All things Google...

Just a bunch of Google-related stuff...
Back up your Blogger blog!
About a year ago, I had lamented the difficulty of backing up a Blogger blog in comparison to a Wordpress one. As reported on the Blogger blog, this problem has now been solved. They have also added more capabilities for moving, merging, and cross-publishing blogs. Back up your blog today!

Google closing down six apps
As reported on various Google blogs, Google is terminating or otherwise ceasing to support Google Video, Google Catalog Search, Google Notebook, Dodgeball, Google Mashup Editor, and Jaiku. (There are also rumors that Grand Central and Knol may be next.) So, does this matter to you? I suspect it doesn't matter much since closing these apps indicates that they don't much matter to anyone. If you read this article, you will see that there are alternatives for just about everything. Personally, I have been using and appreciating Google Notebook. It's been one of the places I've stored random stuff I've wanted to save on the net. (If you click that link, you will see the web page Notebook was able to generate. It contains an eclectic bunch of stuff that I want to use for class or blog about. There. I just blogged about all of it, and they are off my list of things to do...) Another tool I use regularly for quickly saving pages on the web is the Taboo plugin for Firefox. I have a couple Taboo buttons in my toolbar, and I simply click to remember the web page, and Taboo builds a page of thumbnails for me. It's quick and easy. Another tool I use regularly is ShareThis. Another button on the toolbar, but it's very easy to save and share items either sending them as email to social networks or posting to a blog. (I have a private blog that I send a bunch of stuff to.) If I were a bit more disciplined to use it, I also like SimplyBox since it allows me to save selections on a web page and to organize into 'boxes' the stuff I'm saving.

Biblical Art... in Google Earth!?

A new layer in Google Earth now lets you visit ultra-high resolution pictures inside museums. As reported on the Google Earth blog, a new layer in their Geographic Web collection provides a view of 14 pictures from the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, Spain. As you might expect, a number of them depict biblical scenes. Perhaps the most famous is this Fra Angelico one of the Annunciation. I've provided some idea of the kind of resolution available.

BibleWorks8 Installation Observations

Here are some observations as I installed BW8 for the first time yesterday.

The only things in the box are a Quick-Start Guide and the DVD. Having used the six pack of CDs in the past, the DVD is a huge improvement. I will run through the steps I took, but the Quick-Start Guide is helpful. It is short enough that someone will probably be tempted to read it! In addition to the installation instructions, it gives a quick orientation to the program that one really should read if you have not used the program before. You will see that if you have been using BW7, most things work as you expect in BW8. There was a major interface change from BW6 to BW7, but this worthwhile upgrade mainly features enhancements and new databases and tools.

The whole installation process took me less than 30 minutes, but a big chunk of that time was taken by the two reboots.

Before starting the installation, just to be safe, I backed up the following BW7 subdirectories: ase, databases, downloads, init, notes, userdb.

You need to uninstall BW7 use Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs. After running this process, I checked, and it appears that most of my BW7 installation and files is still there, including all the subdirectories I had backed up. (See this BW Forum entry by Mark Eddy for which files are removed.)
I went ahead and rebooted, installed the DVD, and proceeded following onscreen cues.
When it came to activating modules, I entered the code that is on the front of the Quick-Start Guide.
I had previously received via email the new codes for modules I had purchased. (BDAG, HALOT, CROY) By copying those codes in the email and then simply returning to the code activation menu, the codes were automatically pasted in. Very nice.

Do note that a number of databases have been removed in BW8 compared to earlier versions due to licensing matters. From the BW8 Help file, ch. 4:

The following list of databases contains items included in the base package of BibleWorks 7 which are no longer available from BibleWorks and which will not be included in the BibleWorks 8 package.

1. Word Pictures, A. T. Robertson
2. Basic Hebrew for Bible Study, Mark Futato
3. German Lutherbibel 1984

The following list of databases contains items included in the BibleWorks 7 base package which are no longer available in the BibleWorks 8 base package, but which may be purchased separately.

