What’s a “Go” Box?

| Fri, August 12, 2005 | Training

The other day, Rick Brannan mentioned the Libronix DLS “Go” box casually in passing, as if everyone has that feature turned on and knows how to use it. Since Rick and I work with LDLS resource files all the time, we often stop thinking about titles and authors and start calling books by their project names: CHAPSOT, ANLEX, BHSWTS40.

We also use the identifiers to navigate quickly to the resources using the “Go” box that Rick was talking about. This is so integral to the way that I use the LDLS that I forget that most people don’t know about these shorthand identifiers, and furthermore, many people don’t even have the “Go” box turned on in the first place.

Inconceivable!

What is it? What we’ve been calling “the Go box” is really the “Quick Navigate Bar” that comes with the Power Tools addin. That’s exactly what it lets you do: navigate to any resource in your library quickly. I use the Quick Navigate Bar to do three things: 1) Quickly open specific resources (books); 2) navigate directly to a Bible reference in my preferred Bible (when it isn’t even open yet); and 3) do the same with a Hebrew lexicon.
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Logos icon stickers

| Fri, August 12, 2005 | Misc.

Now that we are building Logos Bible Software for the Mac we are buying more Macs. I think that it is pretty cool how Apple encloses a white logo sticker in their package and I have seen them around, on windows and doors and other places.

Our new logo combines a cross and a search icon, which gets to the heart of what our software is about: looking deeper into God’s Word.

So we ordered up a few thousand sheets with just the icon from our logo and we are including them in boxes and pre-pub shipments until we run out. They are vinyl with a removable adhesive, so feel free to stick them wherever you want.

Using the Works of Philo with BDAG

| Thu, August 11, 2005 | Products, Training

One thing I like to do when examining Greek word usage is to evaluate how the Greek word is used in similar context outside of the New Testament corpus.

This article will point out an easy way to use the Works of Philo (in English) in conjunction with the BDAG Lexicon. This same method can be used with other Greek corpora for which Logos Bible Software has English translations, such as the Works of Josephus (in English) or the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

The strategy discussed is really a temporary one as we’re currently working on versions of the following corpora in Greek, fully morphologically annotated:

[Read more…]

Rick’s Logos Bible Software Workspace

| Wed, August 10, 2005 | Training

Logos Bible Software supports the concept of a workspace. Workspaces are used in different ways by all sorts of people. The basic idea is for the software to keep track of your window arrangement, open texts, linked windows and other stuff.

Awhile back, on my personal blog, I blogged on how I’ve got my primary workspace set up. I thought it would be fun to share that here too. Click the above link to head to the article.

I’ve had a decent amount of feedback from folks that this article helped them understand a bit more about workspaces and gave them some insights to relationships between texts. If you work in the New Testament, and if you work through the Greek word-by-word, then you may enjoy checking it out.

Introducing … Eli Evans

| Tue, August 9, 2005 | Misc.

My name is Eli Evans, and I’ve been working at Logos for almost ten years now. (“HI, Eli!”)

It’s easy for me to remember that because my daughter Chelanne (/shel-ANN/) was only a few months old when I first began work at Logos as a “proofer.” Back in 1996, I was in music school (French horn) and my Dad was working at Logos in the dealer sales department. He told me about a new department that was just starting up that I might be interested: Electronic Text Development. It sounded exciting to me, and the closer I came to becoming a high school band instructor, the more I felt I had chosen the wrong career path. In fact, I began to believe that almost anything would be better than being a high school band instructor.

I started in the Electronic Text Development department about three weeks before Rick Brannan did (ha!), proofreading and tagging the electronic books that would eventually appear in the Libronix Digital Library System. Not long after, I was learning how to write short programs to convert files in various programs into Libronix format. Since then, I’ve needed to master Perl, RTF, SGML, DIESEL, XML, Unicode, JavaScript, and dozens of desktop publishing formats. I even had a brief flirtation with Visual Basic macros in Microsoft Word, but I don’t like to talk about that.

