Archive for category Software
Logos 4: How to create Vocabulary Lists only better.
Posted by jmichaelhite in Bible Study, Greek Study, Logos, Software on December 1, 2010
Here is another video tutorial for Logos 4. This one teaches you how to create a list of words similar to the Vocabulary Lists in Logos 3. This is a much more powerful tool in Logos 4.
UPDATE: In playing with this report more I have discovered something. Since these searches are looking for all morphological forms within the pericope, if a word has more than one possible form the word is counted twice. This means that the number of occurrences listed may be slightly exaggerated. This is a rare situation but you do need to be aware of it.
Save time typing with text expansion utilities
Posted by jmichaelhite in Productivity, Software on August 12, 2010
My students actually laugh at my style of typing. I have to admit, it is definitely a “style.” I fall squarely between hunt-and-peck and six-finger-frantic. You see, I never learned to touch type. I know, I know I have tried Mavis Beacon, and Ten Thumbs. They are all good tools but the truth is that I type almost 70 words a minute doing what I do. I have never had the patience to “slow down” long enough to learn to touch type with speed. I stumble along at 20 words a minute, get frustrated that the post, note or email should be finished already and resort back to my old ways. Maybe someday I will change…
But I have found tools that help me and they can help you too – text expansion utilities. Once you set up shortcuts in these utilities, they constantly monitor your typing. When they see a shortcut, they automatically expand it to the text you want. For example, I have mine set up so that when I type “bvsig” it automatically enters an entire signature in the bottom of my email or letter that includes my name, phone, links to my websites, blogs and even formats it with the fonts and styling that I want. Now I know that many email program can already do this, but text expanders work in any program on your system.
So many uses…
One of the areas that I find these utilities most helpful is typing long URLs. Truthfully, I hate typing long web addresses. I always miss something, or forget a slash. I hate it. I set up my text expansion utility to remember some long recurring URLs that I use all the time. For example, I like to post links to our MinistryGeek This Week show on Twitter and Facebook. If I want to post the Talkshoe link in a tweet I just type “urmgeek” (without the quotes)and it expands it to http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/79616. If I want to post the iTunes link to the MinistryGeek podcast I type “urmgeekitunes” and it expands to http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ministrygeek-this-week/id366655217. See what I mean? I can never remember all of that. These text expanders can expand anything. They can past in pages of text is you need them to.
For students – create a series of “snippets” that expand commonly typed words and phrases. Working at The Bear Valley Bible Institute, obviously we are continually typing the names of the books of the Bible. I have created 3-letter shortcuts for each one of them and my text expansion utility automatically expands them for me. I have also created a snippet to insert: (see syllabus handout) – all I have to type is “ssho” and hit the space bar.
Web developers and programmers can create snippets of commonly used code and insert it with a few keystrokes. You can even place space holders in your snippets for words that need to be changed on the fly.
TextExpander (MAC) or PhraseExpress (PC)
Being on a MAC I use TextExpander from Smile on My Mac. At $34.95 it isn’t cheap, but the amount of time it saves me is certainly worth the investment to me. TextExpander even keeps statistics to show you how much time you have saved and how many keystrokes it has handled for you. TextExpander also has an additional iPhone/iPad app that can help you do the same thing on those devices. It will share “snippets” with the desktop version so you don’t have to recreate them on your portable. If you are on a MAC, TextExpander is your ticket. You can download a free trial version to check it out. They even offer a 90 day money back guarantee.
On the PC side there is PhraseExpess. While it is not as feature rich and TextExpander on the MAC side, it will definitely get the job done for you. You can use a private edition for free (not to be used commercially – that means you can’t use it at work) and a commercial version is available for $29.95. They even offer a “network” version that can be installed in a workgroup environment.
Save yourself some time and wear and tear on your typing fingers by checking out these text expansion utilities. They can make a big difference.
Logos updated to 4.0b – new features added
Posted by jmichaelhite in Bible Study, Libronix, Logos, Software, technology on March 16, 2010
Logos Bible Software was updated yesterday to 4.0b. This is the first major update to the new Logos 4 product and it brings with it some nice additions and some features that were available in the previous version. You can read the Logos blog post about the new features here.
Import Notes and Highlighting from Version 3 – This is a feature that previous users have been shouting for since Logos 4 was released. Up until now there was no way to move all of your note file information from version 3 to version 4. Now you can not only import your Notes, but also any highlighting in your books with be imported to version 4 as well. A new post on the Logos blog today discusses this feature.
Prayer Lists – This is another Version 3 feature that has made it to Logos 4. Track the things you want to pray about and see them in the Home Page ribbon each day.
Custom Highlighter Styles – Create your own set of highlighter styles. This is another Version 3 feature that has been added. While Logos 4 shipped with the standard highlighter groups, you couldn’t create your own. Now you can.
Parallel Resource Groups – This is another feature that the Logos community has been requesting since the new version launched. Now you can create groups of parallel resources like Bible, commentaries, dictionaries and lexicons and have them in a pulldown menu in your resource panels.
Custom Settings for the Information Window – A Settings button has been added to the Information window allowing you to control what information is presented and from what resources. This makes this window much more useful in my opinion.
