Powerpoint the "Ryan Air of Presentation Software"

Over on Bible Films Blog, Matt Page has a very helpful post on Using Video Clips in Presentations. He mentions that he is sad to hear that I have "now given up using video clips in lectures because they're too prone to go wrong". I had forgotten that I had said that in one of the extended episodes of the NT Pod, and I have long since repented of any such hasty decision and often show little clips in class. In fact just this morning, I shared a a Youtube clip of E. P. Sanders discussing Paul's concept of participation in Christ.

My reason for picking up on Matt's post, though, is to share a great line, to the following effect:

I know PowerPoint is the Ryan Air of presentation software (everyone slags it off but uses it anyway) and I know that smug mac types will be reading this safe in the knowledge that everything they do is better than if they did it on a PC, but here's something for us lesser mortals. I for one actually like PowerPoint. It's a tool that's widely abused, and the majority of presentations are just awful, but if you take your time to "get it" then it's a great, if somewhat flawed, tool.

The non-British readers may not be familiar with Ryanair, but it is the budget pack-em-in airline that everyone in the UK complains about but which nevertheless is widely used. Great analogy.

2009 Review of Biblical Studies and Tech Tools

Don't miss Mark Hoffman's excellent 2009 Review of Biblical Studies and Tech Tools over on the Biblical Studies and Technological Tools Blog.

The End of Yahoo! Briefcase: a Cautionary Tale?

There is a school of thought that says that the best way to back up your documents is to find a secure internet site. The theory is that you can access your documents from anywhere in the world as long as you have a web browser. There is no need for multiple flash drives or CDs, or other things that moth and rust, or the twenty-first century equivalent, might destroy. I must admit to having had some sympathy with this school of thought. Material that I have had available up on the web somewhere secure has often been a great help to me. Such documents withstand computer crashes, data losses, accidents and disasters happening on the laptop, the PC or wherever. But this March brings a cautionary tale.

I was looking for an old article I had written this week and couldn't find it in any of the standard places I look for my old stuff. So I turned to Yahoo! Briefcase which I used to use a good deal back in the day. It was part of the "my yahoo" suite which I used to enjoy before it turned out that Google did all the same things but much better. The following message greeted me there:

Briefcase will be closing on March 30, 2009.
You must download or delete your files before this date.
For more information, please see Help.

This was the first that I had heard that my 30MB of data was about to vanish. If I had not happened to pop back to the site, all this would have gone for good without my getting the chance to save it. So here is the moral of the story: don't assume that your online back-ups are safe for ever. One day even Google may no longer be with us.

SBL / Logos Technology Paper Awards deadline fast approaching

Michael Heiser emails to ask that I (and other bloggers) post a reminder about the SBL / Logos Technology Paper Awards. The deadline of 1 May 2007 is fast approaching. Details are available here:

Logos Bible Software and Society of Biblical Literature Technology Paper Awards

The link explains the awards as follows, and provides all the other relevant information:

Logos Bible Software and the Society of Biblical Literature announce two sets of awards for papers that creatively use technology in exploring questions of grammar and syntax in biblical studies: one focusing on the Hebrew Bible, the other on the Greek New Testament. The contests are open to all those engaged in the study of those disciplines, and prizes will be awarded in both areas for student and faculty/professional categories. A total of twelve awards will be given.