew, searching and more, but probably slower.

If you've only got an iPod, you can carry the ESV Bible with you anywhere through the magic of PodBible. This seems to be only text based, so speaking from ignorance I don't think there'll be Greek or Hebrew here. It seems that it also can't fit the whole Bible on the iPod at once due to a limit of 1000 text files at once on the iPod. It has also only been tried on two models of iPod, so there's a bit of "Your Mileage May Vary" in this software, but it's worth a try.

Now, what about ordinary mobile phone and swanky iPhone owners? Well, at present there's not too much about, except if you can browse the web from your phone. One site lists the top three web based iPhone bibles here - but because they're web based, they should work for any web-enabled phone. Versions available include NIV, NASB, ESV and HCSB. If that's not enough, try the 11 best iPhone Bibles, or failing that simply go to Bible Gateway and fiddle around with the font size on the preferences page.

Enjoy God's word in your pocket, but one last tip - Don't forget that even free online Bibles attract internet costs from your mobile provider!

Free Bible Tools - Part 2: ESV, CEV, NASB

Some more on free Bible software, including free electronic versions of the ESV, CEV and NASB Bibles.

Last time I briefly mentioned two free Bible Software packages - e-Sword (Win) or Sword (Win, Mac, Linux). What I didn't mention is that both of these packages have a free downloadable version of the ESV Bible. E-Sword also has a version of the CEV available on its Bibles page.

If you'd prefer the NASB, then check out the Lockman foundation's free software page and you can download a standalone NASB or Amplified Bible.

Now again I hear you asking; "Why would I need that?". Well, if nothing else, it's great for pasting verses into powerpoint on the church laptop (depending on Bible version). It can also be good to give everyone (Bible study leaders, etc) access to some basic search tools.

Reading ancient scrolls

Scientists have developed a new X-Ray technology than can see through and read ancient scrolls too fragile to unroll, including parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Basically they reconstruct it in 3D, and then unroll it on screen without ever unrolling the original. Read about it at BBC News, or watch a brief video.

Obviously this is good news for Biblical scholarship and apologetics.

Free Bible Tools - Part 1: The NET Bible

NET Bible
I hear you saying, "I've already got an electronic Bible, and I already use translation x... So why is another Bible version useful to me?" Well, the NET Bible is not only new translation (with several positive reviews and well known contributors), but it also has copious notes about translation decisions in the text, which I reckon can be very useful.

Wayne Grudem, a well known scholar and member of the ESV translation oversight committee, said this; “The extensive and reliable notes in the NET Bible were a wonderful help to our translation team as we worked to prepare the English Standard Version.”

Now, I reckon these notes could be really useful if you're looking for exegetical insights without having to wade through a commentary hoping to find something of use. Just look at the text here and click on any of the footnotes, and you'll see a whole list of useful notes on your passage down the bottom.

If you haven't got Bible software, it's also got a greek and hebrew interlinear, and mousing over a word brings up a brief lexical entry.

Everything I've mentioned so far is online, but you can download the text for MS Word, or as a module for the free Bible packages e-Sword (Win) or Sword (Win, Mac, Linux). It's also available formatted for iPhones - pity you can't get them in most of the world yet. For a small fee you can get a version for e-Sword, Sword, or the commercial Logos/Libronix, with all the translation footnotes.

Office 2007 File Conversion

Something that bugs lots of people is getting an email attachment in a format your software can't read. This is set to become a lot more prevalent with the latest version of Microsoft Office 2007 saving in a new and incompatible format. Instead of .doc, .xls and .ppt files, now it's .docx, .xlsx and .pptx.

For the 0.1% with Office 2007
If you've run out and bought a new copy of Office 2007, 99.9% of the population will either cry or groan when you email files to them. Please do everyone a favour, and save as .doc files, rather than .docx. There are some great web pages on how to do that here and here. It's really pretty straight forward, and we'll all love you for it. ;^)


For the 99.9% with other Office Software
If someone is silly enough to send you something in the new formats, you can convert their documents over, but there's a hard way, and an easy way.

1. The Hard Way - Microsoft Converters (Easier in the long-term):
Firstly, you can get converters for Word/Office 2000 and above, but it's a real pain - the converter alone is 30 Mb, but first you have to install all the latest Microsoft updates, which could be another 30Mb. That's getting pretty hefty, plus you'll need time "verifying" that you've got a legit version of Windows and Office so you can download the stuff, which chews up plenty of time too.

