Results tagged “resources” from Logos Bible Software Blog

It's 2:00 AM, and you can't sleep. You decide to browse the Logos website for books to buy. And you find the perfect book that you'd like to read right away before the need to sleep takes over.

So you add the downloadable book to your cart and purchase it. The only thing that stands between you and reading your new book is clicking the orange "Download and Unlock" button. Then you get a screen that says, "You have received an unlocking error. Please contact Customer Service at 1-800-875-6467 for further help." The only problem is that the Logos Customer Service team doesn't open until 6AM (PST). Alas, you return to be restless, forced to wait until the morning to dig into your new book.

This sad scenario can be avoided by making sure that your Libronix Customer ID has been entered in your web account prior to making an order.

Once you sign in to your web account, you will see a screen that includes your shipping and billing information. Below that, there is a section titled "Confirm Libronix Customer ID."

If this is blank (or has the wrong information in it), you will not be able to purchase any downloadable resources and you will get the infamous "unlocking error."

So what goes in this box? How do you find your Customer ID? Your Libronix Customer ID is usually either the email address you used when you first installed Libronix or, if you didn't enter one, an automatically created ID like LBXUSER948372.

Many customers put their current email address in as their Customer ID, but this may not be correct. To be sure, you should check in Libronix. Open Libronix and go to Help > About Libronix DLS.

After you've identified your Customer ID—in my case demo@libronix.com —make sure to enter it into your web account and click "Confirm." Now you will be able to successfully purchase and unlock books at Logos.com—even in the early hours of the morning when you can't sleep!

One more tip for Vista users: when you download a book file, it is usually best to save it to your desktop and then manually drag it to your Resources folder: C:\Program Files\Libronix DLS\Resources. If you're using the 64-bit version of Vista, the correct location is C:\Program Files (x86)\Libronix DLS\Resources.

Happy unlocking—and reading!

One of the benefits in doing what I do is interacting with different folks about the projects I'm privileged to work on. I get to interact with all sorts of people, many of whom give us valuable feedback on different products and projects. This happened within the past week, and I wanted to share the story.

Logos recently released the Josephus in Greek: Niese Critical Edition with Apparatus. This was a large project and involved a lot of work by a lot of people. It was a great feeling to finally hear that it had shipped because, with the apparatus and the newly-translated prefaces, this puts a lot of stuff that wasn't easily available into the hands of a lot of folks.

After Josephus in Greek: Niese Critical Edition with Apparatus had been released a few weeks, I was forwarded some feedback from Steve Mason, who is a specialist in the study of Josephus. Some of Steve's work is available in Logos format, see Josephus and the New Testament and the Flavius Josephus Collection.

Anyway, Steve rightly noted that, while in the Greek text, it wasn't that easy to see if there were apparatus entries for a particular line of text. The Greek text and apparatus are separate resources that can scroll together, this allows one to scan the whole apparatus to notice if there are trends in omission/addition/correction sources. But it meant that the Greek text itself didn't provide clues of apparatus entries. He was suggesting that we try to do some sort of linking to make the content easier to access.

In our correspondence, we figured out a solution to the problem. I could insert an apparatus note indicator after a line number if the line had an entry in the apparatus. Yeah, it sounds weird when you write it out. Here's a picture of the newly-revised resource. Note the dagger (†) after the line number, that is the indicator of apparatus material relevant to the line:

The hover allows one to consult the apparatus content quickly. Note how it displays underneath the Greek line, so you can see which entry applies to which word in the line. If you would like to consult the apparatus further, just click on the indicator (†) instead of hovering on it, and the apparatus itself will be opened to the proper location.

All in all, this should help make the apparatus content even more approachable and useable. True, we should've had this type of feature implemented in the first place, but thanks to Steve Mason's feedback and our conversation, we now have this implemented and available for everyone who purchased the Josephus in Greek: Niese Critical Edition with Apparatus collection.

How do you get it? Just go to our resource FTP site: ftp://ftp.logos.com/lbxbooks and look for the file JOSGK.lbxlls. Download it, put it in your resource folder, and the next time you start Logos it should be there and ready to go. (Vista users may want to consult this page for further info on downloading resources)

A potential customer emailed me his concerns about investing in an electronic library:

"I have had the desire to invest in an electronic library, but I am terrified of investing all of this money into one and then losing my money's worth because new computers will not be able to read them. How does Logos deal with this? Will my grandchildren be able to use my electronic library?"

This is a fear we hear regularly, but one that quickly goes away once we explain how Logos licenses the content, not the file-format.

It's true that digital data can be lost if it is not constantly migrated to new storage media and kept in up-to-date or easily parsed formats. Paper books can be lost, too — just look at New Orleans and the libraries lost to flooding and mold.

The key issue is, who is ensuring your continued access? With paper it's you — you have to keep it dry and away from fire, and you have to be willing to store and move it. (Most books are "lost" when people don't want to move them yet again.)

I can't make guarantees about the future; nobody can. But in Logos' case, we've got a 17 year track record, we're a strong business, and we've honored users licenses to the electronic books through various format, media, and operating system changes for more than a dozen years. That's a pretty good record.

Moreover, what we sell you is the license to the book, NOT the digital file. When we change formats (which we've done) you don't have to re-acquire a license. When music went from vinyl records to cassettes to CD's, you had to re-purchase the album each time. But we aren't selling you "today's format" — we're selling an electronic license. With Logos, it's as if you're provided the song free on cassette, CD, and then digital download, all because of your original vinyl purchase.

Can you loan the book, and can your grandchildren have it [see the clarification below]? No. But not because of the electronic format. It's because we offer a really good price in exchange for licensing to one user. We sell our electronic books (in collections) at a huge discount from list price.

The big question is, what is your goal? To have beautiful books on your shelf that you can pass as heirlooms to your descendents, or to get convenient, useful access to a large library of content with a powerful set of tools for searching and reports?

I can "acquire a movie" in several ways: $9 at the theater, $1.99 VHS rental later, $29.95 to own the DVD, or (maybe) hundreds of dollars to acquire a film print. Each format has strengths and weaknesses. The theater experience is the best way to see it, but when it's over, it's over. The rental lets me rewind and pause and watch it a few times, but it's on a small screen and later in the release cycle. The DVD is also on my home screen, costs more, and might still go obsolete years down the road. The film is physically simple — shine light through the film to project — and actually the "safest" format to ensure my descendents can watch it, but it's more expensive, more awkward, etc.

The biggest risk with our electronic books is that we go out of business and then, some years later, computers change in a way that doesn't let you run our software. We intend, of course, to stay in business, and (to the best of our knowledge) we're the largest and strongest player in Bible software. But still, A) virtualization technology will probably ensure the ability to run this generation of applications for a long time and B) we have a large enough customer base that even in a bankruptcy someone would probably acquire and retain our product line and/or customer relationships.

So is your investment in e-books a safe bet? I believe so. Plus, it's easier on the back when it's time to move your library.

I thought that when you were studying a word in BDAG (for instance) and you hit the right arrow your next lexicon would open up to that word, if the lexicon contained it. When I hit the right arrow from BDAG I get another lexicon (TDNT) but it opens up to some random page. Am I doing something wrong or is this not possible? Thanks for any suggestions Sounds like the active index in BDAG is page number, not topic so when you right arrow LDLS goes to the same page in the next resource. The active index icon is near the current reference box on the resource toolbar and looks like a page. -- Clif

We realize that we've been sending a lot of Pre-Pubs your way—on average about one a day. In some ways that's good because that gives you more books to choose from and it's more likely that we'll offer the kinds of books that you want. But it also has its downsides. For one, it's easy for many of these collections and titles to end up getting lost on our massive Pre-Pub page, which has nearly 200 products on it right now.

Since we add new Pre-Pubs at such a rapid pace, it's likely that there are some  buried deep in the page that might be right up your alley. Perhaps one of these:

1. Old Testament Studies Series Collection (8 Vols.)
2. Christ Is All
3. PBI Old Testament Studies Collection (6 Vols.)
4. Robert P. Lightner and Aubrey Malphurs Collection (9 Vols.)
5. Smeaton Theology Collection (3 Vols.)
6. Evangelism Collection (11 Vols.)
7. Broadman & Holman Baptist History Collection (11 Vols.)
8. Theology and Doctrine Collection (16 Vols.)
9. The Greek Testament by Henry Alford (8 Vols.)
10. Sheffield Reader Collection (12 Vols.)

