As you may have heard, Tyndale recently announced their plans to publish the NLT Study Bible based on the New Living Translation (second edition). The study Bible will have almost 26,000 notes on various verses. It will include maps, charts, illustrations and a built in word-study system. It also has introduction notes on ten major sections of the Bible, personality profiles and more in-depth articles on places and topics.

Laridian is happy to announce that we have been chosen by Tyndale to be one of the first Bible software companies releasing the electronic version of the study Bible simultaneously with the release of the print edition (slated for the fall of 2008). The collection will include the NLT(se), NLT Study Bible Notes and cross references, two volumes of the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary Series (Matthew/Mark & Romans/Galatians), the Tyndale Concise Bible Commentary, the Tyndale Bible Dictionary, the One Year Bible and One Year Bible Companion, One Year with Jesus and One Year Walk with God devotionals. Tyndale will be placing this bundle in Christian retail outlets. Laridian will be adding all these titles (and some others) to our existing product line.

These titles will be available for PocketBible for Windows, PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile, iPocketBible for iPhone and iPod Touch, MyBible for Palm and the NLT(se) for the Noah reader for Blackberry (already available).

Bookstore representatives attending the ICRS convention in Orlando this past week were treated to a pre-release copy of the NLT Study Bible collection.

Laridian and Tyndale have enjoyed a close relationship over the past ten years of Laridian’s existence and we at Laridian are extremely excited to be working so closely with Tyndale on this project.

Stay tuned for this release in the Fall. Also, stay tuned for some other exciting news about additional titles being released over the next month or so. We’ve been working hard and it’s been hard to keep it all quiet. You’re going to really like what we’ve been working on!

For those of you who have written expressing some confusion about a product called “pocket-bible” for the iPhone 2, no, that isn’t our product.

Yes, we do have a registered trademark on the term “PocketBible”. Our version of PocketBible for iPhone and iPod Touch is called iPocketBible but the trademark covers any software that is used to display the Bible text, regardless of platform.

We’ve had to deal with a number of trademark infringements over the years and so far they’ve all been handled very reasonably. We hope this one will be no exception.

A few of you have written to ask how we’re doing given all the flooding going on here in Cedar Rapids. We appreciate your concern. We’re all doing well.

A couple of interesting points. First is the media. Someone reported hearing one of the cable news channels refer to Cedar Rapids as “the city they said would never flood”. We don’t know who said that; the Cedar River overflows its banks fairly regularly in some areas of town. Normal level of the river is around 4′ at the point they measure it. Water begins affecting low-lying roads in some areas at 9.5′. The long-term prediction last month said there was as much as a 50-50 chance that we’d see water as high as 9.6′ this week based on just normal forecasted precipitation.

On the other hand, this is quite an event. Our last big flood was in 1993. 12′ is considered flood stage, with 16′ considered a major flood. In 1993 we hit 19.27′, which was just short of “the big one” which was 20′ in 1851. The river as I type is at 31.12′. That’s a lot of water.

Good Morning America was here this morning and reported that the entire city was under water. This came from a reporter (Sam Champion) who got in a fight with police because he wanted to stand waste-deep in the water to do his report. So clearly he could see dry land from where he was at, and that’s where the police wanted him to stand.

All this to say that you shouldn’t take the media seriously on anything they report.

My second point is political. After Katrina (clearly a more massive disaster than what we face here) there was a lot of complaining about the response of government. It was clear that the local and state government were completely unprepared for the scale of disaster they faced. Here in Cedar Rapids it is very clear that the local government, medical facilities, and utility companies are calmly executing their disaster plans. While a few idiots have had to be “rescued” from their houses after ignoring the mandatory evacuation orders, there is adequate shelter (including pets), transportation, and food to meet the need. I think it emphasizes the importance of handling local problems locally and not depending on the federal government to come in with their sledgehammer to fix problems better addressed with thumb tacks.

If you’re interested in seeing what’s happening, check out www.kcrg.com. Jeff has posted some pictures at www.accordingtojeff.com. I have posted some aerial views at my personal Web site.

Thanks again for your concern and prayers. While we’ve had extensive loss of property there has been no loss of life of which I’m aware, not even any major injuries.

It’s about time I got around to writing an article about PocketBible 4. It’s been a busy week.

On Tuesday we released an upgrade for both PocketBible for Pocket PC and PocketBible for Windows Mobile Smartphone. In order to reduce confusion about whether you have a Smartphone, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile Classic, Windows Mobile Standard, or Windows Mobile Professional device, we put both programs into one installer and called it PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile. Regardless of the type of Windows Mobile device you have, this product should work for you.

PocketBible for Windows Mobile should work on all Pocket PC’s back to Pocket PC 2000, including PocketPC 2002, 2003, and 2003SE. It works on the new Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices. It works on the old Windows Mobile Smartphone 2002 and 2003. It works on any device that calls itself Windows Mobile Classic, Standard, or Professional.

Our excitement over reducing the confusion was short-lived. The problem now is that since the feature set is different between the two programs (PocketBible 4 for Pocket PC has a few more features than PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile Smartphone, to use the older device names), you all are looking at the features of one and deciding that’s what you want, then you’re confused when you install to your device only to discover you have a different feature set. All I can say is read carefully.

