Technology

Image via CrunchBase Zotero 3.0.9 and 3.0.10 have recently been released with a number of bug fixes. For change logs, see here, and for basic introductory material to the platform, see here. ...

Similar to rollApp, which debuted earlier this year, InstallFree is offering a no-cost web-based version of LibreOffice that can be run inside a browser and that integrate with various online storage platforms like Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive. For free, users can also use InstallFree’s Microsoft Office application to view Microsoft Office file formats with full fidelity. Native editing privileges for Microsoft Office formats are available in InstallFree, after the initial 60-day trial, starting at $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year for academic users. For more information about InstallFree, please see the videos below or visit the website. ...

Logos Bible Software is now shipping version 5. For an overview of the new version, see the playlist below: &feature=autoplay&list=PLXkjd_l1xkSQAozD4PNGZALI6GolOqTas

The Chrome Web Store now includes individual Chrome web apps for Docs, Sheets, and Slides: To make it even easier for you to create stuff quickly, Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations–now called Docs, Sheets, and Slides–are available as apps in the Chrome Web Store. Once installed, shortcuts to these apps will appear when you open a new tab in Chrome. ...

Richard Baxter (1615–1691; photo credit: Wikipedia) For today’s “Pastor Appreciation Month” sale, Logos Bible Software is offering volume 14 of their series of Richard Baxter’s practical works for free. The volume includes Baxter’s classic The Reformed Pastor (1655) and his Confirmation and Restauration (1658).

The University of Pennsylvania has made available online a series of PDFs containing the New English Translation of the Septuagint (Oxford, 2009). In keeping with the NETS’s printed text, the beginning of each file also contains a good introduction to the translation that it provides (HT: Charles Jones). ...

University of Oxford (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The Oxford University Classics Faculty’s PINAX “is a digital library comprised of collections of displayed papyrus images and texts at Oxford.” Texts include papyri from Antinoopolis, Herculaneum, and Oxyrhynchus, as well as magical texts (HT: Charles Jones). ...

Amazon’s selection of texts available for the Kindle platform occasionally includes some interesting oddities. For instance, those who really want to do so can apparently read the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert volumes 10 (4QMMT) and 16 (cave 4 calendrical texts) on Kindle for a mere $239.20 and $254.34 respectively, without print-equivalent page numbers. Or, used hard covers are available for just under $180. ;-) ...

Tommy Keene notes the revival of an automatic link builder for Firefox and the Westminster Bookstore’s blog partner program. Tommy’s earlier Firefox search bar add-on for the Westminster Bookstore is also a very helpful tool. ...

On the web: Tokens makes available the final part of their interview with Walter Brueggemann. Theological Studies has back issues from 5 years ago and beyond freely available online (HT: Charles Jones). Michael Halcomb reflects on some of Albert Schweitzer’s comments on Christian scholars. Tommy Keene highlights BibleArc. Archive.org has Gordon Fee’s PhD thesis available online (HT: Larry Hurtado). Bavarian authorities are commissioning annotated editions of Mein Kampf in hopes of further defusing the work’s value for extremists’ use as it comes into the public domain. Joel Willitts reflects on some of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s comments on “self forgiveness.”

English: logo(type) of LibreOffice Deutsch: Lo… From the Document Foundation Blog: The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 3.5.4, the fifth version of the free office suite’s 3.5 family. LibreOffice 3.5.4 offers significant performance improvements over the previous versions of the product, which are the combined result of the many code optimizations executed during the last months and the bug and regression chasing activity performed regularly by volunteers and developers. As a result, LibreOffice 3.5.4 is the fastest version of the best free office suite ever, with up to 100% performance gains when opening large files (depending on operating system, hardware configuration and file contents). ...

Image representing rollApp as depicted in Crun… For iOS users, rollApp has now graduated into public Beta and is offering iOS-compatible versions of OpenOffice.org (now Apache OpenOffice) and LibreOffice. The LibreOffice app seems to have a bit of difficulty opening files stored on Dropbox, but my own tests thus far with the OpenOffice.org app seem to have worked quite well. Although these apps run entirely on rollApp’s servers, and so require a fairly decent Internet connection to function, they do offer extended support for additional file formats (like ODT) not natively readable in iOS. ...

There is now an iPad app for introductory and intermediate Greek readers. Its name is Attikos and it includes a selection of familiar texts, including morphological information. The author is Josh Day, himself recently an intermediate Greek student. Link to the app store page: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/attikos/id522497233?mt=8 . . . Texts include the Iliad, some Lysias and Plato, and the Antigone. Some texts have been parsed completely; no translations are included, however. ...

[caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“125” caption=“Piazza (Image via Wikipedia)”] [/caption] In his article Sunday in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jeffrey Young comments: [Pooja] Sankar, a recent graduate of Stanford University’s M.B.A. program, leads a start-up focused on finding a better way for college students to ask questions about course materials and assignments online. Her company, Piazza, has built an online study hall where professors and teaching assistants can easily monitor questions and encourage students who understand the material to help their peers. ...

Through the end of the day tomorrow, Kindle with Special Offers users or Kindle users who have turned on the Special Offers feature are able to take advantage of a promotion that Amazon is running to “Buy one of 50 biography and history titles for $1.” A list of eligible titles is available here. Among the eligible titles of particular interest here are: ...

[caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“150” caption=“Image via Wikipedia”] [/caption] Apparently, recent versions of LibreOffice have a slightly different defaults for what nonprinting characters will display in a document. Instructions for customizing these settings are available here. ...

NT Blog turns eight today, and Mark Goodacre also notes that the German Bible Society has made the main texts of BHS, Septuaginta (ed. Hanhart), and NA27 available online.

According to Ancient World Online, InscriptiFact has just added “approximately 5700 new images of 296 new texts from the Persepolis Fortification Archive. The majority of Aramaic texts from the archive are now available.” From this archive, the InscriptiFact database also includes several anepigraphic and Elamite tablets.

Zotero 2.1.7 is now available with a number of performance improvements and bug fixes over the previous stable version. The current version is available from the Zotero homepage.

On Tuesday, Brian Croxall compared Zotero and EndNote. At least until a stable release of Zotero standalone arrives, the review has the two platforms standing fairly on equal terms. Recent updates to Zotero’s SBL citation style have included some additional issues, but hopefully, those problems will soon be remedied also. ...

The Society of Biblical Literature style for Zotero has recently been updated (8:16 pm, May 11, 2011). Since I had last visited the style repository, development versions of the following styles have also been added: Currents in Biblical Research INTER. Romanian Institute for Inter-Orthodox, Inter-Confessional and Inter-Religious Studies Universidad Evangélica del Paraguay Wheaton College PhD BITH For some time Zotero, had only supported SBL style, but the addition of CurrBR as another major field journal format is certainly positive. ...

The Society of Biblical Literature has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to produce a new website that will “invite[] general audiences to engage with biblical scholarship.” The website is currently scheduled for a full launch in 2013. For the full SBL press release, see here. ...

At least for the present, Amazon has available two Kindle versions of Penguin’s edition of Aristotle’s Poetics, page numbering included. The difference between the two seems mainly to be the difference between an older and a newer cover, with the version that has the newer cover retailing for $1.90. ...

Zotero 2.1.3, 2.1.4, and 2.1.5 have rolled out with several minor updates. The Microsoft Word plugin has also been updated, but details about this update are still forthcoming from the plugin change log page. ...

Never failing to amaze, Google introduces several du jour innovations: Gmail Motion Beta Google Docs Motion Beta Chromercise I particularly like the new protocol for creating a Google Docs Drawing (pictured here) and think it may make Google Docs much more useful for biblical studies. ;) ...

A new Zotero update is now available. The update mainly contains bug fixes, but it also allows Zotero to “[r]ecognize .csl.txt files as CSL files.”

Logos Bible Software has recently released or will soon release several noteworthy resources: Brill Philo Studies Collection Comments on Waltke and O’Connor: An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax Camp Logos Live (DVD) Evangelical Exegetical Commentary Qumran Biblical Scrolls

[caption id=“attachment_7151” align=“alignright” width=“80” caption=“Carolyn Custis James”] [/caption] Now at number 3 on Amazon’s top free Kindle book list is Carolyn Curtis James’s The Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules (Zondervan, 2008), and Zondervan presently has the EPUB edition for free also. The book boasts favorable blurbs from Robert Gundry, Timothy George, and Karen Jobes. According to the Amazon product page, what James describes ...

If you’re a Facebook friend of Logos Bible Software, like their fan page, and you can download their edition of B. B. Warfield’s Canon of the New Testament: How and When Formed for free. ...

Zotero 2.1 is now available with a number of enhancements over the previous stable version. You may download the latest version from the Zotero homepage.