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Technology is wonderful and useful in more ways than this post can effectively address. I did something today I have wanted to do for quite a while, but just didn’t take the time to tackle the task. Now that it’s done, I’m wondering why it took me so long to take care of business.
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Technology is wonderful and useful in more ways than this post can effectively address. I did something today I have wanted to do for quite a while, but just didn't take the time to tackle the task. Now that it's done, I'm wondering why it took me so long to take care of business.
Now that you're interest has been piqued, I will continue with the story. There has to be some background, first, though. Last year, our Pastoral Covenant Group (PCG) met for our annual retreat, and one of the pastors was watching some teaching videos on an iPod Classic 80GB. That was very interesting to me, as I had never used one of those devices before, and the thought of putting videos on a portable device like the one he showed me was intriguing.
My wife bought me one for Christmas, and I immediately booted into Windows in order to use iTunes. Honestly, I didn't know any better; I was under the impression you either had to use iTunes in Windows or Mac in order to populate this new Classic. Well, I quickly grew weary of booting into an inferior operating system just to put music on my iPod Classic. In case you're wondering, my operating system (OS) of choice is Linux, and Simply Mepis in particular.
Here's where the story gets interesting. Not long after booting back into the safe confines of my Linux OS, I decided it was time to add some more music to my shiny new iPod Classic. Well, I plugged it, and opened an application that should have handled the task with relative ease - Amarok. The link for Amarok takes you to a wonderful article about basically the same situation as the one I'm writing about. The problem is, Apple added a checksum to the database so you have to either use iTunes for Windows or Apple, as I previously pointed out. Linux is great, though, and Softpedia has an article explaining the problem and includes some answers, too.
I managed to blow up my iTunes database several times while in Linux before Apple's insidious behavior was discovered by me. Others in the Linux community had already run into the problem and had begun to vigorously pursue a resolution. It wasn't long until the solution was found, as the article at Softpedia explains. To make a longer story short, I installed a few packages in my Linux machine, and now I am happy to report yet another reason to stay away from Windows.
Now that you know my iPod Classic 80GB works in Linux, let me get on with the rest of the story. Mark Bertrand at the Bible Design & Binding Blog writes about high-end Bibles, and has several articles about the English Standard Version (ESV). I had never heard of that version until reading Mark's excellent blog. After doing some research and reading several passages for myself, I began to be quite taken by the beauty of this new version. BTW, I'm looking to acquire an ESV made by what some people consider to be the finest publisher on the planet, R. L. Allan and Sons, in Glasgow, Scotland. If you want to buy the Bible in the US, the sole distributor is Evangelicalbible.com.
While browsing today, I came across podBible.org. In case you don't already know, it offers the ESV as a download so you can put on your iPod. The site offers versions for Windows or Mac, so I chose Windows and followed the instructions. It wasn't long before the ESV NT was put on my Classic, and I began to enjoy reading this wonderful version of God's Holy Word. For further reading pleasure, you could see Mark Bertrand's article about The ESV on an Apple iPhone. Enjoy. Full Story |
