Happy New Year to all Bible Software Review readers.

Hope to see you all next year with more reviews and lots of surprises!

There are seven new Logos for Mac video tutorials available. Check them out if you want to learn about the program.

If you are into Bible software for mobile devices, you may want to read two reviews of PocketBible 4 here and here, as well as a BibleReader 4 review (BlackBerry edition).

I wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas. God bless you all!

Os deseo a todos y cada uno de vosotros una Feliz Navidad. ¡Que Dios os bendiga!

As I said in a previous post, I have updated the software that powers this blog. So far so good. You won’t notice any difference, but there are lots of changes in the backend. As a result, most tasks have been streamlined and take less time and effort to complete. Unfortunately, I still have to do the blogging

I am hoping to do at least a couple of reviews during this Christmas break. Meanwhile, my to-do list keeps growing. There seems to be no end to the updating of previous releases and launching of new versions. This is good news, but since “the laborers are few,” I hope to get some more help this coming year. I appreciate your patience and understanding. You, the readers of this blog, are the ones who make this venture a worthwhile effort.

Here’s a rundown of some recent news:

There are already a number of unlockable modules available for e-Sword. The latest one to be released is Baker’s New Testament Commentary (12 Volumes), by William Hendriksen and Simon J. Kistemaker. And while on the subject of e-Sword, there is a very helpful Spanish tutorial on the use of the program which may be of interest to Spanish-speaking users. The first blog post includes a table of contents with links, and the tutorial can also be downloaded in .chm format.

BerBible has just been updated to version 2.50.0. I will try to include the new enhancements in the review when I have a moment or two.

Registration for BibleTech: 2009 is now open, and the list of speakers has been published. Plan ahead if you are considering attending the conference, to be held March 27/28 in Seattle, Washington.

Finally, I wanted to recommend Mark’s review of the mapping resources included in QuickVerse 2009 (see full review here), and his comparative analysis on how to search for long, complex sentences in the Gospel of Mark with the aid of Accordance, BibleWorks and Logos Bible Software (Part 1 and Part 2).

Brandon Staggs has released a tool that enables users to convert e-Sword modules to SwordSearcher modules. The utility is called es2f (e-Sword to Forge), and converts e-Sword files to the kind of format used by Forge, which is the name of the compiler that creates SwordSearcher modules. es2f can be used to convert Dictionaries, Topics, Commentaries and Bibles, but works only for user-created or public domain books, not for password-protected modules.

Incidentally, there is a new official repository of SwordSearcher modules here. SSModules offers additional modules not included in the official SwordSearcher Deluxe CD-ROM.

Tyndale Tech carries an interesting article on free tools for doing online research. David Instone-Brewer discusses the use of tools such as Zotero, Google Docs, Evernote and FLV Converter. He does a very nice job. Do take a look.

Silver Mountain Software, makers of Bibloi (reviewed here), has launched a revamped website and it is now offering all of its products as downloads (with or without accompanying CD-ROM).

Electronic delivery seems to be a very popular option in these days of widely available broadband connections (in Western countries, at least), as more and more Bible software developers are taking that route. From my own experience, this is a very common request made by users in different forums.

Over at Fostertribe, Jerry announces the completion of his round of Bible software reviews. What started as an overview of free and inexpensive applications became a series of 13 reviews of different packages and ended up with 3 more (already reported here) and now the remaining 4 (La Parola, Alkitab Bible Study, SwordBible and Bible Analyzer). All in all, quite a lot of work.

I’ve had some people ask me whether Jerry’s reviews are related in any way to BSR. The short answer is “No.” Despite the potentially misleading title of the page where his reviews are hosted (“Bible Software Review”), there is no relation whatsoever. I simply link to his reviews because I feel they can be of interest to readers of this site and weblog, but linking does not mean full endorsement. He has a different kind of readership in mind and – very important point – he only reviews Windows programs.

Obviously there is some overlap in our reviews, but you will soon find out that we aim at different things, and that our opinions differ on certain issues and ratings. Nevertheless, I appreciate his insights and think they are quite helpful. Anyone who takes upon themselves the task of reviewing Bible software has my respect. I know all too well what a difficult, challenging, and often thankless task this is!

I am currently updating the blog to WordPress 2.7. This means that you may find some quirks here and there. I will try to have everything in working order as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience!