mac

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!

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 🙂

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”?

Great Commericals.

Apple has great commercials. The PC/Mac guy ads are always good for a laugh. Here’s one if case you haven’t seen them.

I recently got an iMac, 20″ LCD screen. I’ve mostly liked it. I’ve had problems with some of the graphics I created for my friend Steve’s website. The top graphic has a background with a slight gradient that looks great, except on my Mac. On the Mac it’s invisible. I assume it’s something about the Safari browser at first, but then FireFox on the Mac has the same display problem. I’m baffled. Maybe my windows graphics program creating some magic windows-only jpeg image!

Then coincidentally my friend Brian tells me about the new class action lawsuit on the iMac I bought. Now all of a sudden it makes sense. It’s the monitor! So I send the URL to a friend with a new macbook – he can see the image fine. It’s time to visit the mac store and make sure it’s not just my monitor. This would be a huge disappointment. I mean I’m used to computer companies advertising false things, using cheap stuff, and of course Windows.

Maybe I believed the commercials…

Mac Update

Some people have been asking me questions about my blog. I realized something amazing! SOMEBODY IS READING IT.

Would I replace all my windows machines? No. I simply couldn’t afford it. All the software my kids have doesn’t run on it. I can’t afford it. If I was buying a new laptop – it would be a Mac. For the family machine the Mac is working great. I think as I move more toward software services like Gmail with smart apps that can manage those software service I become less concerned with the OS anyway.

I used to think Apple ripped you off on service, etc. Then I looked at the prices at BB and CC (geek squad etc).

K9 comes to the Mac

No, not a dog – a web filter! K9 is an amazing tool for filtering internet content. If you don’t like that idea just stop reading NOW.

Bluecoat is a company that sells industrial strength security and filtering tools. One of their assets is a huge categorized list of Internet sites and their general category. Is the site business, porn, movies? it’s all in the database. K9 is a free tool Bluecoat created for home users to filter internet requests. Most filters just look at the words on the website and make a guess if the content is OK. They use PICS ratings and other things but the bottom line is content filtering only gets you so far. K9 brings an immense categorization of the Internet to the table so most sites can be screened out (or in) with ease. K9 drops down to do content filtering if the site isn’t in it’s database. One thing I like about K9 is you can set it up to only allow sites in a certain set of categories and if it doesn’t know about the website it blocks it. K9 runs in the background – you forget it is there. It doesn’t hog your CPU, slow your internet browsing, or give you a lot of false warnings.

K9 has one HUGE problem. It’s only available for Windows.
Mac has one HUGE problem. Apple’s parental controls filtering is pathetic. The other filters are content only and are EXPENSIVE.

Bluecoat has announced there is a Mac version coming in early ’08! Problem solved. To the folks at BlueCoat – you’ve done a great service to parents and more, keep up the good work. Your product helps protect people from some of the worst society has to offer.