4. A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament, Barclay M. Newman, Jr.
5. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Bruce M. Metzger.
6. Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, Lust-Eynikel-Hauspie.

If you are a registered user and are upgrading from BibleWorks 7 to BibleWorks 8, you will be sent free of charge a set of activation codes for items 5 and 6, and registered users upgrading from BibleWorks 7 or previous versions will be sent free of charge a set of activation codes for items 3 and 4.

Things seem to be working out, but according to reports on the BW Forum, some people are getting the previously purchased modules codes first, some are getting the BW7 module codes first, some are still waiting. Be patient for now...

Another reboot; everything set, so I start the program... First appears the splash screen, and it turns out that there are at least 6 different ones. (Still looking for those tater tots!) The Getting Started screen appears, and if you are new to BW, then looking at the short videos surveying the program are really worthwhile.

First impressions: the program looks nearly identical to BW7, and that's a good thing. I've appreciated the workflow concept, and it has been an efficient layout, in my opinion. The most obvious differences are:

• the command line is a bit longer with the options now in a bar just below it
• the results list has check boxes in front of the hits
• the Analysis pane on the right where there are quite a few more tabs
• there's a new, bluish button on the button bar that is the new ERMIE feature.

I ran a few simple tasks, and everything runs as expected and as fast as ever.

I'll post this for now, but in the next one, I will describe all the steps ones needs to take to migrate from BW7 to BW8, especially if you had customized BW7.

Sites for Art, Pictures, Music, and Video related to the Bible / Christianity

I seem to have been asked enough about online resources for art, music, and videos related to the Bible, especially from a Christian perspective for use in churches. I collected some of the better sites with which I am familiar and have posted them online:

Sites for Art, Pictures, Music, and Video related to the Bible / Christianity

Leave comments if I'm missing some good stuff...

Database of Midrashic Units in the Mishnah

This is a case of a resource that has been on the web for some time (and noted by Jim Darlack way back in 2005), but the URL was changed, and I am only now discovering it.
Alex Samely of Manchester University wrote a book, Rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture in the Mishnah, but he also has an online database that accompanies it. Regarding the online Database, he states:

This is where my Database of Midrashic Units in the Mishnah is published. The Database translates and explains all explicit biblical interpretations found in the Mishnah except for those in tractate Avot.

This database accompanies my book Rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture in the Mishnah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-19-827031-3). In the book I give a detailed modern description of c. 140 rabbinic techniques of interpretation. It is a systematic account which uses more than 100 Mishnaic passages for illustration.

The Database, on the other hand, is my full commentary on every single passage of biblical interpretation found in the Mishnah, in the order of occurrence. The principles of description and terminology used in this Database are those introduced in the book rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture in the Mishnah.

Note that there are a number of ways to search the database. If you are looking for a specific biblical reference, you do need to use the exact abbreviation including the period. (E.g., Gen., Ex., etc.)

More Flashcards

I've previously posted about flashcard resources, especially for Greek and Hebrew, and Danny Zacharias at deinde has compiled the best list. I did just find another resource called FlashcardExchange which claims to be the world's largest flashcard library with over 16 million flashcards. You can study any of the sets already created and posted online (regular flipcard and also "memory" matching game), and with a free registration, you can create your own set of cards. With a one-time fee of USD $19.95, you can also print flashcards in multiple formats, export flashcards to Word or Excel, use advance study with Leitner card files, and create image or audio flashcards. Do note that the site is Unicode compliant, so full Greek and Hebrew functionality is possible.

• There are quite a few Greek card sets, but only one that I found for biblical Koine using Greek Vocabulary from Baugh's A New Testament Greek Primer.
• There are a ton of Hebrew card sets, however, connected with quite a few different grammars (Bartelt, Davidson, Van Pelt, Mitchell, Ethelyn and Stahl, etc.)
• Also check the tags for Bible and Religion for addtional card sets for memorizing Scripture passages, studying the catechism, Bible, etc.

