Believe me, I have tried. Not just once or twice, but many times. I usually install some Linux distro on one of my PC boxes every few months – all the way from live CDs or DVDs of various brands, or full Windows-like packages like Linspire, to more “orthodox” ones like Red Hat, or different Suse versions up to 9.3, you name it… -, and invariably I end up reformatting the Linux partition and thinking to myself, “Well, maybe next time…” (big sigh)

For one thing, I welcome any serious alternative that will relieve me from having to work with Windows. I could go on and on sharing my reasons for trying to avoid Windows as much as possible, but it’s not Windows-bashing time, so I’ll move on. Another reason is that Linux reminds me a little bit of the best current OS available (i.e., Mac OS X). But all my dreams have been shattered in view of the fact that, IMHO, Linux is not ready yet for mass consumption.

Now, what’s all this got to do with Bible software? Fair question. BibleTime 1.5 has been recently released. It looks good, and I’d love to test it, say, under Suse 9.3. But I’m still recovering from the last time I run Suse. So, if anyone out there has tried the latest release and wants to report back, I’ll be happy to post the comments here. Otherwise, I’ll have to wait for another moment of inspiration, take a deep breath, and download the software. But again, this may happen rather soon, relatively late, or never. You never know when love/hate relationships are concerned…

I have added two new articles to the Reviews section: The Bible as a Resource for Translation Software, and a review of Online Bible Millennium Edition 1.11, both written by Jeff Allen. For those interested, a French version of these articles can be found on this page. Enjoy!

David Lang has written a useful comparison of different OS X Verse Insertion Utilities over at CMUG. There you’ll find a nice summary of the different tools available to OS X users for inserting Bible text in word processing applications.

Logos Bible Software has launched a new company blog, where different Logos employees will be writing about all things relating to their work in one of the leading names in the Bible software industry. Welcome to the blogosphere!

So far, you will find a couple of introductory entries by Bob Pritchett and Rick Brannan.

Contributed by guest blogger Ken Ristau

The latest edition of the RBL Newsletter reports that there is a new Bible Software review:

Scholar’s Library Silver Edition
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=4873
Reviewed by Jan Van Der Watt

While I think it is great that RBL is publishing reviews of Bible Software, I am disappointed by the nature of these reviews. This review and previous ones contain precious little information that couldn’t be gleaned from a quick perusal of the producing company’s website and, while this would be alright for a newspaper or a magazine review, a scholarly review should examine the accuracy and usefulness of the morphological databases and searches with them, provide benchmark tests, and display a greater awareness of the leading scholarly products from the competitors. The reviews by H. Van Dyke Parunak in JETS, which can be found through the reviews page of this website, are a good model for what I would expect from RBL and there are plenty of biblical scholars with the knowledge to do this sort of work.