Jeff has written a good article on how to tell the difference between the different devices. It’s really quite simple: Just ask yourself, “Does my device have a touch-screen?” and “Is my device a phone?” Based on those answers, here’s what you have:

• Has a touchscreen, no phone: Windows Mobile Classic (it’s a Pocket PC)
• Has a touchscreen, is a phone: Windows Mobile Professional (it’s a Pocket PC Phone Edition)
• No touchscreen, but it is a phone: Windows Mobile Standard (it’s a Windows Mobile Smartphone)
• No touchscreen, no phone: Ummm… it’s a BlackBerry without a service plan? An iPod? A pencil?

You can tell which version of PocketBible is going to be installed on your device based on whether or not it has a touchscreen. If it has a touchscreen, you’ll get “PocketBible for Windows Mobile Classic/Professional/Pocket PC”. This is the one with the most features. If you don’t have a touchscreen you’ll get “PocketBible for Windows Mobile Smartphone”. This is the one that could be argued is the most improved. The previous version only let you view Bibles and didn’t have the ability to do notes, highlights, or bookmarks. It was pretty basic. The new version gives you access to commentaries, dictionaries, devotionals, and all the rest of our books. Plus it has notes, highlights, bookmarks, and devotional reading progress.

The most common problems we’re seeing are mostly questions related to ordering and installing. For example: “Will PocketBible 4 work with my existing books or do I need to re-purchase or update them?” If you’re upgrading from PocketBible 3, there’s no need to update your books. If you’re upgrading from PocketBible 2 you don’t need to re-purchase your books but you do need to update them. In both cases there are articles in our Knowledgebase to help you upgrade.

We’re hoping to post some videos of PocketBible 4 both as marketing and tutorial tools. I think if you can see features like the customizable toolbar and maximized windows in action it will give you a better idea of how these can improve your Bible study experience.

Finally, a few of you have written to say you didn’t get our upgrade offer. We’ve identified a few thousand customers that did not get our initial email and we’ll be re-sending to those customers on Tuesday. In the meantime, if you want to upgrade just contact tech support to get the appropriate priority code. You can reach tech support through our Web site.

One of the more common questions that we receive related to our mobile PocketBible product line is this: “I have a Windows PDA, but how do I know if it is a Pocket PC or a Smartphone?” This can be especially confusing because some Pocket PCs are also phones, and the marketing names for these devices has changed several times over the last few years. These various devices have been referred to as Windows CE, Palm-size PCs, Handheld PCs, Handheld PC Professionals, Handheld PC 2000s, Pocket PCs, Pocket PC 2002, Smartphones, Smartphone 2002, Pocket PC 2003, Pocket PC 2003 second edition, Smartphone 2003 and now Windows Mobile Classic, Standard, and Professional. Whew. You can understand how some one might be confused. (And I might have even left out a few names!)

While all Windows Mobile devices use a version of the Windows Mobile operating system, there are significant differences between the various classification of devices (Classic, Standard, Professional).

Both the Classic and the Professional devices include a touch-sensitive screen. The Professional device also includes a phone. The Windows Mobile Standard device is also a phone, but does not include a touch-sensitive screen. We tend to call the former devices Pocket PCs and the latter devices Smartphones.

So, how do you know what kind of Windows Mobile device you have? Take this simple quiz:

1. Does your device have both a touch-sensitive screen and a cell phone? If so, then it is a Windows Mobile Professional, which we sometimes also call a Pocket PC.
2. Does your device have a touch-sensitive screen but not have a cell phone? If so, then it is a Windows Mobile Classic, which we sometimes call a Pocket PC.
3. Does your device have a cell phone, but not a touch-sensitive screen? If so, then it is a Windows Mobile Standard, which we sometimes call a Smartphone.

Prior to our recent release of PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile, we packaged our PocketBible program in a Pocket PC version and in a separate Smartphone version. As noted above, it wasn’t uncommon to receive questions about whether a particular device was a Pocket PC or a Smartphone. It also wasn’t uncommon to have someone buy the Smartphone version, but really need the Pocket PC version. While this was easily corrected by contacting our technical support department, it wasn’t always convenient.

However, now with the release of PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile, we have packaged a version of PocketBible designed for the touch-sensitive screen models (Pocket PC, Classic, Professional) along with a version of PocketBible designed for the non-touch-sensitive screen models (Smartphone, Standard). Our setup program will then determine which version to install to your device based on the information about itself that the device supplies to ActiveSync or the Mobile Device Center. While the features between these two versions of PocketBible differ (since the devices themselves are very different), the PocketBible setup program will now automatically determine the correct version of PocketBible to install.

You will still see some of our products referred to as “for Pocket PC”. This simply indicates that that program is available only for the Pocket PC (aka Windows Mobile Classic and Windows Mobile Professional) devices, and not for Smartphones (aka Windows Mobile Standard).

And as time goes on, you may even find that I refer to these handheld computers less and less as Pocket PCs or Smartphones, and more and more by their new name du jour!

With the recent release of PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile, we have also released the PocketBible for Windows Mobile Synchronization Provider. This synchronization provider allows data synchronization between PocketBible for Windows and PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile, including Windows Mobile Classic (Pocket PC), Windows Mobile Standard (Smartphone) and Windows Mobile Professional (Pocket PC Phone).

(This synchronization provider also supports PocketBible 3 for Pocket PC.)