Now, the painful part of this is the hour or so it takes to install. But the beauty is that once it's installed, you don't have to worry anymore.


2. The Easy Way - Online Conversion (Harder in the long-term):
If you rarely get .docx files, you're probably better off going to Zamzar's free online conversion site. Just upload the offending file, enter your email address (make sure it's your junk email address - see my last post on spam) and click convert. It will convert the new Office files to a host of formats, plus Open Office files, PDF, RTF, Word Perfect, Microsoft Works, and a stack of image, music and video formats. See here for the complete list.

Curing Spam

Recently a colleague asked me how to stop spam, and I had a go at helping him. Having said that, there is no perfect way to eliminate spam, but these steps might help;

1. To fight spam, the first thing I do is that I am very careful about how I put my email address on websites. You've probably got yours up on at least one, like me, but I always 'obfuscate' (like encrypt) it so that spambots can't read or 'harvest' my address off a web page. This might sound technical, but what I do is I use a program like on this page or this page and then paste the resulting obfuscated code into my web page instead of a plain email address.

On the note of obfuscation, I use a content management system (CMS) - Joomla - to run my church website and it automatically obfuscates email addresses so that spambots can't get them. If your CMS (eg: Wordpress) doesn't obfuscate automatically, perhaps you can get a plug-in that allows it.

2. The second thing I do is setup a junk email address I use whenever I sign up for anything where there's a chance I might get spammed (i.e.: most things). I use a free email account at mail.com, but you could just as easily use hotmail.com or yahoo.com.au. I only check my junk account once in a blue moon, or when a site wants me to respond to an email for a reason.

3. The third thing I do is I use an email program with a built in spam filter, called Mozilla Thunderbird. It learns what is and isn't spam based on what you tell it, and I find it quite helpful. The learning bit is called a Bayesian filter. You can also get other programs that work with outlook and use a filter system - see here for some free ones, although I can't vouch for any of these, but there are user ratings that may be helpful. Some of these use a Bayesian (learning) filter system.

4. Fourth, you should ask your ISP to switch on their junk filter. Many ISP's today have this sort of capability, so if yours doesn't, it might be time to find a new ISP.

5. Another colleague also uses a program called ChoiceMail that takes quite a different, and if reviews are to be believed, quite effective approach. It requires anyone who sends him email to reply to an automated email just once, and you then approve or reject them as someone who can send you email (see the pic).

The theory is that spambots don't reply, so you only get real people sending you email. I haven't checked that out personally, but it gets very good reviews, eg: here, here and here.

ChoiceMail provides virtual e-mail addresses designed specifically for
purposes such as online shopping and newsletters. These are let through automatically, because often the address used to send them will not be answered. So, for instance, you can set up a virtual address for Ebay, and the emails will come straight through, but if you find you're getting spam on that address just delete it and create a new one (and rejig your Ebay settings).

Note there are both free and commercial versions, with slightly different capabilities - I suspect the free version will do for most people, but you can also try out the commercial version.

Making PDFs

Making PDF files is a really handy ability to have. Of course the Mac owners are laughing, because Mac OS-X does it natively. But for the rest of us, there are several options.

You can use Open Office, which will export nicely to PDF. However, that only works for files that OpenOffice understands.

A more universal Windows solution is called PDF Creator (mentioned in an earlier post). It's great and I use it all the time. There are other free solutions, like PrimoPDF, however I've found PDF Creator is excellent, and has great options, even encryption for the nervous!

Installing PDF Creator:
Go to http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator/download and the top item in the downloads list is what you want. Once it's downloaded, run the installer, and it will install itself as a printer. If it asks whether you want it to be the default printer say no (or don't tick the box).

Printing a PDF:
When you want to make a PDF, select print from your program (Word, Internet Explorer, whatever really) and then in the print dialogue, simply select PDF Creator as your printer for that time only (Actually, in MS Word, this will persist until you either change it back or restart the program). Then click OK to print.

Once you click OK, the computer will churn away for a few moments (how long depends on the complexity of the document). It will then come up with the PDF Creator dialogue.

You can change the Title and Author information, but this is only information stored inside the PDF file, so it isn't really that important. It will normally have guessed the Title from Word or whatever anyway. Once you click Save, it will then ask you where to save the file and what to call it.

So, now there's no excuses. Get out there and download it - you can't lose.

Enjoy!