I usually just use free stuff that is available on the web when I am doing Bible research. BibleGateway.com is my favorite place to go. And I’ve also found some really cool commentary stuff through Archive.org. They have old commentaries, like from the 1800′s. In a lot of ways, the older the commentaries are, the more I like them.

I have tried different Bible software. Quickverse used to be really good, and I tried them, but on the Mac…it just wasn’t a good experience.

Recently I used Logos Bible Software on Pastor Steve’s PC. It was rather good. The only problem with Logos is the price. It’s really expensive. I like free better.

However, the Logos software is really good. But until now, their newest product, Logos 4 hasn’t been available for the Mac. They will soon be releasing Logos 4 for the Mac, and they are trying to do a lot of promotion for it.

They are running a contest, getting people to tweet and blog and link to their site, doing promotion for them. I’m in. They have good prizes, so if this helps me win something, great. If not, well, you should still check them out. Like I said, it looks like really good software. (But did I mention that it’s pricey?)

Here’s the sample post they give to put in your blog post, to be entered for a prize…

Logos Bible Software is giving away thousands of dollars of prizes to celebrate the launch of Logos Bible Software 4 Mac on October 1. Prizes include an iMac, a MacBook Pro, an iPad, an iPod Touch, and more than 100 other prizes!

They’re also having a special limited-time sale on their Mac and PC base packages and upgrades. Check it out!

I keep fiddling with the look of the blog, trying to find a balance between interesting and busy. Visually, less is better. I keep coming back to this Thick template from WooThemes, but I wish it had a ready-made YouTube widget.

File this one under “Commercials I Can’t Stand”.

If it was just dumb, I don’t think I would mention it. If it were crass or boring, I wouldn’t be writing about it. This crosses the line, past stupid, almost to criminal.

I just saw it again, and immediately said to myself – that’s it, I’m writing about this.

The commercial is for FinallyFast.com. It begins with a guy complaining that his new computer is really slow. Then…well, watch this two-minute version, then we’ll talk…

Did you hear the announcer? “Make any computer fast.” Of course, he says that while the text on-screen tells you that FinallyFast is for PC computers only. That means, not Macs.

But, wait…what was it the first guy, the one complaining about his slow computer, was using? An old iMac. And the second person in the commercial was using…a MacBook.

On further inspection, Ascentive, the company touted as having been featured in BusinessWeek and Forbes, WAS indeed featured in Forbes…in 2002…for its program that lets users spy on supposedly private instant messages. That’s right…they were featured for…spyware.

Nice. And evil. And a site and company to avoid.

[Warning: for those that are bored by computer-talk, especially as pertains to software and the iPhone, this post...and the ones to follow...are not for you. You've been warned.]

Apple is currently counting towards the billionth download from their iPhone app store. I know I’ve done my part. Ever since the update of the iPhone last summer, when the App Store opened, there have been an ever-increasing variety of cool and useful apps. Most of the ones I choose are free.

Currently we are restricted to nine pages of apps. At 16 per page, plus the four on the bottom bar, that means you can have a total of 148 apps on your iPhone at any one time. I don’t have that many, but I do have 102.

So, as a public service…um, okay, whatever…here are all 102 of my apps, why I have them, why I do or don’t use them, and anything else that might help you decide to add them to your phone or not.

I’ve organized my nine pages from most important to least important, mostly. And the four most critical apps are on my home row – the row at the bottom that appears on every page.

We start with the least important, on…

Page Nine
The apps on this page made it here for one very important reason – I don’t use them. It doesn’t mean they’re bad or useless…necessarily. But I don’t use them. Ever. So why are they here at all? Why haven’t I deleted them? Well…I MIGHT use them. Maybe. Sometime. Okay, I know I won’t, but I can’t bring myself to delete them.

There are some apps I have deleted. Some good ones, too. Probably the best one I’ve deleted is the Masters app. But the Masters is over, so I won’t need it. There were a couple NCAA Basketball Tournament apps I deleted, too.

As for these apps, the top row contains four Twitter apps that all have some great features and work quite well, though somewhat differently from each other. In fact, at one time I was using all four of them, in order to manage my different Twitter accounts (follow me at Twitter.com/TimMcDaniel.) Probably my favorite of the four was Twitterific. All four of them are free.

UReport is a free Fox News app, that allows you to submit news stories to Fox. Never used it.

SmileDialLite is a neat little free app that does one thing – it allows you to store the photo of one of your contacts with their contact information. Then, when you start the program, you see your contact’s photo full-screen, and when you tap the bottom half of the picture, it dials their phone number. If you tap the top half, it will send them a text. Of course, this has limited appeal, since you can only store one person. SmileDial Pro allows multiple people for $3.99. Nice gimmick, but I don’t need it.

Lightsaber is the official Star Wars app. Cool, but I don’t use it. (It’s free.)

Air Sharing is probably the most useful app I never use. It allows you to wirelessly move files from your computer to your iPhone and vice-versa. It works. It’s easy. Why don’t I use it? Um…I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I don’t usually need to. But it’s there in case I do.

I got Air Sharing for free, during an introductory offer. Now it costs $4.99 through the App Store.

You’ll notice that at the bottom of my screen, in my home row, are my four most critical apps, and they’re not the four that Apple pre-determined should be my four most critical apps.

Okay, three out of four are. The Phone, Safari, and iPod apps are far and away the most important things about the iPhone, because, well, it IS a phone, the internet is always important, and, as much as it’s a phone, it’s also an iPod.

The fourth app in my home row is one of the few apps I’ve paid for. It’s also the reason the other four Twitter apps ended up on the ninth page. Tweetie is $2.99, and it takes the place of the other apps mainly because it handles multiple accounts. I update my Twitter status – and also my Facebook status via Twitter – many times a day. I also have Twitter accounts for the church (Twitter.com/FaithAssembly), my BibleQuizPodcast (Twitter.com/BQPodcast), and a couple of others, so this has become an important app.

Next: The 8 on page 8.