Technology

Tristan Harris, former design ethicist at Google, discusses at TED the interplay between technology, attention, and distraction.

The SBL annual meeting mobile apps are available for both Android and iOS. In each case, after the app installed, I opened it and started looking around for a minute or so before the app pulled in the current conference program version. ...

In How to Write a Lot ( affiliate disclosure), Paul Silvia provides his own progress monitoring system as an example (39–45). Since finishing the book last month, I have been adapting Silvia’s database format to a Google Docs spreadsheet that will track some additional data in addition to the data that he finds helpful. Since it has been helpful thus far, I thought I would make it available with some sample data. ...

Microsoft Word ties footnote anchors in the main text and footnote numbers at the start of footnotes to the same style. Consequently, it’s difficult to get full-height footnote numbers followed by a period (cf. Chicago Manual of Style, SBL Handbook of style). The process for getting this result discussed at Word MVPs does not seem to work in Word v16. But Word’s InsertFootnoteNow function can be intercepted to add the following macro commands to produce this result: ...

Yes, search, but also read, note, and remember.

The Lexham Theological Wordbook began shipping late last year and includes my entry on “Forgiveness.” The Lexham Bible Dictionary has recently been updated with, among other items, my entries on “Haifa” and “Jenin.” Connections can read these contributions via my LinkedIn page under “Publications.” ...

Walter Brueggemann, The June free book of the month seems already to be live on the Logos Bible Software website. The included text is Walter Brueggemann’s Spirituality of the Psalms (Fortress, 2001). The optional, $0.99 add on is Brueggemmann’s David’s Truth: In Israel’s Imagination and Memory (Fortress, 2002). ...

After having the product available for over 10 years, Logos Bible Software has released a substantive update to their Qumran Sectarian Manuscripts database (ed. Martin Abegg). Most significant among this update’s improvements are that the resource: Now contains more than 100 scrolls than in the previous version (737 documents are now represented). Several texts in the previous version have been reorganized to reflect the latest scholarship on their reconstruction. The database’s morphology has been updated to WHM 4.18. For more information, please see the Logos blog. ...

According to Amazon, Special pricing is available on select Kindle Fire tablets to Amazon Student members with an active Prime account (six months free or $39/year plan). Join Amazon Student or start your discounted Prime membership to take advantage of this discount. The promo codes below will become available 24 hours after activation of your account, through September 1. New members, don’t forget to check your .edu email and verify your account. ...

Recently, I noted that an English Standard Version audio Bible was freely available with registration at Bible.is. This version’s Old Testament is also still freely available in MP3 format on Amazon. ...

J. Alan Groves Center The J. Alan Groves Center has released version 4.18 for the Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC) and the Westminster Hebrew Morphology (WHM). According to the Center’s notice, this update includes: 41 sets of lemma changes, 85 sets of parsing changes, 16 textual changes with an associated change in bracket notes, the addition of the bracket note “]n” (which designates an unusual or unexpected form) to almost 100 words, 24 other changes to bracket notes, 5 other textual changes, and 5 changes to morphological slashes and/or word divisions. Changes to the text are to make the WHM and the WLC conform to the text of the Hebrew Bible found in the Leningrad Codex. ...

Scripture Tools for Every Person Tyndale House recently announced the beta release of their Scripture Tools for Every Person (STEP) project, headed by David Instone-Brewer. The resource includes a nice selection of original-language texts—apparently including some, like the [Samaritan Pentateuch](http://www.stepbible.org/#!__/0/passage/0/SP/Gen 1/NHV/__/1/singleColumn), not yet listed in the documentation. Later this year, the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament should also appear in STEP. ...

Faithlife ESV Giveaway The English Standard Version is now free for a limited time with the Faithlife Study Bible ( affiliate disclosure). According to the press release, Starting July 24, anyone who downloads or signs in to the Faithlife Study Bible app will get the English Standard Version free for life! All Faithlife Study Bible app users will get a full license to the ESV Bible, including offline access when Internet is not available. Users can download their free copy of the Faithlife Study Bible app by visiting the Faithlife/ESV giveaway page anytime 12:00 am [Pacific], July 24–11:59 pm, August 10. ...