Windows Mobile Standard (Smartphone) owners not already using PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile will need to upgrade to PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile in order to take advantage of these synchronization features.

The PocketBible for Windows Mobile Synchronization Provider is free. Visit the Synchronization Providers product information page for additional details.

Note to users of the PocketBible for Pocket PC Synchronization Provider

The PocketBible for Windows Mobile Synchronization Provider is an update and replacement to the now obsolete PocketBible for Pocket PC Synchronization Provider. If you have previously installed the PocketBible for Pocket PC Synchronization Provider, you can continue to use this synchronization provider. In fact, the PocketBible for Pocket PC synchronization provider will synchronize data with a Windows Mobile Standard (Smartphone) device; it will just refer to that device as a Pocket PC.

If and when you choose to update to the newer PocketBible for Windows Mobile Synchronization Provider, then you should first remove / uninstall the PocketBible for Pocket PC Synchronization Provider before you install the PocketBible for Windows Mobile Synchronization Provider.

Our PocketBible for Windows program has been updated to version 1.009. This update, which coincides with the release of our PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile, provides two bug fixes:

1. After synchronizing personal data, if a highlighted verse was displayed and that highlight was removed due to synchronization, then the verse still showed highlighted until it was returned to at a later time. The highlight is now immediately removed.
2. A bug related to restoring history from a previous session was corrected. This bug affected few people, but those that it did effect had to delete the history and start over. This has been corrected.

This release also contains many “under the hood” changes related to the release of PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile. You shouldn’t notice any of these changes.

This is a free update. Registered owners of PocketBible for Windows can download the updated version from their Laridian download accounts.

Customers using PocketBible on a USB key can install this update to their hard drive, then copy PocketBible.exe and PocketBible.chm to the USB key.

I get the best ideas from customers. I’m corresponding with one now who is lamenting how hard it is to use BookBuilder to bring a text file into PocketBible. That gave me an idea to just tell you how to do it. It’s pretty easy.

Let’s just take the text of my blog posting from April 21 and turn it into a Laridian book. Laridian books are HTML files with some added tags. They all look like this:

<html><head>
<!– meta tags go here –>
</head><body>
<!– your book goes here–>
</body></html>

The meta tag section comes right out of the documentation. Here are the meta tags for a dictionary, which we’ll modify to make our book:

<html><head>
<meta name=”pb_title” content=”Tyndale Bible Dictionary”>
<meta name=”pb_abbrev” content=”TBD”>
<meta name=”pb_copyright” content=”Copyright &copy; 2001 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.”>
<meta name=”pb_publisher” content=”Laridian Electronic Publishing”>
<meta name=”pb_city” content=”Cedar Rapids, IA”>
<meta name=”pb_date” content=”2004″>
<meta name=”pb_pubid” content=”101″>
<meta name=”pb_bookid” content=”35″>
<meta name=”pb_editionid” content=”1″>
<meta name=”pb_revisionid” content=”1″>
<meta name=”pb_synctype” content=”word”>
</head><body>
<!– your book goes here–>
</body></html>

We’ll change a bit of the text in the meta tags to make it make sense for our blog article. We end up with this:

<html><head>
<meta name=”pb_title” content=”April 21 Blog Article”>
<meta name=”pb_abbrev” content=”BLOG”>
<meta name=”pb_copyright” content=”Copyright &copy; 2008 by Craig Rairdin. All rights reserved.”>
<meta name=”pb_publisher” content=”Laridian Electronic Publishing”>
<meta name=”pb_city” content=”Cedar Rapids, IA”>
<meta name=”pb_date” content=”2008″>
<meta name=”pb_pubid” content=”9999″>
<meta name=”pb_bookid” content=”1″>
<meta name=”pb_editionid” content=”1″>
<meta name=”pb_revisionid” content=”1″>
</head><body>
<!– your book goes here–>
</body></html>

In addition to changing the text of the copyright message etc. I also changed the Publisher ID (pb_pubid) just because it doesn’t matter and I didn’t want it the same as the Tyndale Dictionary from which the example was lifted. I set the pb_bookid meta tag to 1, and I would change that for every book I create. And I removed the final pb_synctype tag, because that’s what tells PocketBible this is a dictionary, but my file isn’t a dictionary.

I have to add at least one heading so I have something in the table of contents for the book. So I put that on the top of the text of the blog article. I paste in the text of the blog article and add <p> tags at the start of each line to indicate new paragraphs.

Text in bold is text I modified in some way just so you can see how little I changed from either the sample meta tags or the text of my article.