[HT: makeuseof]

Cairo Geniza Digitization Project

I'm simply trying to catch up with Jim Davila at PaleoJudaica who had noted the start of Cairo Geniza Digitization Project back in 2006. This latest post was prompted by an article in the London Times. As the article states:

The fragments are known collectively as the Cairo Genizah (or Geniza) from the Hebrew for a document-store. Nearly a third of the materials are scattered around the world in universities and research institutes; the remaining two thirds are in Cambridge.

Now, documents in all locations are being scanned and catalogued and within five years should be available to the world via the web, thanks to an initiative launched in 1999 by the Friedberg Geniza Project, an international foundation. The main player in the project is the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit (widely called the Geniza Unit), set up in the mid-1970s to manage the Cambridge collection.

The importance to Jewish studies research of this online archive is expected to be revolutionary. The Geniza is “the greatest single hoard of primary sources for the study of Judaism and Jewish history ever uncovered,” says the University of Manchester professor Philip Alexander.

Like the Sinaiticus digitization project, this is going to be a great resource. For myself, I became interested in it as I was working on my dissertation on Psalm 22 (LXX 21) and the Crucifixion of Jesus, because a palimpsest fragment of Origen's Hexapla of this psalm was among the documents found. [Taylor, Charles: Hebrew-Greek Cairo Genizah palimpsests from the Taylor-Schechter collection including a fragment of the twenty-second Psalm according to Origen's Hexapla (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1900)]

If you want more information, here are some links to follow:

• Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University Library: Start here for background
• The Friedberg Geniza Project: Here is where everything will eventually end up online and information about the project is available
• Cairo Geniza links at Papyri Pages: Provides links to the various sites where the fragments are now being stored around the world
• Cairo Geniza at Wikipedia: Not a particularly long article, but it appears to be accurate enough and provides additional links
• One of Schechter and Taylor's more important publications, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, is available in full at Google books
• Some additional books to check at Internet Archive

Just some interesting stuff to check...

This is a catch-up posting of a bunch of stuff...

SEARCH ENGINES: Note that I have an earlier post where I have organized and commented upon a selection of the better search engines. I have now included Spific and Yahoo Glue I describe below.

Searchme

View in searchme: full | lite

Spific: This looks to be a very nice search engine utilizing Google Custom search. You can start by your own keywords or by suggested topics. You can also limit your search to various categories or timeframes. Once you run your search, you can further refine it by limiting to blogs, videos, forums, stores, etc. The Spific homepage has a short video to demonstrate how it works. [HT: Jane's]
Yahoo Glue Beta: It's basically Yahoo search with some helpful organization. I did a search for "Koine Greek," and it produced a page grouped into: a Wikipedia entry, Images, Yahoo Answers, YouTube videos, and, of course, a Sponsored Links box. There are some search queries it does not understand, in which case it will offer to search on regular Yahoo. I tried another search for "Bible software" and it produced a page with: a news box (that was not relevant), a Google Blog search (with two of four links to Logos blog posts), more irrelevant results from thestreet.com, and, of course, a Sponsored Links box. VERDICT: possibly helpful [HT: Jane's]

Gmail tricks: Now this might be useful. If you have a gmail account, and your address is, e.g., abdefg@gmail.com, it turns out that you can add periods anywhere in your name, and the email will still get to you. (a.bcdefg@gmail.com or ab.cdefg@gmail.com or etc.) You can also use the plus sign after your name and add any text you want as well, and it will still get to you. (abcdefg+anything@gmail.com) Use this trick to help organize mail you send to yourself or when you subscribe to sites. Read more about about this trick and how to use it HERE.

LectureFox: Some time ago I noted that a number of universities are posting lectures online for free. LectureFox has accumulated these lectures into a searchable database. Search for "testament" to get the Yale OT lecture or "religion" to get philosophy of religion lectures from Edingburgh and Vanderbilt. [HT: makeuseof and while you here, check out some of the other sites he lists. Teachers should be aware of the use of "fake files" and the plagiarism stuff. The site does also offer--after a free subscription--a collection of useful shortcut sheets for Firefox, Windows, Google, IE, etc.]

