Happy 20th Birthday, Accordance!

Accordance is celebrating its 20th birthday this year, having released version 1.0 in 1994. I didn't begin using it until 1998, when it was around version 3, I believe. Accordance played a significant role in my move from using Windows to the Macintosh in 1998. As I was considering the transition, Bible software was my last and most important holdup. I wanted to make certain that I could still access original language texts like I could do with the software I was using at the time in Windows. Someone told me about Accordance, and I began researching the program. After reading a handful of 3rd party reviews, I was blown away. I can't remember the details now, but I remember realizing that I couldn't do what I was reading about Accordance in any program that I knew of running on Windows.

Of course, today Accordance runs on Windows as well as the Mac--and iOS. I use Accordance every day and have done so for years. I have four Bible software programs installed on my MacBook Pro, but 95% of what I need Bible software for I do in Accordance. It's my go-to program. Accordance is not only fast, but it also does all my exegetical "heavy lifting." 

Through April 9, Accordance is running a 20% off everthing sale. That's everthing--even the larger collections of software. To take advantage of the sale, use the code "Anni20."

Your questions, thoughts, comments and rebuttals are welcome in the comments section.

Accordance for Windows on a Surface Pro

Last week, Accordance for Windows dropped its "beta" status and was released to the world. I've been running Accordance for Windows since very early builds on my Surface Pro, and I've watched as each release improved stability and added in features already present in the Mac version. 

For those who don't know, Accordance has been a premium Bible software application on the Macintosh since 1994. It was the first Bible application on the Mac to bring original biblical languages to users, and it has continued to maintain its reputation as being the application for serious study of biblical Greek and Hebrew (and now a number of other related languages).

Accordance has always had the reputation of being extremely fast, able to perform complex searches, often in a literal blink of the eye. Fortunately, the newly released Windows version maintains that same speed and flexibility. 

As I mentioned, I've been running Accordance on a Microsoft Surface Pro (128 GB model, running Windows 8.1 Preview). I've put together a video that lasts roughly 12 and a half minutes featuring Accordance on my Surface Pro. Normally, if I were demonstrating software, I'd use screen recording software, but in this instance, I've used a hand-held Canon video camera so that I can demonstrate the use of a digital pen. 

Here's my video on YouTube. I recommend watching it full screen at 720p or 1080p.

Or if you like, here's the original and more shaky version on Vimeo.

Want to run Accordance on your own Surface Pro? Oak Tree Software has just announced that they are giving away a brand new Surface Pro 2 to a lucky winner. Enter here.

For more on Accordance for Windows:

• Accordance for Windows (offical page)
• Accordance podcast #94: Accordance for Windows (video)
• Accordance for Windows Is Here! (video)
• Accordance for Windows: Yes, It's Real (This Lamp)

As always, your questions, thoughts, comments and rebuttals are welcome in the comments.

Accordance for Windows: Yes, It's Real

Optional headline: A significant temperature decrease in Hades has been reported.

Click on image for a larger view.

What you're seeing above is an internal beta for Accordance 10.x for Windows, running in Windows 8. Yes, Accordance, which has been exclusively on Apple platforms since it was launched in 1994, is coming to Windows. This is the second internal beta released in as many weeks. Although an exact release date (beyond simply 2013) has not yet been announced, the build I have is already starting to impress. 

If you've been wanting to run Accordance--with all its speed and power--but didn't want to leave Microsoft Windows to do so, you won't have to wait much longer.

For what it's worth, I would suggest that the beta of Accordance for Windows is already faster than similar programs on the same platform.

Stay tuned. More details to come. 

The image above has been posted with permission. Your questions, thoughts, comments and rebuttals are welcome below.

OakTree Releases Nestle-Aland 28th Edition Greek New Testament with Apparatus for Accordance

Yesterday, OakTree Software released the new 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece (or Greek New Testament) for Accordance Bible Software. The NA28 first appeared near the end of 2012 in print, but the electronic edition in Accordance allows for much greater flexibility in its use. The Accordance edition of the NA28 takes the content of the hard copy and separates it into three distinct modules that can run in sync together or with other New Testament texts and reference tools, such as commentaries. The three modules include the text itself, the critical apparatus and a separate cross reference tool.