<html><head>
<meta name=”pb_title” content=”April 21 Blog Article“>
<meta name=”pb_abbrev” content=”BLOG“>
<meta name=”pb_copyright” content=”Copyright &copy; 2008 by Craig Rairdin. All rights reserved.”>
<meta name=”pb_publisher” content=”Laridian Electronic Publishing”>
<meta name=”pb_city” content=”Cedar Rapids, IA”>
<meta name=”pb_date” content=”2008“>
<meta name=”pb_pubid” content=”9999“>
<meta name=”pb_bookid” content=”1“>
<meta name=”pb_editionid” content=”1″>
<meta name=”pb_revisionid” content=”1″>
</head><body>
<h1 pb_toc=visible>On the Problems of Designing User-Friendly Software for PDAs and Smart Phones</h1>
<p>A comment from one of our PocketBible 4 beta testers got me thinking about the nature of what we do and what users complain about. I’ve expressed this with respect to the iPhone but I haven’t put it into a larger context that might help people understand what software designers are up against when we implement a solution, regardless of the platform. These issues are especially true of the mobile device market but the same ideas apply to the desktop and other general-purpose computing platforms.
<p>If you start from the beginning, you find a user with a problem. It might be: “How do I take my contact database with me?” or “How can I work on my spreadsheets on the train?” or “How can I browse the Web when I’m away from my computer?”. Hardware companies like Sony, Apple, HP, and HTC get together with software companies like Microsoft and whatever Palm is calling itself today and come up with a device and operating system software that address those problems. In the course of doing so, they create a way for third parties (that’s us) to create software for their new device/OS platform.
<p>By the time we consumer software companies (independent software vendors or ISVs) get our hands on these products, we’re no longer solving the original customer problem. Instead, we’re programming for a device, and the device is solving the problem. When we program for a device we have certain limitations imposed by the hardware and software. The screen is only so big. There may or may not be a keyboard. There may or may not be much memory. There may or may not be good internet connectivity. The tools provided by the OS software developer may not be very powerful. There are a host of these limitations, and we have no control over them. It is the sandbox in which we have to play if we’re going to play at all.
<p>etc…..
</body></html>

That’s all there is to it. If you can master cut and paste and typing <p> you can create books out of text files. If you know a little HTML you can add bold, italics, underlines, and even tables and lists.

A comment from one of our PocketBible 4 beta testers got me thinking about the nature of what we do and what users complain about. I’ve expressed this with respect to the iPhone but I haven’t put it into a larger context that might help people understand what software designers are up against when we implement a solution, regardless of the platform. These issues are especially true of the mobile device market but the same ideas apply to the desktop and other general-purpose computing platforms.

If you start from the beginning, you find a user with a problem. It might be: “How do I take my contact database with me?” or “How can I work on my spreadsheets on the train?” or “How can I browse the Web when I’m away from my computer?”. Hardware companies like Sony, Apple, HP, and HTC get together with software companies like Microsoft and whatever Palm is calling itself today and come up with a device and operating system software that address those problems. In the course of doing so, they create a way for third parties (that’s us) to create software for their new device/OS platform.

By the time we consumer software companies (independent software vendors or ISVs) get our hands on these products, we’re no longer solving the original customer problem. Instead, we’re programming for a device, and the device is solving the problem. When we program for a device we have certain limitations imposed by the hardware and software. The screen is only so big. There may or may not be a keyboard. There may or may not be much memory. There may or may not be good internet connectivity. The tools provided by the OS software developer may not be very powerful. There are a host of these limitations, and we have no control over them. It is the sandbox in which we have to play if we’re going to play at all.

We might have solved the customer’s original problem differently. But that’s water under the bridge. We can only operate within the limitations of the platform.

Some of the limitations imposed on us are not necessarily firmly fixed in hardware. They might be user interface standards that are intended to give the user a common UI experience as he or she moves from application to application on the device. So we all put scrollbars on the right even though lefties might like them on the left. Menus, buttons, toolbars, etc. are generally drawn from a common source so they all look the same and are sized and placed the same in all applications.

Obeying the philosophical limitations is just as important as obeying the hardware limitations, even though the former is not as rigidly enforced. Depending on the platform, a device from another manufacturer might expect you to have followed the rules. It may implement new features, which, as long as you’ve followed the rules, fit seamlessly into your existing program with no changes. So it’s to our advantage (and by extension, our customers’ advantage) for us to play within all the rules.

So what does this all mean? It means that when you have an iPhone, you don’t have a clipboard. It’s not the case that iPocketBible doesn’t have a clipboard, it’s that your iPhone doesn’t have a clipboard. As of right now, it means that you depend on Internet access because all your third-party apps are Web-based. It’s not that Laridian screwed up by only providing a Web-based application for your iPhone, it’s that Apple screwed up by not supporting native, third-party apps right out of the box.

It means if you have a Nokia phone you can’t tell if software is going to run on it because it doesn’t tell you anywhere what version of the operating system you’re running. Yes, if you’re an expert user you already know you have an S60 or whatever, but the average person who reads the Bible and bought a Nokia phone “because it’s blue” isn’t going to be able to tell whether a particular piece of software will run on the phone or not.

It means that if you have a Pocket PC, it’s hard to operate programs with your fingers instead of a stylus. The buttons are too small, the keyboard input methods are too dumb, and many of the controls are simply impossible to operate with something as big as a man-sized finger. It doesn’t mean that PocketBible is hard to operate with your fingertip, it means that Microsoft expects you to use a stylus and designed their device that way.

Sure, we could make our buttons really big and give you all kinds of flexibility for defining how the d-pad buttons work with our program, but eventually you’re going to have to type a note on that little software keyboard that pops up at the bottom of the screen, or select an option from a little combo box or menu, or try to tap on just one Strong’s number in a sea of blue underlined links. We can’t do enough to overcome the limitations imposed on us by the underlying software and hardware, for which we have no responsibility.

It’s fairly common for people to complain to the wrong party about these things. Since we’re the last link in the OEM - OS - ISV chain, we get blamed for a lot of the problems of our software running on these devices — problems that actually are the result of limitations dictated to us by those who came before us. So if you have fat fingers or you don’t have WiFi at your church, I’m afraid we can’t help you. Someone else stuck you with a bad solution before we got to you. The best we can do is create software that works well on the platform you’ve chosen. Whether that platform is right for you is a decision you have to make, and one that the OEMs and OS developers are more responsible for than we are.