Top Tools for 2009 from Jane's: Jane Hart always has interesting stuff, and here is her list of promising tools for 2009. I can confirm that I like Cooliris and Sliderocket. I'll have to check out some of the others. Also check out her review of 2008, part 1 and part 2.

Logos Related Stuff: Logos has been promoting a free Kutless MP3 download (the song is decent enough to be worth taking up space on your harddrive) as a way to generate publicity for and interest in their Bible Study Magazine. Check it out. Also worth visiting is their ThePastor'sLibrary.com which I found out about in one of their emailings. It is indeed directed to pastors to help them work with their congregations in developing a library. It is, as is to be expected, a promotional tool for Logos software, but there are some interesting findings in its Survey, some helps for pastors in working with their congregations in Budgeting Resources, comments on Library Development, the value of Bible Software, and some Recommendations including links to some good Resources.

ESV Study Bible for OliveTree BibleReader: It is now available and if you hurry (by 2009.01.04), there is a 15% discount.

Marking with Voice Tools: I've tried this in the past, namely, grading papers by adding voice annotations to digitally submitted docs. This blog post has some helpful hints and check the comments as well. [HT: Steve's]

Enough for now. More to come...

Bible Reading Plans for the New Year

If one of your resolutions for the new year is to be more consistent in your Bible reading, there are a few good online/desktop resources to help you in this discipline.

Logos Global Bible Reader: A Logos blog post on this reader states:

This free download from Logos is a powerful desktop application that provides community and accountability in a Bible reading plan.

Once you install Global Bible Reader you sign in with your Logos.com user account and choose from one of the six reading plans. After you chose a plan (or multiple plans) Global Bible Reader will download six days worth of reading (so you can even read when you’re not online). After you finish the reading for a day, click the Done Reading button and Global Bible Reader will mark the day as completed. In order to make sure you don’t fall behind, you can set up Global Bible Reader to give you a daily reminder to read the day's text. More than just reading yourself, Global Bible Reader plugs you into a community of people who are on the same reading plan as you...

Facebook Bible Reading Group: Wayne Leman reports on this option on the Better Bibles Blog:

Join us in reading and discussing the books of the Bible in 2009! We’re starting with Genesis, and we hope you’ll join us for as many books as you’d like–hopefully all of them.

We’ll be using an edition of the Scriptures called “The Books of The Bible” that the International Bible Society has specially formatted for reading with greater understanding and enjoyment. The text is in a single column, and there are no chapters or verses or section headings.

Those of you who are already members of Facebook can attend the event by going to this Internet address:http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=40536860035

YouVersion: From the YouVersionBlog:

Our One-Year Reading Plan will take you through the entire Bible in 2009—just read the selections mapped out for you each day and you'll cover the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice this year. Invite friends to join you in this journey and you'll have built-in accountability along with enhanced learning.

And don’t forget that you can use your mobile phone to read the Bible no matter where you are.

UPDATE: There is an interesting post on the OpenBible.info blog on how evenly distributed the amount of daily reading is using different Bible reading plans.

UPDATE: 2009.01.16: Logos also has free Bible reading plan that includes the Deuterocanonical / Apocryphal books.

2008 Review of Biblical Studies and Technological Tools: STATS

2008 Biblical Studies and Tech Tools Blog Stats
Some observations on the stats given below:
I'm accumulating these stats as part of my ongoing review to demonstrate the nature and character of my online 'publishing,' but it is also part of my own reflection on the very nature of blogging. I have found that there are only a few factors that really determine how 'popular' a blog is.

• The more you post, the more visits you get. It makes sense, of course, but it also shows how blogging can become a harsh taskmaster that consumes more and more time.
• You'll get more traffic by being provocative and argumentative than by being informative. I intend my blog to be more of an informative site, so it won't really ever reach blogdom star status.
• You'll get more traffic if some other more popular site links to you. I am careful to always link to my sources, and the more dense the network of links, the more traffic.
• Blog about FREE, downloadable resources to increase traffic!
• Humor always helps.
• It's surprising that Italy (4) and Spain (5) are so high on the list of countries with the most visitors to the blog. As far as I can tell, there are a few key sites in these countries dealing with my blog topic, and if they link to my site, I get a bunch of traffic. In any case, I really enjoy seeing the global sharing that is possible with my blog.
  