Text, apparatus, and cross references. Click on the image to see fullscreen. The changes between the 27th and 28th edition are not earth shattering in what I've looked at so far, but all who are interested in the latest developments in New Testament studies will want this update. The official website of the Nestle-Aland text contains a basic summary of the changes:

1. Revision and Correction of the Whole Edition

• Newly discovered Papyri listed
• Distinction between consistently cited witnesses of the first and second order abandoned
• Apparatus notes systematically checked
• Imprecise notes abandoned
• Previously concatenated notes now cited separately
• Inserted Latin texts reduced and translated
• References thoroughly revised

2. Revision of the Catholic Letters

• New reconstruction of the text
• Defining the Consistently Cited Witnesses for the Catholic Letters

There are 34 changes in the 27th and 28th editions of the text, and these occur only in the Catholic Letters. If you already have the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek text, you can use Accordance's compare feature to immediately see the differences between the two editions:

Comparing the NA27 & NA28. Click on the image for a larger view.Rick Bennett has put together a fantastic video exploring the NA27 in Accordance that easily demonstrates the flexibility and superiority of a tagged electronic biblical text over a regular print edition. The video clocks in at 6:50 minutes and is well worth your time. 

New users will pay $109 for the NA28, but there is also upgrade pricing available for those who own an earlier edition of the Greek New Testament. See details at the Accordance website.

As always, your questions, thoughts, comments and rebuttals are welcome.

Review: Microsoft Surface RT

I switched from Windows to the Mac as my main computing platform in 1998 for reasons I’ve discussed elsewhere before. Of course, I never left Windows completely behind. I’ve kept up with it over the years by running current versions first in VirtualPC and more recently in VMWare Fusion. I even spent part of last decade in a job where I administered two Windows servers and about 140 Windows client machines (all of which I managed from an eMac).

Having said that, however, I still admit that Apple’s family of devices work well for me. In our home we have iPads, MacBooks, iPhones, and an AppleTV. Everything works well together, and I have no plans on switching back to Windows.

And yet, if you don’t count the netbook I bought three years ago for the purpose of turning into a Hackintosh, the Windows Surface RT is the first new Windows machine I’ve bought in almost a decade and a half. And guess what? I like it.

For whatever reason, I was intrigued by the Surface RT since it was first announced. The tech press (of which I spend way too much time reading) has been fairly critical of the Surface RT. And yet, I discovered something very interesting a few weeks ago. I was on the website of one of the national chains selling the Surface and I looked at the customer reviews. That is, the reviews of people who are actually using these machines—not the tech writers who spent a few days with a review copy of the surface and then went back on to other equipment. I noticed in reading the customer reviews that “real life” owners of the Surface RT really seemed to like the device. The reviews were overwhelmingly positive. I checked some other sites with customer reviews and found the same situation.

Around three weeks ago, Staples offered a coupon for $100 off any Windows 8 tablet or notebook computer, so I bought the low-end Surface RT. I’m referring to the one with only a measly 32 GB of storage space, almost half of which is taken up by Windows 8.

Windows 8 has been a very polarizing operating system. I hear more negative than positive, but I also realize that people who don’t like something are usually more vocal than those who do. I’d read in a number of places that Windows 8 is best experienced on touchscreen, and I can now agree that’s completely true. In fact, I understood Windows 8 better in using the Surface RT in two days than I’d understood Windows 8 using it in VMWare for five months.

Since it's been five months since the Surface RT was released, I'm glad I waited and let the rest of the Windows faithful suffer through the early rough spots—especially after listening to some of the early SurfaceGeeks podcasts. I'm a big Evernote user, and if I can have Evernote on a device, I can get a lot done. From the sound of things, the early Evernote release was not quite up to par. Of course, I assume I could have used it on the web. Nevertheless, I find that Evernote Touch on the Surface RT is quite usable.

For those who are not in the know, Microsoft, which has traditionally been primarily a software company, has released their first tablet computers with the Surface RT and the Surface Pro. There seems to be a lot of confusion between these two devices, but basically, the Surface RT can only run Windows 8 apps and Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, & OneNote only), while the Surface Pro can essentially run any Windows program. Both devices look very similar, although the Surface Pro is slightly thicker. And the Surface pro costs a good bit more than the Surface RT.

The Surface RT in many ways is meant to be the “pure” Windows 8 experience because it cannot run any older Windows programs, other than Office. Many consider the version of Windows on the Surface RT (called Windows RT) to be the future of Windows. Personally, because I do not run Windows as a primary platform, I did not need the more capable Surface Pro because I have Windows 8 Professional in VMWare on my MacBook Pro. As I said, it was the Surface RT that intrigued me, and I wanted to experience Windows 8 on a touchscreen.

In spite of much outcry against Windows 8, and regardless of the debates as to whether the direction Microsoft has taken is the right one, I do believe they should be given a little credit. It’s not easy to make a big shift in computer platforms, especially when considering the massive user base that Microsoft has with Windows. Also, I believe it’s worth noting that in a technology culture that has been so heavily influenced by Apple’s iOS, Microsoft actually came up with an interface that is significantly different.