Search While Typing – This feature now functions very much like Bible Speed Search did in Version 3. As you type in the search box result begin displaying immediately. While this is impressive, I don’t see that it really changes much. Searching is so fast in Logos 4 the need to search as you type is really minimized.
Convert Search Results to Visual Filter - Visual Filters in Logos 4 rocks! They are so much more powerful than in Version 3. Previously, when you did a search the search results were highlighted in the text as long as you left the Search window open. As soon as you closed the Search window, the highlighting vanished. This new feature allows you to convert the Search results into a Visual Filter that can be saved and turned off and on at will. This may seem minor, but it is a real improvement. I am planning a screencast video on Visual Filters this week – stay tuned.
These are just a few of the new features released in the Logos 4.0b update. Many of the improvements are small and tend more to help with form and function, but they are small enough that they may go unnoticed. Your software should update itself (unless you have turned auto-updating off for some reason). If you have received your update yet and don’t want to wait you can type Update Now in the Command Box on the Home Page to check for the new version. INDEXING ALERT - Because some of the new features involve mew searches it Logos does need to reindex parts of your library. This can take a long time (mine took almost 6 hours) so be warned.
There is a good video by Logos user Mark Barnes available demonstrating a number of the new features here:
New features in Logos 4.0b from Mark Barnes on Vimeo.
MAC Version – Logos 4.0b is a Windows version update. The MAC version is currently still in Alpha testing and is at Alpha 15 last time I checked. It is making good progress but still has a long way to go until a full version release. Hang in there MAC users – it is in the works.
In depth Bible study in the palm of your hand
Posted by jmichaelhite in Apps, Bible Study, Greek Study, iPhone, Libronix, Logos, Software on February 27, 2010
OK – you don’t have to follow my posts for long to realize that I love my iPhone and Logos Bible Software. A preacher friend of mine mentioned that if you get me talking about technology and ministry for more than about 10 minutes I will end up mentioning both. This post isn’t going to change that trend. If you have an iPhone or and iPod touch you need to get the FREE Logos Bible app. You don’t have to own the desktop version of Logos to use the iPhone app, but if you do you can access more books from your library on your phone. The details you can get from this iPhone app are amazing. Press your finger on a footnote to see the references, hold your finger on a word to see the Greek or Hebrew word it is connected with. Do in depth word studies and passage guides linking you to commentaries and other resources right on your phone or iPod.
The free app comes with access to 31 books:
- Morning and Evening
- Necessity of Prayer
- Pilgrim’s Progress
- Power Through Prayer
- Selected Sermons of George Whitefield
- Sermons on Several Occassions
- St. Paul the Traveller and Roman Citizen
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
- Commentary Critical & Explanatory on Whole Bible (JFB)
- Diving For Pearls in God’s Treasure Chest
- Easton’s Bible Dictionary
- Imitation of Christ
- In His Steps
- Training of the Twelve
- Why Four Gospels?
- Systematic Theology (Strong)
- New Nave’s Topical Bible
- Strong’s Concise Dictionary of the Words of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Testament
- An Introduction to Ecclesiastical Latin
- Dictionary of the Vulgate New Testament
- Holbein’s Bible Woodcuts
- The Summarized Bible: Complete Summary of the Old Testament
- The Summarized Bible: Complete Summary of the New Testament
- Traveling in the Holy Land through the Stereoscope
- The New Testament in Greek (Westcott and Hort)
- KJV Cambridge Paragraph English-Greek Reverse Interlinear
- KJV Cambridge Paragraph English-Hebrew Reverse Interlinear
- Glossary of Morpho-Syntactic Database Terminology
- Lexham English Bible / New Testament
- LEB English-Greek Reverse Interlinear
- LEB English-Hebrew Reverse Interlinear
Check out the video below to get a sense of what it can do:
This really should be on your iPhone or iPod if you like to study the Bible.
New class offers new skills…
Posted by jmichaelhite in Bible Study, Greek Study, Software on July 24, 2007
New class offers new skills
I am very excited about a new class that I am going to be teaching at the Bear Valley Bible Institute of Denver starting in mid-November. We are going to begin a class that we are calling “Ministry Technologies.” This class will deal with various digital tools and technologies to deepen Bible Study, preaching and teaching, and improve outreach and communication.
Students will be taught to go deeper in their Bible study and research using the Libronix Digital Library System. This software has amazing new tools for examining the text and digging into the original languages in ways never before possible. These new electronic libraries contain hundreds of books, are completely portable (actually they are stored right in the student’s laptop computers) and can be searched in seconds. Research and textual studies that used to take hours or even days with paper books can now be done in minutes. This time savings can be put into making sermons and Bible classes more applicable and powerful.
In addition to Bible study and research skills, the students will be learning how to preach and teach using PowerPoint. This tool has been gaining ground over the last few years, with more and more preachers using it. But making the change from verbal communication skills to visual communication skills can be a challenge. We will help the students use imagery and presentations to reinforce the message rather than distract from the message. This skill can help members connect with the lessons by involving more senses and promotes active rather than passive listening.
New technologies to improve outreach will be examined in detail as students are exposed to website strategies as well as potential ministry uses for blogging and podcasting. These new tools are easier than ever to use and we are excited to be able to provide the students with hands-on experience with these powerful technologies.
I will be posting more about this class and these technologies in the near future. Stay tuned.