Author: The Great Java

Bible Software for the Mac

picture-1If you are looking for Bible study software for the Mac you aren’t alone. On Windows there are quite a few options – even great free ones like Online Bible and e-Sword. I did a lot of “poking around” for low cost and free solutions. The only real solution I found, that was native to the Mac, was MacSword.  MacSword is a port of the open source “SWORD Project”. It didn’t do much for me, though it had great integration with the large Sword project library.

On Windows I used e-Sword, and I had bought a couple of modules for it (like NASB translation). I decided to look at running e-Sword on Mac using virtualization or emulation. Since I only have 1G of RAM on my MacBook I immediately tossed the idea of a tool like VMWare Fusion (which would have been easy and effective). I looked at using the Windows emulation software called “wine”. I already own a copy of Crossover, a paid supported version of the “wine” project.

I was able to use e-Sword on the Mac, and it works pretty well. The verse navigator box causes it to crash, but everything else works so far. Here are two options I found for installing it.

1) Get Mac e-Sword Package. This package bundles the free version of Wine with an e-sword distribution. You can click, install, and run. I found the tool worked fine but was a bit slow.  This was totally free and simple!

2) CrossOver with e-Sword. Since I own CrossOver which has the latest Wine code, etc. I decided to try it out. First I installed IE6 with CrossOver to create a Windows 98 “bottle” as my default. I then ran the installer for e-Sword using the CrossOver control panel. This worked fine and product started normally and works much faster than the one using the Darwine wine package (above).  CrossOver costs $30 but it’s a great product.  You can easily install Quicken, IE, Office, and many other windows programs easily onto the Mac.

Regardless of how you install it, I would recommend following these instructions for turning on font smoothing. Enjoy!

Time to Clean the Equipment! Really.

About 3 weeks ago my wife and I started noticing an odd rubbery metallic taste/smell to my espresso drinks. We had some immediate suspicions. The first was the cup itself. We had just picked up some new fun mugs at IKEA in Chicago and figured the nasty smell came from the cup. We swapped out cups and thankfully it wasn’t our new mugs. My next guess was the espresso blend itself.

I thought the beans smelled a little different when grinding. I know sometimes too much Robusta in a espresso blend can give the cup that flavor so I emailed my local roaster to see if there was anything new or maybe a bad roast batch had been reported (anything!). Nope, dead end. Time to clean the Ranchilio Rocky grinder.

I unscrewed the plate that holds the hopper and unthreaded the top burr. Yup, a 1/4 inch of yucky oils and residue. I got it all clean and cleaned the small cavities around the bottom burr. Fixed right? Nope, another dead end. Time to clean the machine.

I started with descaler, soaked all the components (wow – the portafilter!). The first shot I pulled revealed no change. I start wondering about that gasket in the brewhead that’s been there for 5+ years and the scary process of backflushing that I’ve not done (because of the vendor recommendations). I stumble across a great website (there are many for this machine) that finally gives me the courage to do these two things. I ordered a rubber insert for the portafilter that turns it into a blind (which forces pressure back into the machine for backflushing). In addition I picked up a $5 gasket. $10 in parts, $10 in shipping (boooo…!)

After emptying the machine and turning it on the side I wrestle out the gasket. Prying it out from the innermost part seemed to be the trick. To say there was a lot of oil and burnt reside in this area would have been an understatement. After removing it I used a standard espresso cleaning brush to get every corner of that brass brew head clean. Putting the new gasket in was simply, insert smooth side down and push. Next I backflush. I first put the knobby part of this rubber stopper down into the spout (made sense to me) but it didn’t seal, upside down did the trick. I flushed it several times and let it sit for a bit, then cleaned it out and backflushed again with water. After putting it all back together I pulled a couple shots with old beans.

The moment of truth. Will I be cursed forever with rubbery metal flavored coffee? I was happy to only smell coffee flavors when I dumped the 2 shots into the hot water to make an Americano! Gasket, backflush, who knows – one or both of them did the trick.

I found a lot of people complaining about this same issue on the net (but not a lot of answers). If you have a similar issue read the above links and order from Chris Coffee (I got parts in a few days). Gotta run, time for another Americano.