Although it's not a strictly apples to apples comparison (no pun initially intended, but there it is), I can best compare the Surface RT to my iPad experience. And, although there are a number of important differences between the Surface RT and the iPad, I do believe this is a fair comparison. The Surface RT is distinguished from the Surface Pro in that it is intended to be a lower-cost, consumer-level tablet, much like the iPad.

What the Surface RT allows me to do that I cannot do on the iPad. I teach university classes which entails a lot of paper grading. Students upload assignments to Blackboard, and I download them and grade them on my MacBook. I can't do this on my iPad for a number of reasons. Obviously, there's not a native version of MS Word for the iPad (yet). I use Word's internal commenting system to comment or correct aspects of a student's paper. None of this is really feasible with any of the applications on the iPad that will import and export Word documents. But even if it were possible, all of the iPad applications that will read Word documents change the format of the document when it is imported and change it again when it is exported. This often can affect a document's layout in regard to headers or margins, and it would not be fair or right to do this to my students' work.

Moreover, I've yet to find a browser on the iPad that lets me navigate the Blackboard website correctly. In Blackboard, students' grades are laid out on a spreadsheet-type interface that simply cannot be moved from the left to the right (for some reason unknown to me) in any browser I've tried in iOS. Yes, there is a Blackboard Mobile Learn app, but this does not allow me to do any kind of administrative work such as grades. I can interact in discussion forums with my students or create announcements, but that's about it.

However, the Surface RT lets me do all these things. The first Saturday afternoon I had my Surface RT, I sat down in a coffee shop with only my brand new tablet and the accompanying TypeCover keyboard, and I was thrilled to know that I could access all aspects of the Blackboard website. I was able to download a student's paper, save it to the Surface in a nested folder, and edit it in a real copy of Microsoft Word. I could have just as easily uploaded the graded paper back to Blackboard, but I wanted to wait and view it on my laptop to make certain everything came out all right. And when I did this later, it was fine. Since then, I’ve graded a number of papers on the Surface and have uploaded them back for the student to retrieve afterwards.

So, I'm very pleased that I can do this. It may seem like a very simple task, but this is something that takes up a good percentage of my week. I believe it will be nice to sometimes leave my 15" MacBook Pro at home and go sit in a coffee shop and grade papers for a few hours on the Surface RT--something I cannot currently do on an iPad.

The only downside to this, however, is that I can do it much faster on my laptop. This is primarily due to the fact that Word on the Surface RT has very small touch points. This makes using Word for RT a bit more difficult and certainly slower than using a laptop. I’ve since learned that by changing the size of items on the desktop to 125%, the touch points become a bit easier to target. Nevertheless, if I were behind in my grading, which is often the case, I would not be able to use the Surface.

Yes, I bought the TypeCover, so I have a trackpad, but I'm not overly impressed with it. I’m sure that a lot of this frustration comes from being used to a large glass touchpad on my MacBook that is incredibly responsive. The tiny touchpad on the TypeCover is not as responsive, and even with tracking speed turned all the way up, it doesn't move as quickly or as accurately as I'd like it to. Perhaps this will improve with use as I grow accustomed to it, but I've also noticed that sometimes the mouse pointer on the Surface RT simply disappears, and I have to restart the machine or go into mouse settings to get it back.

On a side note, occasionally my students will want to compose a paper entirely on an iPad and submit it to Blackboard. However, no Word-compatible app on the iPad that I've seen allows for a different header on the cover page than the headers on the pages that follow. A student would, however, be able to use the Surface RT for both composition and submission of a paper that meets the style guide specifications because of having a "real" version of MS Word.

I also like the expandability of the Surface RT with its SD card slot and USB. Both of my iPads are 64 GB and both of them are completely filled up. My next iPad purchase will be one of the 128 GB models, but I like how expandable the Surface RT is right out of the box. I bought the 32 GB model, but if I were going to use this as a main device, I'm sure I would want to get the 64 GB Surface RT and then add a 64 GB flash card to it. Currently, I have 10 GB of space left on the Surface. I don’t necessarily have to depend on it, but I had a 32 GB microSD card, and it’s been a great solution for quickly transferring files back and forth between the Surface RT and my MacBook Pr.

From what I understand, the iPad doesn’t have any kind of external expansion capabilities because Steve Jobs liked smooth edges on the sides of Apple’s devices. From an aesthetic perspective, I can understand this, but after seeing how advantageous the microSD and USB slots on the Surface RT are, I really have to think, “Come on Apple, why not?”

