Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Get Lost in Jerusalem - Free Interactive Program

If you want, you can go to Amazon and buy a used copy of Get Lost in Jerusalem for $35, or you can visit the site of the author, Prof. Ted Hildebrandt of Gordon College, and get it for FREE. (You can read the Amazon page for a much lengthier description of this resource. Before you jump to Ted's site and download, it will help to read the info I have posted below.)
I have been in communication with Ted, and he is graciously providing the program for free. He wrote:

The Get Lost in Jerusalem program is no longer under Zondervan and I hold the copyright to it. So yes feel free to download it (PC only though). It should be fun, and I have my students learn the geography of Jerusalem and some things about, say, Hezekiah's tunnel or the church of the Holy Sepulchre by walking through and reading about what they are seeing in the program.
The program provides an excellent introduction to Jerusalem. You can take a "Guided Tour" or "Conquer Jerusalem' Environments" (which provides Geography, Timeline & History, and Theology info), or "Explore Virtual Jerusalem" which gives an interactive map approach as shown here.
Navigation through the program is easy. It is well narrated and is accompanied by music that can be toggled off/on. Lots of great pictures, many of which are 360 degree panoramas that you can move/zoom.
Before you download it, here are some things you need to know:
  • The program is designed for PCs. Considering that it was first released in 2000, it has minimal hardware requirements typical of that time. (Only 32Mb RAM!) The ReadMe indicates that it can run in Win95-WinNT, but it runs fine on my WinXP system. (I don't have Vista to try it out.)
  • The program is designed for 640x480 resolution. It looks fine on my much higher resolution monitor, and you can play around with changing your screen resolution or using compatibility mode to run it in lower resolution.
  • The ZIP file is 550Mb so be prepared for a long download. When the files are extracted, they expand to 625Mb. Hard drive getting full? Do note that you can burn the extracted files to a CD, and the program can run directly from the CD.
  • Almost surely your computer already has QuickTime on it, so don't use the "Install." Look for and simply use the EXE files that either run the program full screen or in a window.
  • Since Zondervan is no longer supporting or holding the copyright to the program, you don't have to register it. You also should not expect to get support from either Zondervan or Ted! (The ReadMe does have a FAQ.)
There you go. Thanks again to Prof. Ted Hildebrandt!
HERE is the direct link to the ZIP file, but you most certainly will want to also go to his web page and check out all the other outstanding resources he has compiled. The bibliographical information he has collected is excellent.

4 comments:

  1. This is a truly great gem! I'd seen it as a result of the previous post concerning online koine Greek, which in itself is a treasure trove. GLoJ didn't take long to download on a cable modem and expanded quite easily with PKunzip in its own folder. Simply click on Start.exe and it works. The setup is totally unnecessary. "QuickTimeAlt240.exe" is available for those who don't want the QT extras at places like http://www.filehippo.com/download_quicktime_alternative/tech/3776/
    if needed. GLoJ is a boon to any student of the Bible no matter what level of Biblical proficiency. Prof. Hildebrandt's efforts are amazing and greatly appreciated! Almost as much as "mgvh"'s digital work.... :)

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  2. Very Good!
    I post it..
    http://www.religione20.net/2008/07/03/un-gioco-gratuito-alla-scoperta-di-gerusalemme/

    Thanks
    Luca

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Vista is good to go with the program. Once you download the program, tell the extraction program to unzip it in the directory you want it to remain in. You do not need to run the install program at all.

    (If you click on Extract all files and don't change where it puts the extracted files, it will put the files in the download directory. You will lose the program the first time you clean out the download directory - I put it in c:\program files directory.

    Double click on start.exe in the main directory, and GLIJ runs without being installed.

    If you must have an icon, click on computer on the popup start menu, locate the directory you just put the files in, right click on start.exe, left click on create a shortcut, then drag the shortcut to the desktop by holding down the left key until the cursor and icon are on the desktop.

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