Upgrading GoBible binaries

For the people out there who may be using touch-screen capable J2ME devices, and you already have GoBible 2.4 (any version) on your phone, you can update the JAR file at this web address:

http://squidssquids.mooo.com/gobible/upgrade-binaries.php

This will update GoBible to the "symmetric scrolling" version which, though being slower, should provide one with a more pleasant experience on touch screens.

Enjoy!

Maintenance update Go Bible Creator 2.4.2

Over the weekend, a bug was discovered in the processing of USFM files that use the glossary word tag pair \w_...\w*. The bug caused the actual glossary word to be deleted from the verse text.

This bug has been fixed and tested. The updated source code for Go Bible Creator has been checked in to the SVN repository.

Packaged binaries for Go Bible Creator 2.4.2 will be uploaded presently.

Maintenance update Go Bible Creator 2.4.1

We recently encountered a very old bug in Go Bible Creator, or rather in Sun Java (now Oracle).

The internal manifest has a line break inserted at column 72 for long Info: lines.

Amazingly, the original method counted bytes rather than Unicode characters. This meant that long lines that contained multibyte characters could end up with the codepoint being split at the line breaks, thus rendering the compiled JAR file invalid, and for many phones caused the application unable to be installed.

The bug was never triggered for either short Info: lines, or even for long lines in which all the characters were single byte codepoints, as is the case for the English alphabet. This is why it has taken since 2003 for this bug to surface.

Our programmer found an open-source alternative method to make the manifest. He has implemented this in the maintenance update that is now available as Go Bible Creator version 2.4.1 which can be downloaded from the usual places.

This has been checked by the team who encountered the problem, and they have reported that the updated build now installs OK on all their phone models.

Development Update: Symmetric Scrolling Branch

Symmetric Scrolling (Symscroll) Branch
If you look at the SVN repository, the symmetric scrolling (symscroll) branch is where all the new check-ins have been taking place. The features available on this branch include:

1. Symmetric scrolling. Pressing 'up' goes up by one screen, and pressing 'down' goes down by one screen. This should be much more intuitive than the previous method*.
2. Touchscreen support. For the few out there using the dying breed of phones that support both Java and touchscreens, this branch is for you. For touchscreen phones with a hardware menu button, you can safely get rid of the on-screen keypad and retain full functionality.
3. Psalm titles
4. Text added in by translators can now be marked up, provided the original sources have them.
5. Verse numbers in other numeral representations.
6. Search next feature allows you to search from a particular point in the text.

* The previous method, whereby 'up' went up by one verse, and 'down' went down by one screen, had its merits, namely speed, which this branch is going to assume is less relevant in the era of phones that can emulate Nintendo Gameboys.

Technology to Change Cambodia

What you are looking at may seem insignificant. It is the Khmer Bible on a $90 cell phone. This phone can be purchased locally and other phone models as cheaply as $50 which can run the Bible as well. Currently, nearly every church leader, adult and many young people (even in Cambodia) have access to cell phones.

The phone you hold in our hand has more power than computers were 15 years ago. It can do more things and it is more versatile. The days of having “just a phone” are long gone. Now, nearly every phone comes equipped with Wi-Fi, blue tooth, operating systems which allow installation of other programs like mp3 players, capability to view movies, and even make movies!; VIOP calls (through internet connection), video and HD camera capabilities, and. . . oh yeah, any kind of spreadsheet, word processor, picture viewer and multiple language capabilities. Whew! What will they think of next to put in the palm of your hand!

How about free Bibles!

In many countries you can be jailed or even killed for carrying a Bible. Some countries ban the publishing of the Bible in the country, or extremely limit its availability (like Cambodia). What you are seeing pictured here is a revolution. It is a Jesus-virus! Once something is digitized you cannot stop it. (Ever heard of wiki-leaks?)

This little Bible program is based on the software called “Go Bible” and is designed to run on basic cell phones. The entire NT is compressed into 617kb. Yes that is Kilobytes, not Megabytes! It can be downloaded, blue-toothed and installed on any supporting phone, at will, by any user. What does that mean for distribution? It works like a virus and can never be stopped!

Revolution in Publishing

This also means a revolution in publishing. Will it replace the printed Bible? Probably not, but it will definitely aid thousands and even hundreds of thousands of people who don’t have access to a printed Bible, or where carrying a printed Bible might put them in jeopardy. It also provides an exhaustive concordance and Bible text all in one. The entire NT is searchable in seconds.

Most non-English Bibles do not have concordances. That means if a pastor wants to preach on Baptism, he has to try to recall which verses in the Bible talk about Baptism. If he needs to counsel someone on a particular subject, he has no way of searching for relevant Bible verses in his Bible . . . until now!

Why digitize the Bible and offer it free?