I often teach straight from my iPad, plugged into a projector, at the university where I teach or at church. I mainly use iWork Keynote for this, and I make heavy use of presenter notes that I can see on my screen while a class looks only at my slide from the projector. Although I still find Keynote to be a more elegant presentation tool in general over PowerPoint from an audience's perspective, I can say I was very impressed with PowerPoint's presenter screen on the Surface RT. It is much more robust than Keynote's presenter screen (on the iPad, not my Mac) with more options and the ability to see my notes much better.

What the iPad allows me to do that I cannot (yet) do on the Surface RT. I've included the word yet here because a lot of what lies below has to do with app availability or compatibility, and I assume that most of this can and will improve over time.

If you're wondering what fills up my two 64 GB iPads, it's not so much from apps, video, music or pictures, but rather from the somewhere over 6,000 books, journals, magazines, and articles that I carry with me at all times. One of the aspects I've really enjoyed about having a tablet, since my first iPad in 2010, is the ability to carry an entire library with me at any time. Most of these are academic titles, and it's been great to have such a wealth of information at my fingertips.

I often digitize my own books (when I know a title is not already available in some kind of ebook form) by scanning them, adding an OCR layer over the original page, and saving them as PDFs. I use GoodReader on the iPad for PDFs. Although its interface is a bit wonky, it has great annotation features and can handle very large files (I have some PDFs that are hundreds of pages long). On the Surface RT, I've not yet seen a PDF reader that allows for the kind of heavy annotating I often do to my documents (although I'm open to suggestions).

The Kindle app (where I have about 1,000 titles) on the Surface seems comparable to the one on iOS for my purposes. I can add highlights and notes, which is important. But I use another program on my iPad called Accordance, which is for academic study of the Bible and related subjects, especially original language work. I doubt Accordance will be on Windows RT anytime soon.

There are competitive Bible programs available in the Windows Store on the Surface, such as an app from Logos Bible software and another from OliveTree. I have plenty of titles in these apps, too, but they are very limited in what they can do on the Surface RT. I was pleased to see that Greek and Hebrew texts display correctly in Logos on the Surface, but the app itself is downright anemic compared to the iPad version. The WinRT version doesn't allow me to highlight text, make annotations, copy and paste text or even perform basic searches of the text. The OliveTree Bible app has search, but for some reason most of the titles I own in that platform do not work on the Surface, including all my Greek and Hebrew texts.

Logos for Windows RT is very limited. Note the inability to search.

Obviously, these shortcomings are not the fault of the capabilities of the Surface RT tablet, but it is indicative of a number of apps that are available on other platforms, including both iOS and Android. Ultimately, it's a real chicken or the egg issue because software developers aren't going to invest heavily into apps for WinRT unless there are users; but users won't come in large numbers if there are not apps. In fact, the CEO of Logos has essentially said that development of their app is on indefinite hold until more users come to the WinRT platform. Both Microsoft and users of the Surface RT are going to have to be patient with the platform. Although rumors continue to fly to the contrary, all of Microsoft’s public comments have stated they are going to continue to support and develop the WinRT platform. Let’s hope so. We all remember HP’s "cut and run" only seven weeks after the release of the TouchPad. I actually thought the TouchPad’s operating system, WebOS, was a very good platform (the TouchPad devices themselves seemed to be a bit cheaply made) that just needed more time to grow its user base.

And while it seems like a simple issue, there was another task I normally perform on the iPad (and have been able to do since its release in April, 2010) that I couldn’t do on the Surface. On Sundays, I teach an adult Bible study at our church to an average of about 40 people. Typically, I use Keynote on my iPad and am plugged into a projector. As people arrive, I play a photo slideshow of about 2,100 photos taken of our group at various events over the past seven years. So that it won't start with the earliest pictures, I set the slideshow to shuffle the images. And I run this from the basic Photos app that comes on every iPad.

So, Saturday night of the first weekend I had the SurfaceRT, because I wanted to teach from my Surface on Sunday morning, I had converted my Keynote file to PowerPoint, and after a little adjusting, it was ready to go on the Surface. I copied the 2100 pictures from Aperture on my MacBook Pro to a USB thumbdrive and then copied these over to the Surface. I tried to do a test run and was surprised to learn there was no shuffle mode in the Surface's photo app. I really didn't want to start with pictures from seven years ago and run them in chronological order. So, even though it was time-change Saturday night, I stayed up way too late looking in the Windows Store on my Surface for a photo app that would shuffle photos. I couldn't find one. Knowing that I could run a slideshow straight from the folder holding my pictures on the desktop, I tried that, too, but again no shuffle feature. This obviously isn't the biggest issue in the world, but if anyone here knows of an app that will do this, I'd appreciate your letting me know. [Note: I’ve since discovered a free app called “Picture Frame Slideshow” that will shuffle photos.]