Logos Bible Software Recently, a number of noteworthy works have come into Logos Bible Software’s prepublication and community pricing programs. On the prepublication program are collections about biblical backgrounds (9 vols.; T. & T. Clark), the Prophets (16 vols.; T. & T. Clark), the Writings (5 vols.; T. & T. Clark), Old Testament literature and linguistics (7 vols.; T. & T. Clark), Hebrew Bible (7 vols.; T. & T. Clark), topics in Old Testament Studies (11 vols.; T. & T. Clark), Old Testament theology (9 vols.; Oxford University), biblical history and historiography (3 vols.; T. & T. Clark), Jewish Studies (6 vols.; T. & T. Clark), Jesus (10 vols.; T. & T. Clark); the Gospels and Acts (18 vols.; T. & T. Clark), Johannine literature (10 vols.; T. & T. Clark), the Pauline Epistles (10 vols.; T. & T. Clark), topics in New Testament Studies (11 vols.; T. & T. Clark), early Christianity (13 vols.; T. & T. Clark), apocrypha and pseudepigrapha (7 vols.; T. & T. Clark), Apostolic Fathers (29 vols.; various publishers), church history (18 vols.; Oxford); biblical interpretation (3 vols.; Pontifical Biblical Commission and 5 vols.; T. & T. Clark), biblical languages (35 vols.; Zondervan), bibliology (7 vols.; T. & T. Clark), the Bible in art (3 vols.; Standard), theological interpretation (4 vols.; T. & T. Clark), and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (3 vols.; T. & T. Clark), as well as the select Loeb Classical Library works by Tertullian and Minucius Felix (2 vols.) and Virgil (4 vols.). ...

As their free book of the month, Logos Bible Software is giving away volume 5 of the Expositor’s Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll. Volume 5 includes: J. H. A. Hart, “The First Epistle General of Peter” R. H. Strachan, “The Second Epistle General of Peter” David Smith, “The Epistles of John” J. B. Mayor, “The General Epistle of Jude” James Moffatt, “The Revelation of St. John the Divine” For more information about the text and to download this volume, please see here. ...

According to the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University: The Perseus Digital Library is pleased to announce the 1.0 Release of the Perseus Catalog. ...

In addition to the Justification and Variegated Nomism set, Logos Bible Software now has recently added three other Mohr-Siebeck resources to their pre-publication program: Karel Jongeling and Robert Kerr, eds., Late Punic Epigraphy Matthias Henze, The Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel Mark Smith, God in Translation

On the web: Zotero 4.0.4 is now available with some minor improvements over the previous stable version. Joseph Kelly highlights some good advice about how not to write a thesis or dissertation. Logos Bible Software has added the Aramaic Bible series to their pre-publication program.

Image via CrunchBase I’ve just now noticed, but a stable release of Zotero 4 became available earlier this week. This release includes a substantial number of updates over previous versions. For highlights, see here, or peruse the whole change log. ...

Reverend Samuel Rolles Driver (1846–1914; Photo credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich) Google Books has full-text PDFs freely available for the following works by S. R. Driver: Commentary on Deuteronomy (International Critical Commentary; 1895; repr., 1903) ...

Though it has apparently been on the chopping block for some time, Google Reader was a very useful tool. Even so, it has apparently come to the end of the road: Google Reader will be retired on July 1, 2013. If you’d like to download a copy of all your Reader data before then, you can do so through Google Takeout. You’ll receive your subscription data in an XML file, and the following information will be downloaded as JSON files: ...

On the Web: Phil Gons digests Tony Reinke’s suggestions for reading more. Logos Bible Software has added the 12-volume Clarendon edition of Aristotle’s works (1908–1952) to their community pricing offerings.

Google Drive’s Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps are scheduled to cease supporting exports to Microsoft’s older Office 97–2003 formats at the end of the month. According to the Google Apps blog, In September, we added the ability to export Google documents to the newer Microsoft Office formats that rely on open standards (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx). . . . As we announced in October, after January 31, 2013, users will not be able to export files to the older Office 97-2003 formats [e.g., .doc, .xls, .ppt]. For users who still use Office 97-2003, we recommend installing the free compatibility plugin from Microsoft, which will allow them to open the modern Office file types. ...

Bridget Almas notes the availability of a new syntax search utility that presently covers about 400,000 words of Perseus’s Greek and Latin texts (HT: Charles Jones).

Courtesy of Logos Bible Software, Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections is available for free this month: http://twitter.com/Logos/status/286528925717393408

Apparently, the Pope now has his own Twitter account from which he sent the following earlier this morning: https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278808536404852736 For a great deal more than 140 characters on the Pope’s tweet, see here.

J. P. Migne’s two massive compilations of Patristic literature have now made their way onto Logos Bible Software’s community pricing platform ( Greek, Latin). Also appearing there now is some of René Graffin, Francois Nau, and Max de Saxe’s compilation of other Patristic texts not included in Migne’s anthologies. ...

The Google Drive mobile apps for Android and iOS now allows users to create and view spreadsheets: Photo credit: Google Drive Blog Previous versions had allowed creating and editing of documents but only viewing of spreadsheets created elsewhere. For more information and links to download the appropriate apps, see here.

For Gmail and at least certain Google Apps Mail users who have opted into the “new compose” experience, Google is now rolling out the ability to attach Google Drive items to email messages: Photo credit: Gmail Blog Because these items are stored in and shared via Drive, email attachment size limitations don’t apply, and any updates to the attached item(s) will automatically be available to the message’s recipients. For more information about this update, please see here. ...

Image via CrunchBase Zotero 3.0.11 and 3.0.11.1 have just been released with some additional bug fixes. For change logs, see here, and for basic introductory material to the platform, see here.