God’s word should not be “locked up” for the sake of publishers making money. I am the publisher so I have determined that access to Bible in Cambodia should be at the highest priority and selling Bibles should be a very low priority. Asia Bible Society and Words of Life jointly own the text and it is copyrighted, but we allow anyone to use it personally and give it away freely. Matthew 10:8 “Freely it has been given to you, freely give.” In one survey we did, we found that only 26% of believers in Cambodia have a Bible. Believers in the West often have dozens of Bibles. This little 617kb Bible program in Khmer will probably significantly change that statistic! This little program and the technology behind it can truly bring change to Cambodia!

Note: Currently, the “Khmer Go Bible” is in Beta testing and will be ready for public release for viral distribution very soon! Get ready! Make sure your phone has pre-installed Khmer language capabilities.

Ahhh .... release ...

It is Wonderful to have the release of version 2.4.0 this past weekend.

As one who has worked in many different industries building software, banking, lending, flight operations, financial, data transformation, translation tools, language tools, Unicode, ... it's always very satisfying to make a contribution to an existing product that is currently being used. This is my experience with this software: to hear that there are thousands of downloads a month is very neat!



The most challenging part of getting involved was getting my environment configured and getting to a place where I could build and debug the applications. Being an open source project, I used free Java environments and ended up staying with NetBeans IDE for both the Creator (PC application) and the Core (Mobile J2ME project).

The software is pretty straight forward and easy to understand: thanks to the work of those who have gone before (Thanks Jolon and others).

This is a great project and it's being actively used right now. There are more tasks that are slated for work, but as the story often is ... the workers are few. If you are able .. consider getting the source and see about making a contribution that will continue to give long after you stop working on it.

[photo: part of my desk where I worked on GoBible these last several months (off and on)]

Go Bible v2.4.0 release

Go Bible software version 2.4.0 was released earlier today.
Visit the Go Bible Forum for details.

Thanks to D. Hinton for all the programming effort over the last few months.

Converting JavaME applications to the Android platform (revisited)

The author of MicroEmulator, Bartek Teodorczyk in Oslo, Norway, has posted a guide to converting Java ME apps to the Android platform. This link is to his updated version.

This may appeal to some of our Go Bible developers.

A ten-minute guide to setting up a WAP site

A ten-minute guide to setting up a WAP site

This article describes, very briefly, the steps involved in providing WML pages to mobile devices, in particular WAP-enabled mobile phones. It assumes that reader is already familiar with HTTP, HTML, and Web server operation, but knows nothing about WML or WAP protocols. The article does not attempt to describe WML, but does provide a simple example.

SIL Open Font License (OFL)

SIL Open Font License (OFL): "The SIL Open Font License (OFL) is a free and open source license specifically designed for fonts and related software based on our experience in font design and linguistic software engineering."

Intivation's solar powered mobiles

On Saturday, the Telegraph (one of Britain's main broadsheet newspapers) carried an informative article in the technology page by reporter Matt Warman, under the title, "A ray of sunshine for Haiti". You can read the full article online here. It begins,

Dutch mobile phone firm Intivation has donated 1,000 of its solar-powered handset to the earthquake-stricken Caribbean country. Haiti’s prime minister has described the damage done to his country by January 12’s earthquake as “a disaster on a planetary scale”. Earlier this week Jean Max Bellerive spoke of nearly a quarter of a million homes destroyed, 300,000 people injured and 200,000 dead – and nearly a month after the event itself, Port au Prince was still nowhere near resurrecting its power system.

But the Caribbean nation’s mobile phone networks were back up within a few days – most within just 24 hours. In a country where mobile phones are owned by one in three people, and massively outnumber landlines, the crucial issue for many residents was not being unable to communicate, it was being able to keep their phones charged. A number of people were saved because they were able to send text messages while they were trapped underneath the rubble from collapsed buildings.

Some entrepreneurs immediately saw a business opportunity – thousands were prepared to pay for 15 minutes connected to a car battery to recharge their mobiles. Dutch mobile phone firm Intivation, however, has long realised that its solar powered handsets were a solution to the problems of Haiti’s unreliable infrastructure. First launched in the Caribbean nation, the devices have subsequently been sold in seven more countries by 11 operators.

The company’s idea is a simple one: in countries in emerging markets, there’s often enough sun to make the latest solar power technology a viable way of charging phones, even in normal use. Where other companies use a number of solar cells, Intivation’s method of using a single, larger cell and adapting the power output is just one feature that makes their technology, on a cloudy day, more than 20 times as efficient as traditional solar technologies.

more .....

The concept of using solar power for mobile phones in energy starved countries is such a good idea, that I thought it merits having some attention drawn to it in this blog. Visit the main Intivation website to learn more about the business, the technology and their products.

GSM cell phones - statistics of interest

There are a total of 4.3 billion cell phones in general use, 3.5 billion of which are GSM phones. 80 percent of cellular traffic is over GSM.

cf. Total world population (2010) is estimated to be 6.797 billion.