And the rest... Overall, my impressions of the Surface RT are favorable. I don't expect it or need it to be a full Windows computer (which is why I didn't want the Surface Pro). I was just intrigued by RT and wanted to experience it for myself. Like others have already said, I like the build of the machine. It seems very sturdy and put together in a manner that speaks to quality.

I bought the TypeCover because it looked nicer and more capable than the TouchCover, but after reading others' impressions, I imagine the TouchCover would have been fine for me. I'm actually a very fast typist on the iPad's virtual keyboard. Although I have had a couple of keyboards for the iPad, I hardly ever use them. It sounds to me that if someone is used to a virtual keyboard (that also doesn't have any actual tactile feedback from a moving key), the TouchCover keyboard would work just fine.

And related to that, I've tried out the Surface's virtual keyboard and have found it to be just as capable as the iPad's. I seem to be able to use it as well as I use the virtual keyboard on the iPad. It may be that the TypeCover keyboard is only going to be necessary for me when I'm using the desktop Office apps.

I've also found the responsiveness of the Surface screen to be on par with my iPad. When I had my Galaxy Tab last year, I noticed that sometimes, I had to kind of get the attention of the device because it wouldn't always respond the first time I touched it--even when it was on and I had just been using it. I've had no such problem on the Surface. It seems just as responsive and fluid as the iPad so far. As I mentioned, the only aspect in this regard I'm not impressed with is the touchpad on the Surface TypeCover, especially when using Office apps. I realize that I could use a mouse, but I have no desire to lug around a mouse to use with a tablet. Having to do that seems counterintuitive for why I would want to use a tablet in the first place.

For the most part, the Surface RT is snappy and responsive. When I first got it, some of Microsoft’s own apps were very poky, especially when starting; however, they released updates to many of these a few days ago that have improved these issues considerably. My major complaint has to do with the Mail app. Although it also received improvements a few days ago, there’s no unified inbox for multiple accounts, and there’s an extraordinary long pause when switching between one email account and another.

Some have complained that neither the Surface RT nor Surface Pro work well in one’s lap because the kickstand has a tendency to collapse. I can say that while awkward, it can be done. Nevertheless, if the Surface is in my lap, I’m usually not doing serious work on it. In my lap, I find it easier to fold the keyboard behind the Surface (which disables keystrokes) or simply remove it altogether. As already noted, the virtual keyboard works just fine, and I can surf the web or provide short answers to email.

I bought my Samsung Galaxy Tab and HP TouchPad to familiarize myself with the platforms, but I eventually sold these devices because they didn’t bring anything new to the table that I didn’t already have represented in my iPad. Considering I can actually grade papers on the Surface RT, I may hold onto this device indefinitely and let it become a regular part of my workflow (at least in the weeks in which I’m not running behind). Plus, I’m interested to see how Windows RT continues to develop. Many have predicted its demise, but Microsoft is known for often playing a long game with platforms that are of greater importance to them. Consider that Windows didn’t start to gain traction until v. 3.x, and the Xbox didn’t outsell competitors until the 360 was released.

My start screen on the Surface RT

Even though I like the Surface RT, as do many other owners of them, it’s still hard to say exactly who the target customer is for this device. Certainly if someone wants a lower-priced tablet and needs a “true” version of Microsoft Office—such as a student—the Surface RT is ideal. But if Office is eventually released for iOS and Android—as current rumors suggest—the Surface RT suddenly loses much of its unique draw.

I also believe the Surface RT is priced too high. I was at a Staples just the other day, and they had an Asus touchscreen notebook computer that had a full version of Windows 8, a touchscreen, and a 256 GB hard drive—all at the sale price of $459. This is $40 less than a Surface RT at full price, and the Surface comes with only a 32 GB hard drive (at the $499 level) and no keyboard.

I have no idea what the Surface RT costs Microsoft to build, but if it were priced somewhere between $299 and $349, I believe they would have a winner on their hands. They would sell more of them, which in turn would draw more developers to the platform. Or perhaps, if history repeats itself, the Surface RT v. 2 or v. 3 may eventually be the hit that Microsoft hoped it would be in its first iteration.

This blog post was written and uploaded with the Surface RT. Your questions, thoughts, comments and rebuttals are welcome in the comments section.

Accordance Bible Software v. 10: Modern Look with More Power

I've been a user of Accordance Bible Software since 1998. After reading a review about Accordance at that time, I was finally persuaded to make the move from Windows to Macintosh. More than any other program, Accordance has kept me on the Macintosh these past 14 years. 