Visitors:Traffic Sources:
Keyword Search Terms:
More Blog Stats:

• 253 posts for the year
• 18,532 Visitors
  
• 33,962 Visits from 147 countries/territories
• Average increased from about 45 visits per day in January to 125 per day in December
  
• 63,255 Pageviews (45,339 Unique views)
• Highest Technorati rating: 60
• 289 readers are subscribed to the blog
  

Most popular posts (and note that some were posts from 2007) other than the index page:

1. ICC OT Commentaries to download (2006)
2. Free Online/Downloadable Hebrew Grammar Resources (1094)
3. Diagramming Greek Sentences (775)
4. Syriac Tools and Resources (718)
5. Books You Should Download (406)
6. Using Digital Mapping Tools: Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim (398)
7. More on Sentence Diagramming (379)
8. Bible on a Phone (364)
9. Get Lost in Jerusalem - Free Interactive Program (340)
10. Bible Software Reviews (290)
    

Most popular labels:

1. Bible software
2. Bibleworks
3. Biblical Mapping
4. Accordance
5. Logos
6. Bibleworks modules
7. Bible photos
8. Diagramming
9. Hebrew
10. e-Sword

I'm planning some additional posts reviewing 2008 and looking ahead to 2009, so stay tuned!

Aramaic and Coptic

I did pull together a listing of online resources for the study of Syriac, but I just don't have time to do the same for Aramaic (of which I know a little) or Coptic (of which I know nothing). But, if you want a start:

• Introductory Lessons in Aramaic [HT: Heiser's Scribal Practices]
• For Coptic, check Horner’s Sahidic New Testament and Penn State University’s Coptic Computing page. [Check Judy's post for more info on both.]

Zamzar - Free Online File Conversion

Zamzar is a free online file conversion tool. (Subscriptions are available starting at $7/month to upload larger files, faster conversion, no ads on web page, etc.) It offers quite a range of file type conversions. It will probably be most helpful if you receive one of the new ___X Office2007 files and don't have Office 2007 on your system. It will down convert to the Office 2003 format. Another instance is if you have an OpenOffice document and want to open it in a Microsoft program. One other usage I envision is converting Microsoft Works documents. Finally, it is able to convert some docs to SWF flash formats.

The online site does have popups (which can be blocked) with the free subscription, and you do NOT have to register or login to use the service. You do have to supply an email address which is used to notify you when the file conversion is completed. Otherwise it is a pretty simple step of uploading a doc, choosing the desired outcome format, and submitting.

It took 1-10 minutes to receive notification that the file was ready for viewing or download. There are no ads on the converted file.

The only problem I had is that it frequently returned an "error converting file" message to me. Service is still in beta... In any case, it may be helpful at some point.

Here's an example of converting a PPTX (PowerPoint 2007) file to SWF (Flash).

Biblical Studies Articles on Slate

I don't regularly check out Slate, one of the major online ezines, but it turns out that they have published quite a number of biblically related articles. Check out:

• Happy Birthday, Dear Yeshua, Happy Birthday to You! - Was Jesus a common name at the beginning of the first century? > Provides a nice explanation of the name of Jesus and its various forms in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, etc.
• The Complete Blogging the Bible > Started in 2007, a series of blog posts by an admitted non-expert, Jew as he just starts reading and asking questions about the text
• Jesus and the Gospel - What Really Happened? > From 2005: a nine-part, online conversation over three days by Alan Segal, Larry Hurtado, and John Kloppenborg considering historicity issues (especially criteria used for evaluation: dissimilarity, multiple attestation, etc.; Kloppenborg uses "not true stories, but stories that are true"), points of historical contact (eg, Baptism and Crucifixion), stories not necessarily historical but reflective of Xn spiritual values (eg, virgin birth or woman caught in adultery story), varieties of Judaism and the place of John the Baptist and Jesus, and more.