Getting a Netbook?

newmacFor a while I’ve wanted something a little more useful than my iPhone when I’m not at a computer.  I had a Toshiba laptop, but wanted something smaller with a longer battery life.  I started looking at the netbook models, and these caught my eye:

Dell Mini 9
MSI Wind U100
Lenovo S10

The one issue I kept getting hung up on with these devices was the screen resolution.  Most of them are only 500-600 pixels high.  That means a lot of scrolling on an already small trackpad.  Unfortunately right now in laptops (and netbooks) we mostly have 15.4 inch screens and 9-10 inch screens.  I started to look at my options for something closer to a 12″ screen.  This brought options like the IBM x40, ultramobiles, macbooks, and the new Dell Mini 12.  My plan was to run Linux or OSX (potentially try installing on non-Apple machine).  At the end of the day I found a used white macbook for a little over the price of a loaded netbook.  After just a day I can say the smaller Mac laptop fit the bill perfectly and didn’t break the bank.

I found it interesting my employer is now offering $50 netbooks in some areas if you purchase the right data plans. Too bad no MacBook discounts 🙂

Is it Branding or the Roasting?

photoIf you are a coffee lover like me you probably don’t like the fact that the popularity of coffee has more to do with product branding than the experience of the drink (or the quality of the bean or roasting). Since I’m always thinking of business opportunities on the web (in a grand delusion to escape corporate America) I’ve been intrigued by a few coffee companies (web and local) have used different forms of branding, causes, etc. to take this great commodity and make a decent profit.

Someone recent gave me a bag of this coffee, A Land of a Thousand Hills, which will be brewed tomorrow for me and the wife (and a carafe to take to work friends).  The thing that intrigues me is the work to build a message and niche branding behind the coffee.  I’ve often considered private labeling a local roaster and selling on the web, but haven’t found the right niche.

People love the coffee, but they also love the look of the bag and the story of the coffee.  In this case there is an Environmental, Christian, Help Rwanda Message.  Start helping by buying the coffee.  Most people don’t realize that coffee is what keeps many people in these countries fed.

These guys have a great niche and story… And we’ll see about the quality of the beans tomorrow.

Update: The roast was Italian, and the bean sized varied.  Like a Sumatra the smaller beans were fairly charred.  I expected to taste mostly a roast profile rather than a varietal one (starbucks effect).  The grind had an unusual distinct smell I couldn’t place until I drank it.  To my surprise I didn’t really taste a dark carmel roast flavor but something that tasted like green tea!  I have to say it is the most unusual coffee I’ve had.  Not being a fan of green tea, it’s not my “cup of tea” so to speak. One of my co-workers (with no prompting from me) said, “Is this tea or coffee?” I showed them the beans to dispel their unbelief!  I’ll have to ask my local roaster for some background on Rwandan coffee.  Thanks Therian for sharing some interesting Joe with an interesting message.

Olivetree Bible and the iPhone

I’ve used the OliveTree software for many years (and platforms). The iPhone version started off VERY rough but now they have a great product for this platform. I love the pop-up references when reading Grudem’s Systematic theology!

What I’ve got installed?

  • Several Bibles including NASB (thinking of buying Strongs version)
  • Grudem’s Systematic Theology (Great!)
  • Matthew Henry Commentary
  • Some Lewis and Piper books

If you have an iPhone and want to study the Christian scriptures look no further.

http://www.olivetree.com/

Why Google is Winning

Google is winning because it works.  People like things that “just work”. 

Let’s look at home computers.  They have become more complicated and error prone.  This has to do with Viruses, half-baked software, Microsoft engineering, and too many options on hardware.  Users get frustrated when their IT friend says, “Just buy a new PC from Best Buy”.  The answer is usually upgrade the hardware, wipe the drive, put better virus software on…. But the answer to “just make it work” is get a new PC.  Wonder why a lot of people are trying the Mac?

How about Google?  What “just works”? For an experiment I tried the Yahoo search bar in my browser first for two weeks. After a few searches I usually reverted to Google, and got what I wanted on the first page of results.  Today I’m switching my default search bar back to Google.  Remember “just works”?  Try putting “buy Mark lunch next Friday” in your Google calendar.  Yes, it will figure it out.  Google Calendar “Just works”. 

Rather than wrangling over features and functionality I’ve started just asking the question “Does it just work”?

KDE 4.2 Released

KDE 4.2?  Does it matter to you?

I recently tried KUbuntu live CD (8.10).  After being a KDE fan for a long time I figured it would be great to try the 4.1 version and see how it worked.  

Unfortunately, I found some of the basic things I wanted to do very confusing.  Not impossible, but after trying Ubuntu and seeing the simplicity I love in my Mac I was a bit underwhelmed.  Taking the 4.2 release for a test ride should be interesting.  There has been a lot negative press on the 4.x release – maybe 4.2 will address some of the problems.