We’ve got a full list of beta testers for PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile. Those of you who have volunteered — thank you.

Beta testing has gone well and we’ve squashed several bugs and added a couple new features.

If you just heard about this and want to volunteer. Too late.

While you’re waiting for the official release, I’ve put together a brief video showing the features of the Pocket PC version of PocketBible 4. This was put together prior to the start of the beta, so a few things have changed. But this gives you the idea of what it will be like.

The features of the Windows Mobile Smartphone version will be different, but the program will be a significant upgrade over the version that is currently available.

Again, please no more beta testers. Thanks for your interest, though!

From time to time we’re asked how a person can contribute to our work here. They like what we do and they want to be a part of it. Frankly, we’re really touched by such requests and appreciate the attitude that is contained in questions like that.

Needless to say, we’re a commercial venture. We’re not a charity, nor a “ministry” except in the broadest sense of the word. We pay our bills by selling the product of our programming and editorial efforts. While we think it might be profitable to put a “Donate to Laridian” button on our Web site, we’re concerned about conveying the idea that we’re something different than we really are. We have competitors who are just as profit-minded as we are, yet organize themselves as non-profit organizations and even charitable organizations in order to be able to tug at people’s spiritual sensitivities and hopefully get paid for doing nothing. We don’t want to even come close to being seen that way.

While we make no secret of being a commercial company (and will defend that position from scripture if you press us), we really are humbled when people like what we do so much that they want to just give us money for being us and doing what we do. That’s pretty cool. So what we usually suggest is that they buy one of our CD-ROM or USB Drive collections and give it away. That way they bless us with their purchase and they bless someone else with an unexpected gift of software to help them better comprehend the Bible. Everybody wins.

I just had a customer write to ask how to solve a problem. His pastor speaks very extemporaneously and as a result, the computer operator/projectionist is scrambling to look up every verse he mentions in a printed Bible, type each into PowerPoint, and display it on the screen.

At a minimum, running PocketBible for Windows and cutting/pasting into PowerPoint would be a good idea.

But better yet:

1. Turn off the toolbar (View > Toolbar)
2. Set the size of the Bible text to 72 points (Edit > Options > Appearance, make sure “Bible” is selected next to “Set”, then change Font Size to 72)
3. While you’re there, choose pleasing foreground and background colors
4. OK to close the Options dialog
5. Zoom the Bible window (using the zoom button or View > Zoom Window)

Now your Bible will appear in very large type. On Sunday morning, all you need to do is type the reference into PocketBible. Remember, with its instant “type-n-go” feature all you do is type the reference while the Bible is selected. So to go to John 3:16 there’s no need to select Search > Go To or press Ctrl+G. Just type J O H N [space] 3 : 16 [enter] and the Bible will go there. Assuming PocketBible is running on the monitor that you’re projecting, you’ll instantly see the referenced verse on the big screen.

(In case you’ve wondered, this is why we gave you the ability to set the point size up to some outrageously large number.)

Engadget reports that Apple is going to be exercising pretty tight control over what apps are available for the iPhone. They’ll be distributed through iTunes and won’t have access to all features of the phone.

So those of you old enough to remember, think of this as Apple’s “1984″ Macintosh commercial, only this time it’s Steve Job’s face on the big screen telling all the iPhone owner-drones in the audience what programs they can and cannot use on their iPhone. Ironic, no?

Furthermore, the long-awaited SDK that was supposed to be released by today will not be released today, nor will it be feature-complete. It will be a beta, with the real SDK coming in June.

So, kick back, sign up for a monthly subscription to iPocketBible, and maybe this summer we’ll see what’s up with native apps for the iPhone.

Last night we posted an update to the iPocketBible.com site, adding categorized bookmarks and support for desktop synchronization to the program.

Bookmarks

You can create bookmarks the same way you did before: Tap the verse number to bring up the verse context menu, then select “Set Bookmark”. By default, the bookmark is stored with no category information. To create a bookmark in a category, simply select the category prior to pressing “Set Bookmark”.

To use categories you first have to create them. When you’re on the context menu there’s a button in the Bookmarks section for “Add/Edit Bookmark Categories”. Selecting this takes you to a screen where you can add, rename, or delete bookmark categories. Note that when you delete a category, the bookmarks in that category are still there — they just don’t have any category associated with them.

To view your bookmarks, select the Bookmarks button from the toolbar, just like before. You’ll find there’s now a list of categories at the top of the screen. The default is “All Categories”. You can choose a category you want to view, and only the bookmarks for that category will be displayed.

Remember when viewing your bookmark list that bookmarks are displayed in “pages”. The number of bookmarks displayed at one time is controlled by a setting on the Options screen. To get to the next page of bookmarks just select the Next Page button on the toolbar (or double-tap the margin if in one-finger scrolling mode).

Synchronization

If you use PocketBible for Windows on your desktop PC you can synchronize your personal data (notes, bookmarks, highlights, and devotional reading progress) between your iPhone and your PC. When you synchronize the two databases, the result is a combination of the two. We don’t just overwrite your iPhone data with data from your PC, but rather the information is intelligently combined.