Canon Comparison Chart from Logos

Vincent Setterholm of Logos composed a very helpful "Canon Comparison Chart" that was included as part of their recently inaugurated Bible Study Magazine. A version of this chart has been shared online with helpful 'hover over' popups for notes. (Click on the graphic to see the page.)

Included are the canons of the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Hebrew Bible, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Syriac, Ethiopian, and Protestant. If you are trying to remember whether the Psalms of Solomon is in someone's Bible or not, here's one good place to look. [HT: Naked Bible]

Bibloi 8.0 from Silver Mountain Software

For many years, Bible Windows was the primary program I used for doing my biblical research. It was mainly a one-person operation run by the very capable John Baima. Under pressure from Microsoft (who claimed that every bit of software that had "window" as part of its title was under their control), Bible Windows was renamed Bibloi. I was still using Bibloi 8.0 up until about 6 years ago when I started using the more comprehensive programs from BibleWorks and Logos. I had noted occasionally that Bibloi was still available, but it seemed to have been orphanned. I just received an email from Silver Mountain Software, however, indicating that they have updated the web site and offer immediate downloading as a delivery option, so maybe there is still life in this Bible software.
A few things of note:

• Its Silver Fonts (SGreek and R/SHebrew) were an early standard for Greek and Hebrew fonts. (Still available as shareware.) It now is fully unicode compliant (using Silver Humana which includes Greek, Hebrew, and Coptic) and comes with a converter to go back/forth between the font encodings.
• It was always fast, both in terms of starting the program and conducting searches.
• It includes only a few English versions--NRSV, KJV, GWT, and a few others--but it does allow for importing all sorts of other texts from the Unbound Bible or the Online Bible or other beta code or plain text files.
• It uses the Analytical Greek NT as its base for the NT and links to the related Analytical Lexicon of the GNT as well as Louw-Nida. It was one of the first to link into Internet resources including the Perseus web site. It also provides links into Logos resources. It also does a nice job with its interlinear display.
• Silver Mountain also sells the Workplace Pack which I believe is still the best way to view and search the TLG and PHI CD-ROMs.

For a solid set of biblical texts and resources that can perform all the basic search and study tasks, Bibloi 8.0 is still a good value at only $95.

Collation and Evaluation of OT Apocrypha Translations

Bob Burns (of Summa Scriptura), in a posting on The Biblicalist on Yahoo groups, has provided a chart to sort out which apocryphal books are available in which of 12 English translations, how they are presented, and which texts they use as their basis. He provides his results as a XML spreadsheet, a MS Excel spreadsheet, or as an image file. (Click on the graphic above.) You should read his whole post to understand his evaluative guidelines, but in general, the translations based on the texts in the blue shaded lines are the best. Translations which include the most texts or more than one if there is an alternative text receive extra points. On this basis, the NETS (the New English Translation of the Septuagint), NRSV, and ESV come out 'best.' There are, of course, other ways these translations could be evaluated, and each of them have historical interest, but this is a helpful table providing a quick overview. Thanks to Bob!
UPDATE (2008.12.26): Note that Bob has now updated the data to include both Brenton's translation of the Septuagint and RH Charles' translations in his OT Apocrypha.

Ancient Rome 3D Updated

I had previously posted about Ancient Rome 3D in Google Earth. The Google Earth blog now reports that the 3D modeling has been greatly improved which results in much better viewing and navigation. As he reports:

If you were frustrated with how hard it was to load Ancient Rome when it came out last month, give it a try again. It's still not as simple as the built-in 3D Buildings layer. But, the experience of learning, and seeing, ancient Rome come to life is worth it. The placemark descriptions and links to further information are very educational. And the 3D buildings really help you visualize what it might have been like.