Here is one of the big reasons I think KDE 4.2 might matter.  Each release there is a little better support for Windows.  I think a lot of Windows users that are using open source applications would love the opportunity to have a new window manager (a popular thing among us theming geeks for years [Sorry Frank, I know you don’t get this part]).  Ars Technica has a very interesting review / test drive of what worked, and what didn’t.  It’s a very interesting option that I think I’ll go try for myself.  If you are on Windows XP and planning to skip Vista but would like an eye-candy upgrade this might be the free ticket you were looking for.  I’ll add a comment on my results…

Lotus Connections 2.5

LotusSphere 2009 is going on this week in Orlando. I was unable to attend, but I am very excited to see some sneak-peek announcements this morning about the only Lotus product I care about, Lotus Connections.

Picking a base product for any service offering is a lot like jumping on a train. At the end of the day it’s a leap and if you make it, well, you probably got lucky. I’ve been busy working with the 2.0 version of this product and it seems at every turn I’m having “close but no cigar” moments. I’ve found myself adding patchwork to get some of the capabilities and look I want, often saying, “darn it’s so close!”. From what I’ve seen on this blog, the 2.5 version will add many of the things I’ve been hoping for.

It drives me crazy when systems organize information on a web site by functional views rather than usage scenarios. Can you imagine when you went to Facebook if you had to see “Picture updates” then go to another location for “Status Updates”, and then another for “Profile Updates”? You want to see everything happening, and in Facebook that’s called the “News Feed”. Looks like LC 2.5 will be adding that and we can leave behind the individual widgets on Homepage. Unfortunately it looks like the Community pages are still grouped by system, but we can easily write a widget to work off of a custom aggregate feed.

Communities is picking up a lot of much needed functionality from the screenshots. File sharing, Wiki, smells like Quickr. I’m not sure why the two products haven’t merged yet because they are so complimentary. If the Wiki is the Quickr wiki I really hope there will still be an integration plan for Confluence. Confluence is the leader in this space and many people have huge installations they won’t migrate. A simple way to map a community to a Confluence space + some member management would neatly fit the bill. Now that there is widget support I could create a widget for displaying Confluence content (oh, I have one…)

Not much information on the new forum support in Communities. The current forum isn’t really much better than FB and is too light for serious use. It needs to be top-notch. It needs to have Feed support by community, not topic centric.

Profiles is getting a “wall” which I guess in the corporate world will be called “Buzz”. There is a “status” but I wonder how Twitter-like it will be. Seems more like facebook status than twitter. I feed Twitter into FB and use it to update FB but also use it for conversations in twitterland.

Thanks Luis for the sneak peek, we’ll be waiting for a beta version 🙂

Merry Christmas!


The real message of Christmas for me, as a Christian, is the creator becoming part of the creation. The story can be found this time of year in many carols and the treasured, time-honored tales. It’s all based on what we know from history of that culture and what’s recorded in the Scriptures right? Well, not quite. Here’s a video sure to make you laugh and see the real point of an amazing tale. Enjoy Retooning the Nativity.

No Thanks McDonalds, Not Even if it is FREE

mccafe1.jpgMcDonalds is really wanting to get in on the coffee game. How do I know? All the local stores are doing “Free Lattes” all day on Friday. Free? Can you imagine if your local Starbucks had free Lattes? The police would have to direct traffic in front of the stores. We stopped to see if we could get a Redbox movie (with a free code) and getting a FREE Latte seemed right up our alley as Mr. & Mrs. GreatJava. My wife didn’t get much sleep last night, so she ordered a decaf. The clerk responded with “We don’t do decaf lattes”. What? Really? I wondered if what she meant was, “Lady, there is no real coffee in this, and therefore no caffeine”. My wife ordered the beverage which was prepared quickly.

We got in the car and my wife took one sip, which was followed by a “blaaah!”. Keep in mind, my wife is a well-trained coffee snob, so I figured I should try it. I opened the lid to find a few bubbles. Yes, bubbles not foam. It was near white in appearance, and had a faint coffee smell to it. Committed at this point, I take a sip. “Yuk.” Was it the lack of espresso, missing foam, or temperature? Nope, it was just gross. It tasted like someone warmed up some milk, blew a few bubbles in it with a straw, and mixed in a meagerly teaspoon of instant joe. Wow. McDonalds, you spent a lot of money on this product rollout, testing, and free samples. You’ve missed the boat by a mile – I suggest you stick with the burgers and keep your day job.