However, even though OakTree Software has continued to steadily improve Accordance, and even though I've still believed it was the most powerful Bible software on any platform, like a lot of users, I felt that the Accordance interface was becoming a little bit long in the tooth. Accordance came from a Mac era in which the floating palette was king. This started with the apps that shipped with the original 1984 Mac, and the basic interface was galvanized in its adoption by companies like Adobe (and Aldus, before they were bought by Adobe). And yet, Mac programs have gradually changed over the years. Palettes have either become integrated into a program or they've been totally replaced by toolbars within the main windows. The average contemporary Mac application takes its cues (for better or worse) from iTunes, in which monochrome icons adorn the top of an integrated window with a library of content against a light blue background on the left. 

When I first learned of the changes planned for Accordance 10 with its integrated main window, I had to admit that I was a bit worried. I've heard new users to Accordance express frustration over understanding the interface which can be daunting. Yes, software should be intuitive, but powerful software (of any kind) always has a learning curve. Something as basic as the resource palette in Accordance, though dated in appearance, is extremely logical in its setup once the user understands how it functions. On the handful of times that I've taught Accordance training seminars, this was one of the first topics I covered because it was key to unlocking the software's power. But how could Accordance lose its resource palette and still maintain its same functionality? 

I can attest that within minutes of exploring an Accordance 10 beta a few weeks ago, my fears were put at ease. OakTree software has been able to pull it off. They've completely modernized Accordance according to a modern Mac app look and feel without losing any of the program's functions and power. Accordance 9 could be a mess at times, with the main window, the resource palette, the instant details window, and the library window. If I was using two screens and wanted to move Accordance from one screen to the other, I had to move all these over individually and resize them. The same thing happened if I happened to change resolutions. Now, however, Accordance 10 is fully integrated. Compare similar views of Accordance 9 and 10 below:

Accordance 9: Library window on left, main window centered, and resource palette and instant details window on right. Click on image for a larger view

And now the all-new Accordance 10: 

Accordance 10 with its integrated window. Click on image for a larger view.

Note that in the image above, I don't have the Instant Details window displayed. That's because it's now something that I can turn on and off with ease by clicking a button on the toolbar. I always found the Instant Details button handy when I needed it, but when I didn't, it was in the way. Now I can bring it into the main window whenever I need it (the same is true for the Library window on the left; if I don't need it, I can also control its presence by a button on the toolbar). A user might decide to completely forego the Instant Details button and take advantage of the new ability to option-click a word to bring up information in a popup window. And if a user still wants to run Accordance "old school," he or she can still detach the full Instant Details pane into a window of its own. 

With Accordance 10, I can now control which buttons I want on my toolbar entirely. So, for instance, since I regularly use the Atlas, I included a button for it on the toolbar; but since I don't use the Timeline that often, I left it off.

 Customize your toolbar. Click on image for a larger view.

The remodeled Library windowAnd there are a number of other changes. The Library window has been updated significantly, with many new features in response to what users have been asking for recently. This includes actual book covers for the representation of titles as well as long-form titles instead of abbreviations used in the past that were often quite cryptic in nature. 

And in keeping with any major number update in Accordance, there are quite a few other new features as well:

• A new Flex Search will look for words that are similar to the ones entered. As described in the Help system, "a search for 'forgive' would find 'forgive,' 'forgiven,' and 'forgiving.'"
• Search All is now accessible from the toolbar.
• While it's always been possible to customize fonts and background colors in Accordance, now there are a number of professional preset Themes to save time. Themes can be customized as well.
• Graphical charts and graphs have been redesigned giving them a more modern look to this kind of analysis.
• Character and highlights used to be separate palettes (more windows to move around), but now they've been given the popup treatment.
• In titles with graphics, there's a new popover feature for looking at images in a larger view. What I really like, however, is being able to scroll through the images of a particular title by hitting an advance button on the right of the image. This could potentially be a major time saver. 

There are a few expected features I'd expect to see, but they have been promised for future release. Some of the features added last year to OS X Lion, such as full-screen view and the ability to resize a window from any point on the edge, don't yet appear in Accordance. There is a new reading mode for version 10, but I'd still like to see a regular full-screen view in keeping with Apple's own apps and many others from third party developers. Like Adobe Creative Suite 6 and Microsoft Office 11, Accordance v. 10 has not yet been updated for the retina display MacBook Pro, but I've been told its coming. Regardless, I'm not overly bothered by apps that aren't enhanced for my rMBP--they just don't look as crisp as the ones that have been updated. 

New website and new packages
With Accordance 10, OakTree has completely updated their website. The entire website design, including promotional graphics and videos have an Apple-esque feel without being a straight carbon copy. I believe users and potential customers will have an easier time finding the information they need.