For example, if you bookmark a verse on your PC, then sync with your iPhone, the bookmark will appear on the iPhone. If you decide you don’t need that bookmark any longer, you can delete it on your iPhone. The next time you synchronize, the bookmark will be deleted from your desktop PC as well.

Since the iPocketBible program is Web-based and all your personal information is stored on our server, there’s no need to run iTunes or cradle your iPhone before doing synchronization.

If you don’t own PocketBible for Windows you’ll need to buy that first. The sync providers for both the Windows program and the iPhone are free. Just go to www.laridian.com, select the Windows desktop link, then under the products menu at the top of the page you’ll find “Synchronization Providers”. Select that to see a list of providers along with download and installation instructions.

Time is of the Essence

Because the synchronization process relies on accurate date and time stamps to know which note, bookmark, etc. is more current than the other, it’s important that the time on your PC be the same as the time on our server. We synchronize our server with one of the various Internet time servers that is tied to the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s official Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). You can do the same by configuring Windows to access a time server once a week to keep your computer clock up to date. Just double click on the time in your task bar to bring up the Date and Time Properties dialog, then select the Internet Time tab (Windows XP). Follow the instructions to set the time.

If that sounds too hard, just go to http://nist.time.gov and get the current time. Bring up the Date and Time Properties as described above, and manually set the time so they are within a few seconds of each other (the closer, the better).

Other Sync Providers

It looks like we’ll be able to use the same provider for Windows Mobile Smartphone as we use for Pocket PC. There will be an update required to the Windows Mobile Smartphone version of PocketBible to support synchronization. It’s likely this will be rolled into the next major update of PocketBible for WMS, which should be coming along soon.

Work continues on the MyBible sync provider. As mentioned before this has required a lot of programming. But in the course of doing all this we’re adding some features to MyBible that should be pretty nice. We’ll let you know as we get closer to shipping the product.

Awhile back I had created a series of articles on using your Bible resources.  This included commentaries, reference books, devotionals and more.  If you missed that series or could use a brush-up on the information you can enter “Using Your Bible Resources” in the search dialog box to the left of this article and do your search.  Once you have the list of articles you should scroll down to the September 9th article and work your way up so you read them in order.

This new article is on how to use the Bible Maps. The Bible Maps are available for use with PocketBible 3 for Pocket PC and our PocketBible for Windows software for desktop PCs running Windows. (more…)

Just got back from BibleTech:2008 in Seattle. About 90-100 developers, ministry leaders, academians, content-owners, and end-users met for two-days of in-depth technical sessions on the current state of technical challenges facing Bible software.

I handed out several of our Gold Edition USB Library devices to blog readers who were in attendance. Unfortunately I put the same serial number on all the devices, so they’ll have to contact tech support to get a fresh serial number. Sorry about that.

I did a session late in the day on Saturday on synchronizing user-created data and proposed the possibility that we could exchange notes, highlights and bookmarks (and potentially other user-created data) between various Bible software based on our model. There was some interest, but these things always sound more exciting when you’re right there than when you get back to your desk on Monday morning and there’s a pile of work to do. So it’s hard to say where that will go.

As part of my presentation I demonstrated creating a note and highlighting a verse on my Pocket PC, then sync’ing that to the desktop where it is displayed in PocketBible for Windows. I then edited the note and changed the highlight color and sync’ed to my iPhone over the internet. When I selected the verse number in iPocketBible I saw my note, which I then edited again. While I was there I changed the highlight color yet again, then sync’ed up to the desktop. There was my note, with all the edits from the Pocket PC, desktop PC, and iPhone; along with the verse highlighted in the color I’d chosen on the iPhone.

We made some good business contacts there and perhaps you’ll see something come of those in the future. However, I also took away a number of small points that are worth mentioning here.

• One publisher admitted that digital rights management (DRM) was a losing battle. He cited several cases where DRM schemes were defeated within days of a new product being introduced. He lamented the opportunities lost by publishers who are waiting for a perfect solution to security of their data. This is something we’ve been preaching for twenty years.
• The open-source/freeware community was chastised by one Greek professor in attendance for distributing and promoting “classic” commentaries from the 19th century. While her calls for publication of these materials to be suppressed were perhaps over-the-top, she makes a good point: We have so many more manuscripts and archaeological evidence today than we had 150 years ago that it’s a shame that we promote these dated materials just because there’s no royalties on them (they’re old enough that they’re in the public domain). Since the open-source/freeware guys aren’t in business to sell things (and thus collect and pay royalties) they tend not to have the more contemporary resources available to them that are the bulk of what we do here at Laridian and at the other commercial Bible software houses.
• Crossway gave quite a presentation on the marketing research they have done with respect to the English Standard Version (ESV). It was pretty impressive to see how much time they spend thinking about who their readers are and where, when, why, and how they’ll be reading the ESV. This allows them to better tune their product development and marketing to meet readers where they are instead of where Crossway wants them to be.
• The Crossway presentation also included a couple quotes from Business Week. One, from 1998, stated that “practical e-book devices have finally arrived”. None of those devices are available today. A second recent quote said the new Amazon Kindle is the “iPod of e-book readers”. We’ll see.
• The only commercial Bible software companies represented there were us, Logos, OliveTree, and e-Sword. I was disappointed not to see anyone from the major Bible software companies like Findex (QuickVerse) and Biblesoft (PC Study Bible). I realize these companies are not generally considered “leading edge” when it comes to technology, but it would’ve been nice to see them all again.

