1) Why you need BiblePlus on a
Palm
BiblePlus is a must for Biblical
Studies
* lots of scholarly Bibles & tools - all FREE. Not
always the best, but very good.
* English translations: ESV, RSV, WEB
(modernized ASV) and lots more.
* Hebrew BHS texts with pointed Hebrew
& number-linking to lexicons
* Greek LXX NA27/USB3 with accents,
parsing & number-linking to lexicons
* Aramaic Targums (Neofiti,
Ps.Jon. & Onkelos) and English translations.
* Syriac NT (&
English) in easy-to-read Hebrew font and English translation.
*
Josephus in English & Greek, (Loeb & traditional refs) and Philo
(English)
* Early Church Fathers (English); Nag Hammadi texts
(English)
* Commentaries and other books, both scholarly &
devotional
You can see two translations at once, eg Greek LXX with
English LXX,
or Greek Josephus with English translation, or Hebrew OT with
LXX.
You can also search, keep bookmarks, and append notes to
passages.
The modules are tricky to find on the web, and the fonts are
almost impossible to
match with the texts, but
I've done all the work for
you - see below.
If you don't have enough tools in the Tyndale Kit,
sign up for free membership
at Chan's wonderful site at
www.thechan.com and get some
more.
Read a full review of BiblePlus at
http://www.bsreview.org/bplus.htm
If you find this
free software inadequate, there are lots of packages you can buy.
See the
summary of Palm software for Christians at
http://www.palmsource.com/interests/religion_christianity/
I
recommend
OliveTree. And
look out for
Bible
With You (it
is becoming very good)
See this
comparative
review of BiblePlus and other Palm Bible software
2) The models of Palm available
Should
you get a Palm or Pocket PC?
* BiblePlus is only available for Palms
though other (costly) software works on both.
* Palms are cheaper, becasue
the operating system is more efficient
(so it doesn't need such a
powerful processor and the battery can last longer)
* Pocket PCs do have
built-in compatibility with Work and Excel, but
"Documents To Go"
(bundled with many Palms) has arguably better compatibility
with
Word & Excel, and Wordsmith even shows TTF Greek & Hebrew
fonts.
(These programs are also available on the Pocket PC)
* Palms
are being made by a decreasing number of manufacturers,
so they may
eventually disappear. But that's what they said about the Mac
* Palms (except
Sony) use SD cards - put your camera SD in it and you can see
your
photos on a large bright screen. (Some Pocket PCs also have SD).
See a
detailed
comparison of
Palm v
PocketPC Which Palm should I buy? (show this to your
loved one before your birthday)
Requirements to get the best out of
BiblePlus
- hi res screen - ie 320x320 or the larger 320x480, rather than the
old 160x160
- expandable memory - ie an SD slot, to hold all those Bibles
& Commentaries
(128 MB should be plenty - each Bible is only about
3 MB)
- OS5 - ie the latest Palm operating system, necessary for the latest
software
(if you don't have all these, use the earlier versions of
BiblePlus.
See the previous notes at
http://www.TyndaleHouse.com/TTech/TTech021.htm
The
following Palms have all these features, in approximate order of ordinary to
special:
The guide prices were the cheapest on Froogle.com and Froogle.co.uk
in March 2006.
Most are cheaper in the US, some are cheaper in the UK. I
don't know why.
Normal size screen:
Palm Tungsten C:
$330 £120
Palm
Tungsten T & T2 : $230
£150
Palm
Tungsten E2: $160 £120
Normal size screen plus a camera:
Palm Zire 71: $130
£130
Palm Zire
72: $230 £170
Extra 50% screen size:
Palm Tungsten
T3: $400 £180
Palm Tungsten
T5: $330 £250
Extra 50% screen size plus WiFi:
Palm Tungsten TX:
$300 £200
Normal size screen plus a phone (unlocked - use a cheap
pay-as-you-go sim card):
Handspring Treo 650:
$500 £400
Some of these models are now discontinued and are often
available
very cheaply on eBay, sometimes new with guarantees.
Sony Palms have
wonderful
features, but can be difficult to find outside Japan.
I
recommend those models which have non-volatile memory
(so you don't lose
unsaved data if the battery dies)
- ie the
Tungsten E2, T5, TX and Treo
650.
Print out this section and give it to someone who loves you very
much
a week before your birthday.
3) Downloading and installing BiblePlus
software
As well as these
Instructions
see the list of
sources
and
licence
notes To install the BiblePlus modules:
1) Start up
Palm Quick Install
- either from Start: Programs: Palm
- or click on
Install in Palm Desktop
(or on a Mac, find the 'Send to Handheld'
icon)
The programs and modules are in zip folders which open
automatically in Win'XP
If you can't open zip folders, get a free
expander for Mac or PC from
Stuffit2)
Download and double-click on Program_Fonts.zip
-
click on 'extract all files' at the top left
- click Next, Next, tick 'Show
Extracted Files', and Finish.
- highlight all the files and drag them to the
'Handheld'
area of the Palm Install window.
3) Download and
Right-click on Bibles.zip
-
click on 'extract all'
- click Next, Next, tick 'Show Extracted Files', and
Finish.
- highlight all the files and drag them to the 'Expansion Card'
area
or, if this doesn't exist for your palm, to the 'Handheld'
-
this is a total of about 19Mb. If you don't have much room,
choose
which ones you want from list of
sources
4) If you want the Lexicons, repeat no.2 for
LexiconPrograms.zip,
and repeat no.3 for
Lexicons.zip.
5)
If you want more than just Bibles, repeat no. 3 for
Commentaries.zip
(just a coupld of scholarly ones)
Extra-Biblical.zip
(Philo, Josephus, Nag Hammadi etc)
6) Synchronise your
palm.
7) Run the new Bible+ program
8) Enable the
fonts:
- go to menu Options: Skins & Plugins
- the top box should
contain:
Hebrew25
PBLPHiresFonts
PB Greek 21
If
they are in the bottom box, highlight them and click 'Enable'
If others are
in the top box, highlight them and click 'Disable'
These three fonts work
well together. You can try other mixtures.
Don't enable too many at once,
because they can conflict with each other.
9) Enable the cross
references
- go to menu: Options: Preferences: Navigation
- tick
'Enable Cross References'
10) Enable the lexicons
- start PPI,
select RoadLingua as the program to look up, and click Save.
- start Plucker.
Go to the menu Options: Preferences: Lookup. Select "Look up in PPI."
- tick
"Word lookup always active". Now you can tap on a word to look it up
- start
BiblePlus. Click on menu: Options: Preferences: Interface,
and tick
"Double Tap PPI"
Using the Bibles &
Lexicons:
=======================
To see cross-references,
double-click on the verse number.
To see the Greek & Hebrew parsing
& vocab numbers (in BHS+, LXX and WH+)
use the menu View: Toggle
footnotes, or type Command-n (ie forward-slash - n)
To use the lexicons
tap on a Hebrew or Greek number (in BHS+, LXX and WH+)
or on a Latin word in
the Vulgate.
If RoadLingua opens in the wrong dictionary, change
it.
Click on "Hide" to return to BiblePlus.
Further instructions in
the
BiblePlus
Manual and for the lexicons in the
RoadLinguaManual
4) More texts to download