Each of these needs just a handful of orders to send them into production. Give them a look. If something catches your eye that you had previously missed, consider placing your pre-order. You could be the one to send it into production and make lots of patient people very happy.

If you love to study the Bible, you probably love commentaries as well. Commentaries are wonderful tools for helping you to understand the historical background of the Bible; the meaning of its words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and books; its timeless theological message; and how all of that applies to how we ought to live in the 21st century.

Commentaries are ideal books to have in digital format, especially when connected with the power of the Passage Guide. That's part of the reason that they are our top selling category of add-on books. If you regularly watch our Pre-Pub page, you've no doubt noticed that we add new commentary series all the time.

Here are the recent additions to the Pre-Pub page since the last time I mentioned the commentary series on Pre-Pub:

• Cornerstone Biblical Commentary (9 Vols.)
• Anchor Yale Bible (83 Vols.)
• Focus on the Bible Commentaries (32 Vols.)
• Black's New Testament Commentary (13 Vols.)
• The Expositor's Greek Testament (5 Vols.)
• An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, by John Owen (7 Vols.)

We have several pages on our website that are geared to help you keep up with all the commentaries that we are making available—and help you choose the best ones for you.

The Product Guide to Multi-Volume Commentaries brings together all of the commentary sets we offer and provides essential details like intended audience, publisher, number of volumes, etc. We try to update it every time we add a new series to Pre-Pub or Community Pricing, so it should be a fairly accurate list of all the series that we offer. If you're looking to add new commentaries to your digital library, this is the best place to start.

But what if you are studying or preaching on a particular book and want to find all of the commentaries that we have on, say, Romans? You could try searching on Romans, but that won't provide you with a completely accurate list. (It's even worse if you search on Mark, since Mark is a common first name and mark is a common noun and verb in the English language.)

We're working on ways to make it easier to search and browse for what you're looking for—like finding all the commentaries we offer on a particular book—but in the meantime we're thrilled to be able to point you to an awesome new website run by DTS grad and developer John Dyer: BestCommentaries.com.

BestCommentaries.com lists the most important commentaries on every book of the Bible, along with the series they are in (if any), ratings, categorization, places to buy, and so much more. It even lists projected forthcoming commentaries! And one of the coolest new features is the integration with Logos.com. As you browse through BestCommentaries.com, look for the Logos logo. Whenever you see it, it's an indication that that commentary is available (or will soon be available) in our format. Click it to go straight to the product page and place your order or pre-order.

You'll see our logo on the best of the best page, as well as in the list of commentaries on a book when you hover over the commentary

and on the individual commentary pages.

As you continue to build the commentaries section of your library—both print and digital—be sure to make use of all of the helpful information at BestCommentaries.com. You might just find some new commentaries to add to your Libronix digital library that you didn't even know were available!

Update: John just created a new Logos page where you can see all of the commentaries available in our format. Very cool.

I mentioned in yesterday's blog post that you may want to keep locked resources on your hard drive so you can (1) search them and (2) find cool new resources to add to your digital library.

If you've managed to stumble across a locked resource that you'd like to unlock, you have several options.

For your convenience, you can unlock most resources from within the program itself. Simply click on the locked resource, and then click on "Unlock this resource..." in the window that opens.

Or click the padlock icon in the Tools menu or on your toolbar.

With the built-in unlocker, you can have your new resource unlocked and begin using it immediately.

Your other options are to head on over to Logos.com and search for the resource you want to unlock (most resources are available for immediate download) or give our sales team at jingle at 800-875-6467.

Read more about unlocking resources in this article.

A couple of weeks ago I showed you how to free up some hard drive space by deleting duplicate resources. There's another way to make even more space available: deleting locked resources.

Searching Locked Resources

Now, before I show you how to do that, I should tell you that there is actually a very good reason for keeping locked resources on your hard drive. You may not know this, but you can actually search the contents of locked resources as well. Libronix will even give you the page numbers where the hits for your search occur!