These days I work in the Design & Editorial department with Rick Brannan. (No matter what I do, I just can’t lose that guy.) I think that Rick is “Editorial” and I’m “Design.” Where Rick is the go-to guy for Greek resources, I mostly concentrate on the Hebrew databases and writing top secret data-entry tools for scholars and authors to create new LDLS content.

My personal website and blog are at Supakoo.com along with Rick Brannan’s, although I don’t blog about work much.

Using Logos to Examine NT Variants

| Mon, August 8, 2005 | Products, Training

In my morning devotional time, I’ve been reading through the Pauline Epistles in larger chunks. I tend to dwell in areas, reading the larger chunks over again, and sometimes dwelling on smaller chunks.

For the past week I’ve been in First Corinthians 12 and 13. And I’ve been dwelling on 1Co 13.1-3.

But as is my way, I’ve looked at the text in the Greek too. And I noticed some stuff from a text-critical perspective, so I thought a post on how I walk through this kind of stuff might be a good one. So, even though I’ve recently discussed some of these issues on my personal blog, in this article I’ll go into a little different detail, showing how I use Logos Bible Software in this regard.

There are two things in particular that jumped out at me when evaluating 1Co 13.1-3:

  1. The use of καὶ ἐὰν twice in v. 2, but the use of κἂν and καὶ ἐὰν in v. 3. The word κἂν is a crasis of καὶ ἐὰν. Why isn’t one or the other used consistently?
  2. The use of οὐθέν in v. 2 but οὐδὲν in v. 3. Why the different form of the word in each instance? Why isn’t one or the other used consistently?

There are a few different LDLS resources I’ll be using to examine what the textual evidence is in these situations. They are:

[Read more…]

World Factbook

| Fri, August 5, 2005 | Products

The World Factbook is compiled by the US CIA and is just what it sounds like: A bunch of facts about every country in the world. The book also features nice, clean maps of every country and digital versions of the country’s flag. World Factbook cover

Since we published the 1996 edition in Logos-compatible format the CIA has dramatically improved the free online edition, but I still find our edition useful. It brings up interesting data on any country-oriented search, and I use it to get background when I’m preparing to talk with someone from another country. It is also easier to run full-text searches against the Logos-compatible version.

Earlier this year we updated our ebook to the 2004 edition. With all the maps and flags it is a big download, but since we just reduced the price to “free”, it is a great value. Enjoy!

Nouns and Adjectives and Graphical Queries, Oh My!

| Thu, August 4, 2005 | Training

On Saturday morning I was studying the first part of 1Ti 4.6:

If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, (1Ti 4.6a, ESV)

When I was looking into the term “good servant”, I noticed that in the Greek it was an adjective and a noun that agreed in case and number. So, I wondered, what other things are called “good” in the Pastoral Epistles? This article explores ways to specify this sort of search with the Graphical Query Editor.

[I should note that I have been working through the Pastoral Epistles for some time. I blog about the Pastoral Epistles at http://PastoralEpistles.com and have some other information on my personal web site.]

This is the sort of thing that the Graphical Query Editor is designed to do without getting too bogged down in intricate search syntax. Sure, you could learn the syntax to specify it in a textual query, but it’s much more fun to make a pretty picture to specify your search query, like this:
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Hot Stuff Delivery

| Wed, August 3, 2005 | Misc.

The Logos Hot Sauce Museum, the developers’ 10 year collection of hot sauces from around the world, was decimated by last year’s fire next door and the attendant smoke damage to our offices. (We liked smoked peppers, but not when the smoke is from burning paint, carpet, etc.)

That’s just one more reason we were so happy to get a New Mexico Care Package from Logos user Bobby Martin.

Hot stuff is always welcome, though we recommend double-bagging the chili powder…

Scholar’s Library Silver Reviewed in RBL

| Wed, August 3, 2005 | Products

The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) sponsors a service known as the Review of Biblical Literature. This service publishes reviews of Biblical literature every week and makes the reviews available on the web for anyone to consult.

This week, one of the items they reviewed is our Scholar’s Library Silver Edition. By all means, please, check out the review.

And make sure to check out their search feature as well. If you’re looking for books in a particular area of Biblical or Ancient Near East studies, many times you’ll be able to find an in-depth scholarly review of the title you’re interested in.