This semester has been difficult primarily because I’m not really very good at research. I don’t like taking notes. I don’t like the process of reading a little bit and then writing few notes and then reading a few more pages etc.  One solution to this problem would be using speech recognition software. Of course, this type of software does not always work the way one would like. Still, I figured it if there were something out there that would work good enough for me to take short notes as I read it would be a real help with the research. It turns out there really aren’t a lot of choices for speech recognition when it comes to the Mac. The one that is available is called MacSpeech and it is, shall we say, not cheap! Still, I figured that with many many future hours of research to come there might be a good investment.  As for how well it works, all I can say is that I am very impressed. As a matter of fact this entire post was written using MacSpeech.

It has been a very long road, but Logos Bible Study Software for Mac is now entering the final stages of beta and is available for pre-order now.

What not to expect:

• All the features of the Windows version (this is version 1.0 for the Mac)
• Tabs (this version does not have a tabbed interface which may be the biggest drawback)
• Free engine (this is a separate product that has no where near the following of the Windows version, and the developers have families to feed)

What to expect:

• Speed (this version of Logos loads and runs fast and smooth)
• Lots of resources (all but the oldest resources (and those that require features that have not yet been implemented i.e. timelines etc.) work with both Windows and Mac versions…you don’t need two copies of the resources)
• A great price point (the engine will only set you back $60, and if you are a first time Logos buyer and buy $250 or more worth of resources you get the engine free)

I don’t know if I will buy now or not. I would really like to support the further development of the product, but a lack of a tabbed (or otherwise handled) window system is big draw back if you wish to do heavy study on a Mac. Becuase I have VMware Fusion and run Logos for Windows on it with no discernable performance hit I will probably wait for 1.5 or 2.0. Either way this is good news for the Mac community!

A few days ago CodeWeavers was giving away full copies of its software for free. Free is cool so naturally I grabed a copy of CrossOver Mac to add to my arsenal of tools for running Windows software on my Mac. The problem is that CrossOver sucks! I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would choose this option over VMWare Fusion or a similar virtual machine software solution…especially if you are running a newer Intel based Mac with lots of power. I tried unsuccessefully to get PaintShop Pro 9 to run using CrossOver. I got Microsoft Word 2007 installed, but only partly functional. In addition there is no support for cleartype which means all the fonts look terrible. Logos Bible Software was also a no-go. On the other hand I can run all the above mentioned software in Unity Mode using VMware Fusion with almost no dicernable lag time and no limitations of features. I did get VMware Fusion at an educational discount of $50 which means it cost me the same as CrossOver would normally cost, but even if I had paid the full $80 it would have been well worth it. Maybe I will find a good use for Crossover in the future, but for now it just sits quietly in the Applications folder waiting to come to life.

With Apple’s Intel based computers the gap between what you can easily do on a Mac that was only possible on a PC has closed significantly. The gap (perhaps too strong a word) has closed even more in the last few days thanks to Netflix and (ironically) Microsoft. You can now opt-in to using Microsoft Silverlight technology for your Netflix Watch Instantly content. This allows you to watch Netflix movies directly within the Mac OS using any browser that supports Silverlight. There are a few cavaets, but I have had no problems thus far. You can read about the opt-in process and limitations on the Netflix blog.