Stop using Internet Explorer, Please

In case any Mac users out there haven't received word, Internet Explorer is an abandoned piece of software, and is insufficient in too many ways to count. It's broke and it ain't never gonna get fixed. That clear enough? And still, every day my stat log shows at least one Mac OSX user on IE. Allow me to illustrate the latest in craptitude: Internet Explorer for Mac has a default Home page that loads www.msn.com. Well, recent code changes that Microsoft made to that page now crash IE for Mac with the spinning ball of death. So, if you haven't already changed the default behavior of IE, simply launching IE will cause it now to crash as it attempts to load the MSN homepage. As another put it:

"Congratulations Microsoft for reaching a new level of cluelessness I've never seen before. Way to go."

Does this not just illustrate the hilarity of Micro$oft's lameness?
Safari really is a great browser. And if you haven't yet tried Firefox, you really should.

Update: It really is even sadder that it took Microsoft so many days to fix whatever was crashing its own browser. Many have emailed me about the necessity of keeping IE around for web sites that demand you use it. Just for your information, you can get aroudn this in most instances by telling Firefox or Safari to identify itself as IE 5.0. To do this in Safari, you need to enable the Debug menu. Quit Safari and open Terminal and enter the command:

% defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

Update:When pasting this command in the terminal, don't include the prompt symbol &. Just enter "defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1".
Then in the Debug menu, switch to IE 5.22 when you're at the page requiring IE. To later remove the Degub menu, use the same command but change the 1 to a 0.

Text & Audio bible coming soon to an iPod near you

Many of my Mac-using-blogmates spend a great deal of time discussing digital music, iPods and the like. I don't. It's not because I don't find it all supremely cool. I'd love to have an iPod. Truth is... who the heck has time to listen to music?

Still, perhaps I'll splurge on a nano this winter.

However, I do think it's worth mentioning here that a new bible product for iPod is due out in February. You can follow along the text of the TNIV as you listen to the audio. It's a good concept, I think.

FinderPop is back

I am very excited about the news that FinderPop is finally being rewritten to work on OS X. When OS X arrived, Turly abandoned FinderPop, the sensational contextual menu tool. With it, you can put aliases to apps, files and folders into your contextual menus--plus much more. It's about to come out of beta.

Accordance on a Sony PSP

Oh well uh, you might think I'm crazy, but...

As some of you know, Accordance Bible Software runs beautifully on Mac OS X. But, it also runs all the way back on system 7. The reason they do this is that in this way Accordance also runs on Windoze boxes using the Basilisk emulator which emulates system 7.
If you ask any Mac software developer about an OS X app that is also still supported on system 7, they'll laugh in your face. That's just how impressive it is that they do this.

Well, a gear head has been tweaking basilisk II to run on his Sony PSP. He has it running at least. Could this mean the eventual possibility of toting Accordance around on a Sony PSP? Could this mean I'd have a reason to buy a PSP using my professional expense account?
How cool it would be. (Yes, the image is a mock-up. You could tell by the fact that it is an aqua screen shot, not a classic one. I currently have too many open processes to justify rebooting into Classic just to grab a screen capture.)

Interview with Microsoft software alternatives guru

Tony Bove wrote a book about avoiding Microsoft in your computer world. I'm not a huge anti-Micro$soft advocate (only a little one), but in this interview he talks a good bit about finding alternatives to Microsoft products. It is quite informative.

What I'm looking for is the book/interview regarding how to avoid ever shopping at WalMart.

OpenOffice Mac team is rewriting in Cocoa

We seem to continue the ongoing conversation about the major word processor options available. This announcement is exciting news, particularly if you've tried Neo/J OpenOffice and found the interface lacking.
The OpenOffice Mac team has just announce at the OpenOffice conference that they are going to stop the java development route and begin a full-fledged, up-to-date port of OpenOffice into aqua-OSX-native Cocoa.

This is outstanding news.

Top 25 NT scholars

Thanks to Michael Bird for stimulating this discussion of his list of top 25 NT scholars. It's like sticking one's neck out... along with a few "amens," it's bound to invite critique. So, for the bravery... kudos.

So, here's my complaints. :)
Actually, no complaints, though I resonate with Mark Goodacre's points. How G. Theissen does not make it onto such a list is beyond me. (I guess in order to make room for Origen and Bruce.) As for period parameters, I would at least take a cue from Bill Baird and make a cut-off starting date somewhere around the Reformation at the earliest. Not only does that represent the beginning of a newer type of NT scholarship, it also corresponds with the newer textual medium, the printed text, that facilitates this type of study.
However, my genuine suggestion is that in order to make a more meaningful list, the start date should be something like "Post-Westcott-Hort," for obvious reasons. After all, the vast majority of the current listees fit this era anyhow, and it allows the comparison of apples to apples.

A side reflection... I wonder if in years to come, NT scholarship will be divided into "pre-computer-assisted" and "computer-assisted" scholarship.