Long time a'coming

Been a long time a'coming, but now it has arrived.

e-Sword For Mac on the iTunes Store. 
Released on 20 March 2015.

Cost is US$9.99. 

http://www.e-sword.net/mac/ is the URL, if you want to read about it on the official webpage.

I don't have a Mac, so all I can say about it is what I've gleaned from reading descriptions written by other people.

User Interface is Spanish or English.  (That seems strange to me.  Wonder why Rick couldn't use the same strings as e-Sword for Windows?)

From Rick's description, I think it has slightly more functionality/capability than e-Sword.

It uses the same file format as e-Sword for the iPhone & iPad.
(SQLite database engine & HTML markup language.)  I'm going to call this e-Sword4iOS format.


My guess is that somebody over at BibleSupport.com is going to be working long hours, converting the existing e-Sword modules to e-Sword4iOS format.

Two more platforms to go:

• Linux;
• Android;

Which leads to interesting question. Which works better on Linux:

• e-Sword X;
• e-Sword;

Unfortunately, I do not know of a way to purchase and install Mac software from the iTunes store, on my Linux box. I can install Mac software from sources other than the iTunes store, on my Linux box.

Migrating to New Software

Copying an email in my inbox that I recently read for what appears to be the first time.^1

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marcello Romani
Date: Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 23:20
I think the lesson here is twofold:

1) before showing a new program to someone, be sure to know it well, or at least to know well the functions you want to show in that particular situation;

2) persuading someone to change habits is very hard; when "habit" means "I'm used to click there, there, and there and I've got my work done" the job becomes virtually impossible; so you have to be _very_ prepared to answer the typical question: that task in my usual software is done so and so, how do I do it in the new one ? If the motivation to try a new software is not coming from the user herself, she won't be very patient when encountering difficulties, so you have to ease the learning curve yourself;

Thanks for ranting publicly :-) I think your feelings are shared by many (I event felt quite the same sometimes when I first tried FOSS software years ago), so discussing them here might be helpful.

Marcello

^1:  On the email account in question, I am several years behind in looking at what is in my inbox.  For my other email accounts, the inbox is purged at least once a fortnight.

MinistryUse OS

I received a reply from Darion Cantron, the developer of MinistryUse OpenSUSE and Christ OS. He is working on a successor to both of those distros, namely
MinistryUse OS, available from http://ministryuseos.weebly.com/.

The ISO file is 3GB in size, and is hosted on mega.co.nz. Links are at
http://ministryuseos.weebly.com/download.html.


The web page description is:

MinistryUSE OS is a Linux Remaster of Linux Mint.  It's purpose is to provide a desktop experience with all the tools commonly needed for work in ministry.  As a pastor of a small church I use my laptop every day researching, writing, reading, reaching out using social networks, creating, planning, and publishing.  It is vital tool for the work I do.  And I got to thinking, what if I could create an operating system with all the tools I find helpful in my ministry so that other ministers could use it right out of the box.
 
That is what I am attempting to do here.  

A Linux Desktop Experience geared for Christians who want to use their computers as tools for ministry.  

Being as how this project is very new, improvement will be made based upon your feedback.  So contact me through Facebook and let me know what you think.  But be kind, I do this on my free time.

The current features are:

• Libreoffice for Office Suite
• Bibletime, Xiphos, E-Sword, and TheWord for Bible Study and Research
• OpenLP for Projection Software
• Chromium Browser and Firefox Browser for Internet Browsing
• Rhythmbox, VLC, and Amorak for Media Players
• Cheese and Kdenlive for Video Editing
• Audacity for Audio Editing
• Evolution (Pardon the name) for Email and Calendar/Planner
• Scribus, Gimp, and Libredraw for Desktop Publishing
• And many Christian Wallpapers already uploading plus lots of neat features and customizations

 Off the bat, on purely technical grounds, I would replace Evolution with Thunderbird.  If you need to archive email, I'd suggest Enkive. It isn't that hard to configure.  Time consuming, but not difficult.

I have not downloaded this distro.
I have not tested this distro out.

Instead of testing out either of the other two distros I discovered today, I will test this one out.

MinistryUse OpenSUSE

Wandering further into SourceForge today, I discovered a second Linux distro for Christians:  MinistryUse OpenSUSE.

Version 0.0.1 was released on Sourceforge on 15 January 2015.

It can be downloaded from http://sourceforge.net/projects/ministryuseopensuse/.

The SourceForge description simply says:

Finally an operating system specifically set up for Christians in ministry with one of the best desktop environments available - KDE. Xiphos for Bible Study. Chromium for web-browsing. Openlp for worship projection software. And much more to aid in your ministry needs. As a young minister, I use my laptop for a lot in ministry. I hope this helps you too.

God Bless and if you have any problems, please let me know. I'd be happy to work on it.

Under Features, we have listed:

• K Desktop environment
• Chromium Browser for Web
• Xiphos for Bible Study
• Openlp for Worship projection software
• Libreoffice for all your word processing needs
• Customized desktop appearance with Christian themed backgrounds
• Open SUSE repositories and base

I have not downloaded this distro.
I have not tested this distro. 

The same person develops both MinistryUse OpenSUSE and  Christ OS.
I've sent an email to the developer, asking if Christ OS. , the successor to MinistryUse OpenSUSE.

Christ OS 0.0.4

In wandering through SourceForge today, I stumbled across Christ OS. A Christian orientated Linux Distro.

The 964 MB ISO image can be downloaded from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/christos/?source=directory .

Version 0.0.4 was released 11 February 2015.
This distro is based on OpenSuse 13.2 KDE, which was released on 4 November 2014.

The Sourceforge summary simply says:

A new Christian OS based on OpenSUSE 13.2 with K Desktop Environment, xiphos and Bibletime for Bible Study, Openlp for projection software, libreoffice for office suite, and compiz for windows manager, plus much more. Enjoy!

I have not yet looked at this distro.
The major purpose of this post, is to remind me to test it out.