Be sure to check the directions on the Google Earth blog for getting it set up. The terrain layer loads rather quickly, but the first set of buildings took quite a while (10 minutes+) with my good connection. Maybe the server was busy... In any case, these little screen shots show the great detail available, some including interiors. With the Ancient Rome gallery layer enabled, you also have one click access to additional info.
You may also want to visit the Rome Reborn project from which much of the data was derived. Another good site to check is the Virtual Museum of the Ancient Via Flamina. It includes a 386Mb download reconstruction of an ancient village on this Roman road.

Just waiting for reconstructions of ancient Jerusalem, Ephesus, and Athens...

Latin-English Lexicons: WORDS and Perseus and more (including Accordance, BibleWorks, Logos)

If you work with Latin, there are a number of Latin-English lexical resources available, most for free.Whitaker's WORDS has about 39,000 entries and provides analysis and gloss. You can use it online HERE at this NotreDame site. You can download a version (for DOS, Win, Mac, Linux) HERE. Even better, download the WORDS version from that link, then get the Latin Assistant 2.0 from HERE. As the screenshot above shows, it provides a much more user-friendly interface and note that you can enter forms of words and have the morphological data provided as well as the meanings.. [HT: the amazing Pasquale]
Another site to check for an implementation of WORDS is the Classics Technology Center which has both a Latin to English and English to Latin option.Perseus provides both Charlton T. Lewis', An Elementary Latin Dictionary (search page) and the more comprehensive Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (search page). Perseus has all sorts of ways of linking the Latin to primary texts, as you can see in the graphic, but it can run slow. It is also able to search on forms in addition to the lexical entries.
(UPDATE) The best way to access Lewis and Short (as I should have noted originally since I highlighted it before!) is by using the free Diogenes program that runs on your computer. It's a 64Mb download that expands to over 500Mb, but it is an excellent resource.

NOTE: Accordance, BibleWorks, and Logos allow for hooks into the internet, so you could set up links from Latin texts in those programs into the NotreDame or Perseus sites. If someone knows how to set links or run scripts from the Bible software to either Latin Assistant or Diogenes, that would be very nice.

Note the Latin lexical resources available in a number of Bible software packages (and check this post for links):

• Accordance offers a morphologically tagged version of the Vulgate along with a simple Latin-English dictionary.
• Logos includes in a number of its libraries The Dictionary of the Vulgate New Testament by J. M. Harden, but the Latin Vulgate texts in Logos are not morphologically analyzed, so there is no direct link from the Latin to the dictionary. You can link to NotreDame or Perseus mentioned above.
• BibleWorks has a number of Vulgate and other Latin texts but does not include a lexicon. You will have to link out to NotreDame or Perseus mentioned above. (Or wait for something nice from Pasquale...) UPDATE (2013): BibleWorks9 does include the VULM version which is linked to Whitaker's Words so that any Latin word in a verse has morphological and lexical info available in the analysis window.
• VulSearch and LaParola both have morphologically tagged Vulgate versions and include Whitaker's Words within the programs.

Mindmapping resources

I have previously blogged about mindmapping resources, but I find that I have not really become comfortable or adept at using it productively. If you are interested in learning more or discovering resources available, there is a great summary and table by Robin Good. He writes:

Here below the set of key basic characteristics that I have utilized to compare these selection tools to draw your own mindmaps, so that you can easily find the best fit for your needs:

1. Price: Evaluate if you prefer a free service or a more complete solution with additional features.
2. Software / Web-based: Specifies if you can use the tool inside your browser or you have to download and install a software on your hard-disk.
3. Platform: Check if you can run the service on your operating system.
4. Free trial: Indicates if the service allows you to evaluate it for free during a limited period.
5. Collaborative working: Not all mind mapping services allows you to collaborate in real-time with your teammates. Find the ones that does.

There is also a more extensive list of resources but with less commentary provided by Jane Hart.

BiblePlaces features annotated satellite photos of Jerusalem

Todd Bolen of BiblePlaces.com and A.D. Riddle have a collection of helpfully annotated Google Earth views of Jerusalem that you can download in PowerPoint format. Valleys, springs, gates, hills, and such are clearly marked to provide a quick orientation to the city. Be sure to subscribe to the BiblePlaces newsletter.