This is helpful for two reasons:

1. If you have the book in print, you can pull it off your shelf and find exactly what you're looking for—far more powerful and far easier to use than typical indexes, which the print book may not even have.
2. You may find other resources that you don't have in Libronix or in print that deal with a topic or passage that you're studying that you might want to add to your library.

But if you don't plan to search your locked resources and need to free up some space, you may want to delete them.

Do You Have Locked Resources?

To find out if you have locked resources on your computer, open My Library and select "All Locked Resources" under the "Collection" drop-down.

Locked resources have a yellow padlock over the book icon.

How Can You Delete Them?

There are two methods for deleting locked resources.

Method 1

If you have a smaller number of locked resources, you could run a Bibliography report (Tools > Library Management > Bibliography) and set it to "All Locked Resources" and "Titles and Locations" to find the file names and locations for all of your locked resources. You could then open your resources folder (e.g., C:\Program Files\Libronix DLS\Resources) and manually delete the locked resources you no longer want. (You may need to close Libronix in order to delete them.)

Method 2

If you have a larger number of locked resources, you may want to try this method. It does require that you have some free space, and it does take some time to run.

NOTE: This method is recommended only for advanced users.

1. Open the Location Manager (Tools > Library Management > Location Manager) and select "Unlocked on Local Drives." Enter a new destination that doesn't have any files in it (e.g., C:\Program Files\Libronix DLS\Resources\Unlocked). If the folder doesn't exist, Libronix will automatically create it. After Libronix is done generating the list of resource, click "Copy Resources." Libronix will copy all unlocked resources to your new folder. Be patient. It may take some time. Wait until it is completely done before proceeding.
2. Manually delete all of the resources from your original resources folder, since it contains locked and unlocked resources. To do this, open your resources folder in Windows Explorer and select all of the resources. If your new resources folder is a subfolder of your original resources folder, make sure not to delete it or any other folders (e.g., Media). Delete only the .lbxlls files.
3. Move all of the resources from your new resources folder back to your original resources folder and delete the new resources folder.
4. Start Libronix and open My Library. If any of your unlocked resources are grayed out, that means that you deleted some unlocked resources as well. Don't worry. You can restore them from your Recycle Bin. If you don't see any grayed out unlocked resources, you can proceed to Refresh Resources (Tools > Option > General > Resource Paths). All locked resources should now be gone.

Enjoy your extra space!

A while back someone sent me a question about how to use the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary to the fullest.

Any good ideas on where I can go to learn how to most effectively use this dictionary in my study process? Is there a way to integrate it into the Bible Word Study selection?

Any help would be appreciated!

I sent this user some tips, but thought this might be worthy of a blog post—especially since it’s back-to-school time and we are currently offering a 30% discount on this wonderful resource. Just use coupon code YALE to save more than $60!

Setting Up Your Keylink Preferences

First, you should set up your keylink preferences. Go to Tools > Options > Keylinks and select “English” from the “Data Type” drop-down menu. Then find the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary in the list of resources in the bottom window and “Promote” it to the top. Prioritize it wherever you’d like. If you want it to be the first resource that Libronix looks to, move it to the top of your list.

This allows you to double-click on any English word and have quick access to the AYBD entry, if there is one. (You’ll need to set AYBD as your first keylink destination or set your keylink preferences to open several keylink destinations at a time.)

This also allows you to see AYBD entries in the Bible Word Study report.

By the way, if you don’t have the updated Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary resource (formerly Anchor Bible Dictionary), you can get it by running the resource auto-update script or by downloading it directly from our FTP server.

Creating a Parallel Resource Association

You may also want to set up a custom parallel resource association of all of your Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias. This allows you to jump from the entry on “Jericho,” for example, in the AYBD to the one in other Bible dictionary like ISBE or the New Bible Dictionary by simply hitting the right arrow key. Make sure the active index is set to “Topics.”

By creating a custom parallel resource association, you get to control which resources Libronix looks to and you get to put them in whatever order you’d like.

Watch the Video!

For more tips, see our training video on Using the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary in Logos Bible Software. It’s embedded below. If you’re reading this in your email inbox or your RSS reader and don’t see the video, visit the blog post to watch it.

To add this resource to your Libronix digital library, visit the product page. And make sure to use coupon code YALE to save 30%!