Ironically, a Logos employee won the prize for answering my trivia question correctly at the beginning of my presentation. Twenty years ago this month I started work on the product that would become QuickVerse. The question: What was the name of that program when I first started selling it in September, 1988?

I want to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed the discussion we’ve been having about the upcoming iPhone SDK (due out next month) and Laridian’s plans with respect to a native iPhone app. I want to clarify a few points and let you know what the future holds with respect to the iPhone and iPocketBible.

Our position from the beginning has been that we’re neither going to commit to a native iPhone app nor refuse to do one until we see the SDK. Some of you interpreted my comments about not doing a native app in the present (that is, before the SDK is released) to imply that we’re not going to do one in the future (that is, after the SDK is released). This is not a valid assumption.

I admit I’ve probably been egging you on a little bit. I love a good discussion but I want people to make sound arguments. I’ve been defending the “no native apps” position more strongly here on the blog than I actually hold to in person in order to see if I can get you to give me some better arguments in favor of native apps. While playing devil’s advocate, I’ve always been careful to clarify that I’m not saying we’d never do a native app, but for those who don’t always read to the end of my comments before firing off a response, you got the impression that we’re pretty entrenched.

So here’s where we really stand: We’re not going to make a decision about a native iPhone app until we see the SDK and have time to study it. If you got the impression our minds were already made up, you got the wrong impression. To the extent that I gave you that impression, it’s either the case that you misread what I wrote or that I didn’t write as clearly as I thought. I would apologize for the latter if I didn’t strongly suspect the former was the real problem.

Furthermore, we won’t announce our decision about a native iPhone app one way or the other until well after the SDK is released. Don’t expect a comment the next day saying that we’re definitely working on a native app. Don’t assume that we’re not working on a native app if you don’t hear anything from us. Don’t assume that we are working on a native app if we refuse to say one way or the other. Don’t expect us to announce the fact that we’ve decided not to do a native iPhone app, even if we have.

If we decide to develop a native iPhone app, the chances are good that we won’t say anything about it until it’s ready for beta testing. If we decide not to develop a native iPhone app, we won’t say so because there’s always a chance we’ll change our mind. We don’t want to chase people away who might otherwise wait for an app to come from us instead of going to a competitor.

Don’t expect a native app (if we decide to do such a thing) to appear a week or a month or maybe even six months after the SDK is released. All good things take time. During that time we will be neither confirming nor denying that the work is underway. Yeah, it’s frustrating, but that’s how it goes.

In the meantime, the best thing you can do to encourage us to develop a native iPhone app is to purchase the iPocketBible subscription service. This might seem counterproductive if you’re really dead-set on getting a native app, but the only gauge we have of your interest in an iPhone app is sales of iPocketBible subscriptions. If interest drops off, then why would we want to invest $100K or more in developing an app for a non-existent audience?

I’ve deleted the most active blog post on this topic in an effort to bring the discussion to an end. We’ve heard all the arguments. Some of them were good. We’ll weigh them all as we consider what we do next. We just won’t necessarily be sharing that decision with the world until it’s in our interest to do so.

Recently, Apple released the 1.1.3 update for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. This update included a feature that some of you requested we take advantage of… the ability to add iPocketBible to your “home” screen.

1. Update your iPhone/iPod Touch to version 1.1.3.
2. Launch iPocketBible from within Safari. If you are already there, I suggest that you “reload” the page in order to ensure that the latest version of iPocketBible is loaded. One thing to remember: you are essentially creating a bookmark that gets placed on the home page of your iPhone/iPod Touch. Whatever page within iPocketBible is visible when you start this process will be the page associated with this bookmark. You may want to consider going to the “front matter” or “table of contents” of your favorite bible or commentary before starting this process.
3. Click on the “+” located on Safari’s bottom navigation bar.
4. A menu will appear with the options to “Add Bookmark”, “Add to Home Screen”, “Mail Link to this Page” or “Cancel”. Select “Add to Home Screen”.
5. A new screen will appear that will show our icon as well as a text field for selecting the text associated with this icon. The text field has limited space, so I would suggest putting “iPocketBible” within the field.
6. Press return.

That should do it!! You should now see your home screen, complete with your new iPocketBible icon.

Enjoy!

If you’ve been waiting for the promised ability to synchronize your PocketBible Pocket PC data with your PocketBible Windows PC data, the wait is over. We have released Synchronization Providers for both programs which will allow you to synchronize user-created data (i.e. notes, bookmarks, highlights, devotional or reading plan progress) between the two PocketBible programs.
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As promised, we have released three new PocketBible library collections featuring our PocketBible for Windows program and a selection of our best-selling Bibles and books. Prices range from $49.99 to $199.99 but save you 60% or more over purchasing the same items separately. They are available on CD-ROM, USB Flash drive or for immediate download.

If you’re still shopping for Christmas gifts, you can view more suggestions from Laridian here. 

We’ve just uploaded an update to iPocketBible with new features related primarily to keeping track of your devotional reading progress. Some other small enhancements are also in the program.

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A lady from church emailed me a couple weeks ago to ask about Bible software. Seems my mom’s been bragging up PocketBible for Windows over coffee with her friends, and at least one of them was ready to buy.

