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Technology

Hebrew, with vowels, on iPad

Jan 2nd, 2012
by Christian Brady.
2 comments

The December (or is it January?) Biblioblog Carnival is up and through it I discovered that Chris Heard had this great post on using Hebrew with vowels on the iPad.

Until recently, iPad-using Hebraists had no good options for typing Hebrew with vowels on the aforementioned iPads. Apple provides a Hebrew keyboard for the iPad, but it does not include the נְקֻדּוֹת. Recently, however, third-party developer Žiga Kranjec released Unicode Maps, an app with an unattractive name but a very attractive function. Unicode Maps allows you to look up and copy any Unicode glyph available on the iPad. Even better, you can create your own customized keyboard and type—but only on a notepad within Unicode Maps—using that keyboard.

 

Sacred Techs is up!

Jan 2nd, 2012
by Christian Brady.
No comments yet

I am very pleased to announce that the first post and podcast of Sacred Techs are now up! (The podcast is even available via iTunes.) This site is a collaboration between myself and Dr. Robert Cargill. We describe the site as, “posts and podcasts relevant to the study of things ancient using things very modern.”

With “Sacred Techs” we wanted to bring together information focused upon using technology in the real of biblical and ancient studies. It will be periodically updated, on a monthly basis at the least, with articles and interviews on various topics around this general theme. We are very hopeful that others will be willing to contribute to the site, there are many within the world of online ancient studies who are very (and more) adept in these areas, many who are creating the very technology that we will be reviewing, citing, and discussing. This is particularly true if you use something other than Apple products and MacOS, iOS, or Android software. It is not that we are prejudiced against other platforms, but the reality is that Robert and I both tend to use those products and platforms. If you are interested in contributing please drop us a line or leave a comment!

So welcome to Sacred Techs and stay tuned for what we hope will be a great year. First up on the podcast (see below!) is an introductory discussion and then we will follow up with a few interviews from 2011 SBL. Be sure to let us know whom you would like to hear us interview and what products you would like reviewed or compared.

 Please do send us your suggestions so that we can make this site as useful as possible for everyone. @bbib already sent a great one via twitter:
@Targuman @sacredtechs @xkv8r Here’s one. How can Bible software help non-experts evaluate translations as never before? Long term effects?
What is your suggestion?
 

CHE Article – Online Split Personality?

Jun 20th, 2011
by Christian Brady.
3 comments

This weekend an article came out in the Chronicle of Higher Education about academics and academic units with multiple online “identities.” I was interviewed along with several others, but for some reason I was the only one of whom they took silly pictures.

It is a very good article on a topic that really is a challenge for everyone, not just institutions. Everyone needs to ask themselves, what does my facebook/twitter/blog say about myself. If you are happy with the answer then you don’t have anything to worry about.

This is a bit of what I will be talking about at this year’s SBL: “On the Internet no one knows you’re a grad student.” Or how social media can help you, build you up, and tear you down.

Academics and Colleges Split Their Personalities for Social Media

By Jeffrey R. Young

Christian Brady, an associate professor of classics and dean of the Schreyer Honors College at Pennsylvania State University, has created two Twitter accounts, one for personal comments and research (@targuman), and the other for his role as dean (@shcdean).

Chronicle of Higher Education

@targuman: Modern catechism? “Wireless as a common good.” @shcdean: If you are an SHC student or alumnus in the DC area this summer can you let me know? I would like to get a dinner together in mid June.
@targuman:David Letterman is the best and most underrated interviewer on TV. Interviewing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. @shcdean: I want to assure you all that the new, gorgeous softball stadium Beard Field is named after a wonderful PSU supporter and not my chin hairs.
@targuman:Currently listening to the gutters finally being repaired (fell off in January!). Every clunk and thud makes me think $$. @shcdean: Students: assuming funding, why wouldn’t you want to study abroad for a full year? Admits are telling me you are afraid to disconnect.

…

‘It’s Not Schizophrenic’

Christian Brady, an associate professor of classics and ancient Mediterranean studies and Jewish studies at Pennsylvania State University, has split his social-media identity, as Ms. Feal does. “It’s not schizophrenic and it’s not to hide anything,” he said. Both of his Twitter feeds are public, and he expects that someone who searches for his name on Google will quickly find both his personal feed, @targuman, and the one he uses for his role as dean of the university’s Schreyer Honors College, @shcdean.

Deciding which account to post to is a matter of considering his audience, he says. Those looking to hear from the honors-college dean may have no interest in his research into Targums (ancient Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible), or in his collection of comic books. “I wouldn’t call them multiple identities, but views or perspectives on yourself,” is how he puts it.

Though Facebook was born only a few years ago, Mr. Brady says scholars have long made adjustments in their public personae: “If you’re writing an op-ed piece for the local newspaper, you’re going to use a different tone than if you’re writing for a journal in your discipline.”