Having worked the Accordance booth at ETS/SBL a number of times, I know it can sometimes be confusing to new customers when trying to decide on a collection of titles. In the past there were "Library" and "Scholar" collections that each had multiple levels which often created confusion. OakTree has now streamlined this process into six basic packages: Starter, Bible Study, Original Languages, Essential, Advanced, and Ultimate. Each level increases in included titles and price. A comparison chart displaying the differences between the collections can be seen on the website. 

One More Thing: A Significant Temperature Decrease in Hades
Way back in the Fall of 2011, I heard hushed whispers of stirrings in Mordor Accordance on Windows. I guess the cat's now out of the bag. With the new Accordance website comes the announcement that Accordance is being ported to Windows with a projected release date sometime in 2013. Yes, there's always been a way to run Accordance in Windows using the Basilisk emulator, but this was always messy and cumbersome in my opinion. This is going to be a native Windows Accordance application. I've heard no word yet, though, whether this is going to be a Windows desktop or a Windows RT app. While I'm not going to give up my Mac, I do believe expanding to Windows is a smart move on OakTree's part, and I believe it will effectively grow their customer base on an exponential scale. This will definitely be an interesting development to watch.

Should you upgrade?/Should you buy in?
This is really probably the most significant upgrade to Accordance ever. Yes, there have been steady improvements over the past two decades; and yes. v. 5, updated for Aqua/OS X was a significant update. Accordance 10 goes further, though. Not only does v. 10 give the user a Bible software experience with an interface representing a modern Mac look and feel, it also streamlines much of the methods that long-term users have grown accustomed to over the years. Veteran users will have to re-learn a few minor aspects of the program, but the heart and soul of Accordance--making the biblical text central--still remains.

If you're a longtime Accordance user, by all means don't hesitate to upgrade. This is the update that users have requested for a very long time. For most users, including myself, the update goes well beyond expectations. If you've never used Accordance, now is a great time to jump in. Accordance 10 costs $49 for either an upgrade or the new Starter package, both of which can be found at the website. 

Watch These:
New Accordance 10 Introductory Video 

Accordance 10: First Look (Accordance Podcast #77)

Full Disclosure: OakTree Software provided me with a free copy of Accordance 10 in exchange for this review, but they did not dictate the conditions or the outcome of the review in any way. The titles of texts and references I have in Accordance I purchased on my own--some discounted, some not. 

As always, your questions, thoughts, comments and rebuttals are welcome in the comments below.

Finding the Right Image Using Accordance and Logos

The screencast below is a follow up to a previous post, "Balaam in the Flesh." Maximizing to fullscreen is recommended.

Your questions, thoughts, comments and rebuttals are welcome in the comments.

Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ) Released for Accordance

The first installment of the Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ), the successor to the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), has been released for Accordance. 

Click here for more information on the BHQ.

Click here for more information on the BHQ for Accordance.

Update on Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 8:58AM by R. Mansfield

OakTree Software has released a brief introductory video that highlights some of the features of the BHQ in Accordance. 

Balaam in the Flesh

This past Sunday, we studied Numbers 22-24 in our Sunday morning Bible study, which is also known as "The Balaam Cycle" or "The Book of Balaam." I teach a group that uses Lifeway's Explore the Bible series, which covers Numbers and Deuteronomy this quarter. Although the curiculum focused on a very narrow portion of verses, I spent a good bit of time going over other content from the greater context as well other concepts from the culture of the time such as the various practices of divination in the ancient world. 

A few years ago, I began using Keynote presentation software which I teach at church. Although I try to stick to the outline and theme in the curriculum, I tend to supplement it a good bit, including making my own slides. I often use Accordance's graphics search to find a "just right" image for an idea or event we're discussing. However, before I search through all graphics resources, I usually first check Zondervan's Illustrated Bible Background Commentaries (OT & NT) as well as the Historic Views of the Holy Land: Bible Places-American Colony Collection. Some of the best illustrations I find come from these two sources. A very close third is Accordance's Bible Lands PhotoGuide. 

Finding just the right picture in Accordance is not merely a result of being able to search through titles rich in graphics. The real strength comes from being able to search only in the picture captions of these titles. Searching the captions for a name, subject, place, or even a scripture reference usually yields a "just right" picture for whatever I'm teaching on—whether at church or in the classroom. In regard to our study on Balaam, I don't believe I could have found a better picture than the one at the top of this post.

This picture came from the Historic Views of the Holy Land: Bible Places-American Colony Collection. This title is a series of photographs taken on location in Israel and surrounding areas spanning a time from the late 1800s to the 1940s (you can read about the history of the collection here). The value of these photos lies in the fact that the people and places depicted (some staged and some natural) are seen before the region became overly modernized. In fact, many of the pictures depict life as it essentially existed for centuries, even back to biblical times in some cases. 