Does anyone doubt the importance of getting the Bible on to GSM cellphones in as many languages as possible?

International Conference on Computing and Mission (ICCM)

The International Conference on Computing and Mission (ICCM-Europe) takes place in the Netherlands 10-13 March, 2010.

'Engineering and Theology' matches 'Computing and Mission'.

I have therefore just booked to attend.

I hope to have opportunities to share information about Go Bible for mobile phones.

Go Bible for Android phones

Yesterday I discovered that it is possible to convert any Java ME application to an Android package file APK, using a free online converter called GetAPK.

One of my colleagues has tested this for a few Go Bible applications in a number of different languages, with a considerable degree of success. He wrote,

It's not perfect, it sometimes hangs if you run multiple copies of the program at once, the font is rather cruddy, but it does work. You need to install the J2ME Runner application on the phone but the program prompts you when you don't have it. The small icon compared to the normal sized Android icon is a minor issue.

I have therefore converted the KJV Go Bible to KJV.APK for the benefit of a wider number of potential users. This is a useful interim solution for getting free Bibles onto Android phones.

Depending on further feedback, I hope to convert a few more Go Bibles in the same way, and make them available for download from shared folders in my box.net account. These programs will all be unsupported software, provided on an "as is" basis, as a "stop-gap" measure for Android users. I myself don't yet have an Android mobile phone.

Meanwhile, there is nothing to stop you using GetAPK to convert Go Bible applications by yourself.......

David Haslam
CrossWire Go Bible project leader

About Stephen Denne

Hello,

This post is to introduce myself, Stephen Denne.

I'm a husband, and a father of two young children.

My goal is to increasingly know God and make God known. I've been a software developer for many years, and involved to various degrees in a number of bible software products, helping to make God known. My main areas of software expertise would be in compression, conversion, searching, and catering for small form factor PDAs and mobiles.

2009 has been a year of changes so far for me - moving to Christchurch New Zealand (from Wellington), buying a nice house in Christchurch, moving again, into that house, and finding a church.

In amongst those changes, I've started adapting the GoBible Creator to be able to create GoBible applications from the bible modules of The SWORD Project. After starting that task, I discovered that over five years ago I'd suggested that someone create such an application.

That makes me think that maybe it took me five years to listen to God, regarding the option of helping with GoBible myself, and that having good ideas may be God saying you can be the one to bring that idea into existence.

What good ideas has God given you?

beibl.net announces Welsh Go Bible

I am happy to report today's announcement at beibl.net of the Go Bible application of the colloquial Welsh translation of the New Testament by Arfon Jones. This can be downloaded by visiting this site:

http://www.beibl.net/adre/poced.php

This transation is copyright Gobaith i Gymru / Hope for Wales.

The CrossWire Bible Society has been granted permission to distribute this translation, and it is already available as a SWORD module in the CrossWire beta repository.

Work on translating the Old Testament into modern Welsh is continuing.

Introduction

Hi Everyone,

I'm excited to be getting involved in the Go Bible Project. I'm a Learning Technologies Specialist and Sr. Software Engineer with Mission Aviation Fellowship, Learning Technologies.

I'm particularly interested in orality and mobile learning. Check out my Celuversity presentation.

There more info about us at http://www.maf.org/rhoads. We also maintain a blog and occasionally put out a podcast.

Go Bible at CrossWire - a call for volunteers

The CrossWire Bible Society is adopting Go Bible as one of its open-source software applications and development projects.

Now that there a link to Go Bible project from the CrossWire applications page , I would like to issue a call for volunteers for experienced Java programmers to help in taking the development project forward. There is more to do than any single one of us can manage, given all the other calls on our time and resources.

Please visit my CrossWire Developers wiki page and volunteer to take on some of the tasks listed. By all means add further tasks, as and when you identify a requirement. If you have suggestions, discuss them in my Talk page, and/or send to the relevant CrossWire mailing list.

You will find it helpful to join the Go Bible Forum, Go Bible Google group, and Go Bible Dev Google group, and Google code pages for Go Bible, as and when appropriate. You can find all the relevant links in the side panel of this blog.

Please keep me in the loop.

Kitaabka Quduuska Ah

Kitaabka Quduuska Ah is the name of the Somali Bible. This is now officially available to download free of charge as a Java cellphone application from Nolosha Cusub. Please pray that people from both Somalia and Somaliland will discover this and find it a comfort and a blessing in these troubled times. Remember too the many Somalis who are living abroad as refugees from the conflicts in the Horn of Africa.

Farsi Go Bible

Producing GoBibles as such is not the total focus for me, but producing material for Iranian churches is. And GoBible fits perfectly.

Thanks to David for bringing me into the fold.

Thanks to Magdi for his successful work on the Arabic Bible which kept me going when I did not get the Farsi version right.