Hard drive prices continue to plummet. I was surprised to notice a couple of days ago that you can now get a 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 desktop hard drive for under $75. The 7200.11 is only $5 more. When I checked a few months ago, they were $110 and $120 respectively.

If you’re like me, though, you still manage to find plenty of things to fill up your hard drive with and want to make sure that you don’t have unnecessary duplicate content taking up precious space.

Cleaning Up Your Libronix Library

It is likely that you have multiple copies of at least some of your resources on your hard drive. Here are three possible scenarios:

• You have old LLS resources, downloaded the new Libronix ones, and never deleted the old ones.
• You have more than one resources folder, and the same resources have accidentally ended up in more than one of them.
• You manually copied resources to your resources folder and had Windows keep both instead of overwriting or skipping.

If you have the Power Tools Addin, you can easily remove these duplicate resources and free up some hard drive space. (If you don’t have it, you can install it by simply running Libronix Update and checking the appropriate box.)

Here are the steps to take for the best experience in removing your duplicate resources:

1. Refresh Resources: Go to Tools > Options > General > Resource Paths and click “Refresh Resources.” Restart Libronix to start the refreshing process. You’ll see “Discovering Resources” in the bottom right-hand corner. It will disappear once the refreshing process is complete.
2. Restart Libronix: Once Libronix is done refreshing resources, restart Libronix twice.
3. Run the Remove Duplicate Resources Tool: Go to Tools > Library Management > Remove Duplicate Resources, and Libronix will begin scanning your resource paths for any duplicate resources files. You can leave it at “Unlocked on Local Drives” unless you keep locked resources on your computer.
4. Delete the Duplicate Files: When it finishes building the list, you’ll see that at least one box is checked for each duplicate resource. (You shouldn’t need to check any boxes. Libronix will automatically check the boxes for the files that can safely been deleted.) Libronix will keep the newest resource and delete all others. Scan through the list to see what files will be deleted, and then click “Delete Files.”

That’s it. Enjoy that extra space! :)

In Wednesday's blog post I talked about the Resource Auto Update script and how it is important that you run it regularly to make sure that you have the most up-to-date version of your resource files.

I mentioned how you could bookmark the link in your browser, but some of you may prefer to have the link right in Libronix. So I've created a quick video demo that shows you how to create a resource update toolbar button.

If you don't want to watch the video but just want the steps, here they are:

1. Open Libronix.
2. Right click in the toolbar area and click "Customize."
3. Click "New" to create a new toolbar. (You can also add the button to a pre-existing custom toolbar.)
4. Leave the "Category" as "Special," and click on "Go To (Internet Application)."
5. Click "Add," give the toolbar a name like "Resource Update," and then click on "Details."
6. (Optional: Give the button a name, select a style and icon, and assign a shortcut key.)
7. Paste the following link into the "Internet Address" box: http://www.logos.com/media/update/ResourceAutoUpdate.lbxupd.
8. Click "OK," "OK," and "Close."
9. Click your new button (or use your shortcut key) to run the Resource Auto Update.

Or just download the toolbar, put it in your My Documents\Libronix DLS\CustomToolbars folder, and enable it from the right-click menu by clicking in the toolbar area and selecting "Resource Update."

A friend of mine recently emailed me the following question:

I’ve been sorting my library into collections and (several times) I’ve come across duplicate books with slightly different titles, e.g., (1) NBATLAS (New Bible Atlas) and (2) New Bible Atlas (Authors listed).

Any suggestions on how to eliminate these duplicates? I have tried the “Remove Duplicate Resources” function, but this function doesn’t seem to treat these occurrences as true duplicates.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

My friend is a very sharp guy, so I figured if he has had this question, there are probably many others who have as well.

When you see what appears to be two copies of a resource, you are probably simply seeing alternate titles for the same resource. That's why Tools > Library Management > Remove Duplicate Resources won't do anything. This feature is built into Libronix to make it easier to find titles in My Library, but not everyone wants to see multiple titles for their resources, so we allow you to turn this off. To set it to show only the primary title for each resource, click Tools > Options > General > Interface and check the box next to Use Only Primary Resource Titles in My Library.

Now you should see only one entry for every resource. Hope this helps!