This experience just emphasized to me that there’s no longer any age limit on computer users. Computers are easy enough to use that anyone can figure them out. And the costs are so low that just about anyone can afford one. As a result, our Bible software makes a great Christmas gift for just about anyone.

I wanted to let you know about three new collections we have coming out in the next few days. Of course you’ll get all the details by email soon, but I thought you’d appreciate some advance notice for planning purposes.

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Wow it’s been a month since my last article. Time flies. (more…)

Many of you have asked about maps and we’re finally in a position to offer some good maps for PocketBible. You’ll see these first for PocketBible for Windows and PocketBible for Pocket PC. There’s no reason they wouldn’t work in MyBible but we have some other work going on in MyBible right now so I don’t know the status of when these will get implemented. Anyway, below is a screen shot. Click the picture for a full-sized view.

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Seems the iPhone is the only thing we’ve been writing about lately. Another update is available. This one adds user-created notes and gives you the ability to use the browser’s forward and back buttons to navigate the history of pages you’ve viewed.

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Thanks to some clever CSS and Javascript from Jim Coates, iPocketBible is now sporting a new user interface. While we’re still very fond of the fixed tool bar at the bottom of the screen and using two fingers to scroll, the new mode offers more screen real estate for text (about 35% more text area) and the more familiar “flick” gesture to scroll the text.

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Let me start this posting with the instruction that I try to mention everytime I talk about iPocketBible:

Use Two Fingers to Scroll

Having dispensed with that, I’ve got information about a couple recent updates to iPocketBible and some iPocketBible-related news.

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Pre-Launch Access for our Blog Readers

As promised, iPocketBible is now available to our blog readers. We wanted to give you first shot at it before we send out emails and press releases next week.

Complete details are at www.iPocketBible.com. From there you can read more about the subscription plans and link to the iPocketBible application itself.

Getting Started

Before going any further, let me remind you: Use two fingers to scroll the text in iPocketBible.

If you already have a collection of Laridian Bibles and books for PocketBible, MyBible, or one of our other readers, you’ll find all these Bibles and books available to you when you subscribe to iPocketBible.

If you don’t yet own any of our Bibles or reference books, you can purchase them when you subscribe to iPocketBible. You’ll also find several free Bibles and reference books on the order form that will help you get started.

iPocketBible is a subscription service. Monthly subscriptions are $1.99/month and are automatically charged to a credit card you provide when you purchase the product. Your first payment will be charged a month after you order, so you have until then to try the program out. If you don’t like it, simply contact us and cancel any time before you’re billed. Billed amounts are not refundable.

The annual subscription is $19.99 and has the benefit of being payable by check or money order if you don’t want to use a credit card. Because the service can be tried for up to a month using the monthly subscription, the annual subscription is not refundable.

About iPocketBible

iPocketBible is a Web application so it’s very easy for us to update it and add new features. As a result, we decided to make it available to you just as soon as a reasonable amount of functionality was present. This first version of iPocketBible has the following features:

• Access to your complete collection of Laridian Bibles and reference books
• Easy Bible navigation either by choosing book, then chapter, then verse, or by entering a reference like “John 3:16″
• Easy reference book navigation by hierarchical table of contents
• Easy daily devotional navigation by interactive calendar
• Search for words, phrases, or combinations of words
• Search for words matching all prefixes or all suffixes of a particular word
• Chose a passage from a list of search results to see it in context, then use “previous” and “next” functions to see other results in context.
• Set bookmarks on your favorite passages
• Words of Christ in red
• Extensive online help

Coming soon:

• Highlight verses using several highlight colors - done 9/19/07
• Enter your personal notes on any verse - done 10/06/07
• Quick word look-up for dictionaries (rather than navigating the table of contents) — done 9/17/07
• Context-sensitive verse look-up for commentaries (again, rather than navigating the table of contents) — done 9/20/07
• Track your progress through daily devotionals and Bible reading plans - done 12/10/07
• Synchronize all your personal data with PocketBible for Windows. Notes, highlights and bookmarks entered on the desktop will show up on your iPhone, and vice versa.
• Strongs numbers in Bibles that contain them (they are currently there but not displayed) — done 9/21/07

One thing you’ll notice is that Greek and Hebrew characters don’t display correctly on the iPhone. This is due to the fact that the iPhone does not contain a standard Unicode font. If you view these reference books that contain Greek and Hebrew in your desktop browser you’ll see that the characters are there. They just can’t be displayed with the current iPhone operating system. We’ve left them in place so that if/when Apple releases an update containing a Unicode font, they will start working correctly.

You can expect to see some of the new features very, very soon and others will be a few weeks away. The program is very usable as-is. We’ve really enjoyed using it these last few weeks and we appreciate your patience as we get the new features rolled into the program.

PocketBible for Windows has been updated to version 1.003. This is a free update for registered PocketBible for Windows users.

For information on the corrections that have been made, click here to visit the PocketBible Revision History page. (more…)

I get several emails every month from people running QuickVerse 4 and needing help to install it on a new machine, or to install some add-on product. Or they want to know where to find a particular QuickVerse 4 Bible, CD, or other related program.

I’ve made a decision tonight to just be done with that topic. Laridian has its own Bible software for Windows now, so there’s no need for anyone to keep using QuickVerse. If Findex wants to support their product, they can do it. I’m not going to do it anymore.
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