Just look at the image at the top of the post. Perhaps it was staged, but look at the stone wall and Bethlehem in the background from a time before electricity and automobiles were ubiquitous. Yes, I know that the events of Numbers 22-24 don't take place in Bethlehem, but I cannot imagine a more perfect picture for Numbers 22-24. The exact date of the photo is not precisely known, but it was taken sometime between 1898 and 1946. There is a caption underneath the picture that reads:

“The town itself, no longer walled, is still confined within its ancient limits. There are no suburbs, and in fact, planted on the crest of a narrow spur that projects eastward from the central ridge and then abruptly breaks off, it has no room to expand. The white chalky ridge crowned with the long narrow street, with various alleys on either side of it, presents us with one of the few remaining specimens of an old Jewish city, for, excepting in the disappearance of the wall, it is probably unchanged in architecture and arrangement from what it was in the days of David”

Look at this close up of the man on his donkey. Yes, I know it could be nitpicked in some details, such as the fact that paired stirrups and even the kind of saddle in the picture would not have existed in Balaam's day. Yet when I look at the style of dress on the man and the ornate headband on the donkey, I can't help but see a well-respected and somewhat wealthy individual—prestigious—which is how I imagine the Balaam of the Bible (not to mention the Balaam of the Deir Alla inscriptions, which I also mentioned in our discussion on Sunday).

In my search of the Historical Views of the Holy Land module, all I did was search for "donkey" in the picture captions. I found a number of interesting pictures, but this one the first of the hits. From the moment I saw it, I knew I'd found my Balaam. There were some other interesting pictures, but none of them would have really worked. One showed a man riding a donkey while a woman (presumably his wife) walked on foot behind. Obviously, there's no suggestion that Balaam had a wife, let alone traveled with one. Another picture of a man on a donkey might have worked except for the fact that the man in the photo was showing off his rifle, which would have been anachronistic to a picture meant to illustrate an event from biblical times. 

I ended up using the picture of the man on the donkey in three of the twelve slides I prepared for our study. Each time I used it, it was slightly different than the others. In one photo I showed only the man on the donkey with most of the landscape cropped out. On another, I used the entire picture with its entire landscape as seen in the image at the top of this post. 

In all of my uses of the picture, I added a sepia tone layer—an easy modification from within Keynote that makes an image such as this look even more distant than the original black and white. Below is one of my uses of the image, which I only slightly cropped:

Sometimes finding a "just right" image is more challenging, but this one was perfect; and I knew from the moment I saw it that this would be the one I'd use. To me, this fellow on a donkey, photographed perhaps a century ago, is truly Balaam in the flesh.

As always, your questions, thoughts, comments and rebuttals are welcome below.

Update on Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 9:33PM by R. Mansfield

I've posted a video screencast that describes the process for finding the right image when I teach. You can see it here: http://thislamp.com/posts/2012/1/28/finding-the-right-image-using-accordance-and-logos.html

No Blood Drawn at 2011 SBL Bible Software Shootout

Two years ago, the debates got pretty heated in the blogosphere following the first SBL Bible Software Shootout. I even decided to remove one of my posts from This Lamp because of the bickering, primarily in the comments. Therefore, it's worth noting that this year's Bible Software Shootout was fairly tame and even considerably more collegial.

From the very beginning this second round was purposefully designed to lessen any chance of animosity among proponents of one Bible software package over another. Rather than any overtly competitive theme, this year's challenge centered around how Bible software could be used in the classroom. Titled, "Bible Software Shootout 2: The Revenge of the Teacher," the session was framed in a mostly non-competitive agenda (despite words like shootout and revenge in the title):

Software vendors will showcase their products to demonstrate how their software is used by real teachers in the classroom, in course preparation, and in assignments. The program will explore how the various packages all contribute to the learning environment.

Originally, I was planning to offer detailed description and analysis of the event, but I do not believe I could better the account detailed by Mark Hoffman at the Biblical Studies and Technological Tools website, which I strongly recommend for your reading. 

Three platforms were represented this year: Logos, Accordance, and Olive Tree's BibleReader. BibleWorks opted not to particpate, but I wish they had as I believe they would have performed well in this particular context.

Although the event was less overtly competitive, I could nonetheless offer value judgments if I wanted. However, such opinions tend to upset some people, so I'll keep them to myself (ask me privately if you're extremely curious). However, I will link to Roy Brown's 16-page handout (with screenshots) that serves as his presentation transcript for Accordance. If anyone knows of similar documents for the other presentations, let me know and I'll provide the links to those as well.

Full disclosure: I worked in the Accordance booth during SBL again this year.

Feel free to leave your questions, thoughts, comments and rebuttals below, but if folks get nasty this year, I'm not deleting the post; I'll only delete your comment.