Don’t Be Creepy

Some professors use only one Facebook page but wrestle with how open to make that information. One of the most-discussed questions about social networking on campuses is whether or not professors should “friend” their students on Facebook. Mr. Brady’s policy on the issue is one I’ve heard from many professors: He will accept a friend request from any student, but he never makes the first move. “I think it’s a little creepy when the old guy asks his students, Will you be my friend?,” he told me.

Read the rest of the article on the Chronicle of Higher Education

 

Barack Obama is following me – not.

Jun 18th, 2011
by Christian Brady.
2 comments

On Academia.edu, apparently. Then again not. This past weekend Academia.edu was the victim of several phishing scams. Some of you might have received emails that were pretty convincing looking and suggested that Academia.edu had partnered with your university for some project. Then yesterday I, and others I suspect, received the email below, notifying us that Barack Obama, or his campaign at least, was following us. Again, the page was very convincing looking…until you go to the link which was to “academia.notlong.com.”

And that is the lesson folks. Check the URL of any link, whether in email or on a website. If the link appears to say one thing and when you hover over it with your cursor (in most email apps today) it reveals a completely different URL beware. But that is what this scam did so well. The link was exactly what it said it was ”academia.notlong.com.” I have to admit, it took me a minute to realize that the “notlong.com” part was not likely to be from our trusted Academia.edu.

Now to give great credit to Richard Price and his folks at Academia.edu they immediately responded to the email scam, sending us all notifications at 3:45am EST yesterday. And this morning Richard told me that they are already working on ways to keep folks like “Barack” from doing mass follows and hooking us in via the site. It should also be noted that in a perverse way this is a coming of age for Academia.edu. If they scammers are interested, they must have a big enough presence to warrant it.

All the more reason to come to the Blogger and Online Publication session this November at SBL! Come hear from Richard in person!

Photo

 

 

Nisus Writer Pro 2.0 – Hebrew Word Processing

Jun 3rd, 2011
by Christian Brady.
1 comment

In the comments section of my review of Sente Danny Zacharias of Deinde expresses surprise that I was not using Mellel for my scholarly work. He did not realize that any other word processor on MacOS X supported unicode and right to left languages such as Hebrew. Not so! Nisus Software has been producing an incredible Mac word processor for decades and I have been using it for about as long. True, they took a long time porting it to MacOS X, which is why Mellel got a head start, but Nisus Writer Pro has been out for quite a while and they have just released NWP 2.0.

There are a number of new features in 2.0 that make the upgrade worth while and if you haven’t tried NW before, you should do so now. (Disclaimer: There is nothing to claim or disclaim. They have never paid me or given me free software. They have been very nice to me, however, and very helpful ever since 1994.) From their site, new features in 2.0:

  • Track Changes.
  • Drawing Tools (shapes, lines, floating text boxes, etc).
  • Watermarks.
  • Vertical ruler.
  • Paragraph-level borders and shading (which may be enforced via paragraph styles).
  • Saving a PDF creates clickable links for cross-references, pages numbers in generated TOCs/indexes, and hyperlinks. PDFs also include a proper TOC (eg: shows in the drawer in Preview.app).
  • Export as EPUB (electronic book).
  • Customizable Special Characters menu and palette.
  • Can link inserted images to a file on disk. These linked images update automatically if the original file changes on disk. Double-clicking a linked image opens the original file in an external application.

NWP can open and save as Word, RTF, HTML, etc. and has all sorts of searching bells and whistles that I will never understand. I have to say that I have not done a lot of writing lately with Hebrew and Aramaic, but NWP handles the paragraphs and occasional word that I throw at it with grace. You can also set up an infinite array of key commands, making this a “power user” app, including a simply command to switch language and font all at one go.

For example, using “Paragraph Styles,” I simply press cmd-2 and NWP changes writing direction for right-to-left (line starts on the right), my Hebrew font and fonts size is chosen and away I go. You can even set up, as I have done, different key command-font-keyboard combinations. So I have one Hebrew font for Biblical texts and another for Aramaic (although for the printers I think I will have to go to one font, SBL Hebrew).

One new feature that I am very excited about is exporting to EPUB format. I have already tested it with my doctoral thesis, which I would like to make available to all through the digital outlets. There are a few issues, but all seem to be the result of the fact that I am first converting a document that is 13 years old. That being said, NWP does an admirable job of bringing most of the 343 page document in intact. As you might imagine, footnotes, headers, and table of contents are messed up. Still, the Hebrew looked good in iBooks and the footnotes linked (but only one way, to the back of the document! again, this may be a legacy issue and I will try it with a more up to date document soon).

There is much, much more to this app and this is not a proper review, but I encourage you to try it out and see if it works for you.

 
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