Native OpenOffice Is Finally Here

The continued progression of OpenOffice on the Mac platform is very exciting news for those who write and work on their Macs.

If you've not read previous comments on OpenOffice, it is the open source community initiative towards developing and improving an open platform software sweet that can replace the functionality of Micro$oft Office. I had been running NeoOffice, which provides a java wrapper to OpenOffice, allowing it to run well on newer Macs, but this new release of OpenOffice is in a fully Mac native version. I was excited about this when I first got the beta some time ago. Read here for some notes about the OpenOffice 3.0 Release and for download options.

OpenOffice is an excellent choice for some solutions. For instance, we have a Mac lab in our church... no need to buy Micro$oft Office for them all... we can now deploy OpenOffice at no cost. It opens many, many file formats, including the newest Office formats, so works great in an inter-office setting. You have nothing to lose in giving it a try... it's free!

Accordance Blog Search Engine

The Accordance Blog has continued with steadfastness the posting of helpful subject matter on using this powerful bible software. It represents a wealth of information. With their website redesign, one side effect of other improvements made it more difficult to peruse blog posts. Here is a custom search engine to solve that problem:

The Accordance Blog Search Engine

(If there was demand, we could also release a search widget.)

Minor Agreement of the Day: οἱ

Sometimes the smallest words catch your eye. As in the pericope of Jesus instructing the disciples to make ready for his entry into Jerusalem. Here's a verse with minor agreements in bold:

Matthew 21:6	Mark 11:4	Luke 19:32
πορευθέντες δὲ οἱ μαθηταὶ καὶ ποιήσαντες καθὼς συνέταξεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς ...	καὶ ἀπῆλθον καὶ εὗρον πῶλον δεδεμένον πρὸς θύραν ἔξω ἐπὶ τοῦ ἀμφόδου καὶ λύουσιν αὐτόν.	ἀπελθόντες δὲ οἱ ἀπεσταλμένοι εὗρον καθὼς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς.
And the disciples, going and doing just as Jesus had directed them, ...	And they went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street.	And going away the ones who were sent found it just as he had told them.

Oddly, it's οἱ that caught my eye. Luke on the whole is following Mark in this story, but the occassional dash of Lukan/Matthean agreement is interesting, particularly that both provide the substantive plural nominative article to match up with the participles in the opening structure. Am I really to believe that Luke and Matthew provided the article independently? Both have taken Mark's finite verbals and transformed them into participles. I mean Luke's first verb looks like: Mark's ἀπῆλθον + Matthew's πορευθέντες = Luke's ἀπελθόντες.

P.S. "of the day" does not necessarily mean every day.

Get Bookends and Mellel for $49

If you do not have the word processor Mellel and the bib software Bookends, then this deal is sweet for you. MacUpdate has included these two must-have apps for bible scholars in the latest software bundle from MacUpdate.

Get them for $49 (along with some other apps for which I have no opinion, though if MacJournal gets included, that's good news).

Introducing Ubiquity: Quicksilver for Firefox?

This inter(web)application utility now in beta called Ubiquity is a fascinating project. It's very similary to Quicksilver, in some respects, but it is a plug-in designed to work on Firefox (Mozilla browsers).

As it develops, it may present real possibilities for online research.