So you all remember the post I made about the Kindle for PC app that Amazon had out, and how nifty I thought it was? I’m starting to rethink the nifty part.

My wife is going back to school to get her bachelor’s in accounting. She decided to try ebooks for one of her texts, since the used book she was planning on buying isn’t available anymore. So I told her about Kindle for PC, and she downloaded it. Everything went fine until she tried to register it.

Invalid email address/password combination.

OK, that happens. She tried again, being careful to double-check her typing, and making sure the caps-lock key wasn’t pressed.

Invalid email address/password combination.

So she logged on to Amazon, thinking maybe she was mis-remembering her password. Nope — the SAME email.password combo got her onto the site with no problem. So she tried to register again.

Invalid email address/password combination.

I called tech support just a little while ago, and the rep was helpful. We turned off the firewall. We turned off the antivirus. We reinstalled. We rebooted.

Invalid email address/password combination.

Just now, I tried MY email and password. I’ve been using the thing on my laptop ever since I posted about it, and have downloaded a half a dozen books so far. MINE is working. So I try it on her install.

Invalid email address/password combination.

Someone has broken the program. There’s been some sort of update that has apparently broken Kindle for PC. Hopefully, my problem will alert the developers to the situation, and they can fix it quickly. The only problem is that my wife’s class started yesterday, and she’s got no textbook for it. And I feel at least partially to blame, because I’ve been telling her about what a great thing Kindle for PC is, and what a great idea etexts are for schools. Now I look like a fool.

Even worse — my wife is in the market for an ebook reader. Looks like Kindle is out of the running, unless they can fix things quickly.

Yes, I know there’s already a free Kindle app for the iPhone. I’m talking about a free Kindle application for your PC.

I figure Amazon is trying to lock people into the Kindle, so they want you to get your new ebooks in their format — once you decide to buy an ebook reader, it would be silly to have to re-purchase all those books, wouldn’t it? Just get a Kindle!

But whatever their reason, there are a ton of free books available for the Kindle, and now those books are available to anyone with a PC. Go here to download. (And no, that’s not an affiliate link, either!)

Thanks to Trog over at PCCBoard for the link.

OK, this doesn’t have to do much with books, but it DOES have a lot to do with blogging. If you’ve always wanted to host your own blog (like I do) but you haven’t taken the plunge yet (like I haven’t), NOW is the time.

Bluehost is offering a huge discount on their hosting packages, for a limited time only (and no, I have no idea how limited that limited time is). For unlimited hosting, unlimited bandwidth, a few thousand email accounts, and a lot more, they’ve cut their prices from $6.95 a month (which really wasn’t bad at all) to $3.95 a month. That’s a big deal, folks.

So here’s what I’m asking you to do. Click the button below and sign up. Yeah, that’s an affiliate link, so yeah I get paid if you buy something. And that money will go directly into buying a domain of my own, for this site, my other blog, my podcast (which I hope to get back running this month), and a few more projects I’ve got rattling around in my head that are just DYING to see the light of day.

Yes, I know the graphic says $6.95 — check the website and it will confirm the $3.95 price. You have to do it quickly, since it’s a limited time offer, but you really should go do it. And if you register through that link, I’ll appreciate you forever, and link to you from all the sites I end up running.

And this is the last blatantly commercial post I will ever do.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

This space has been quiet lately, but I’m hoping that will change with the coming of the new year. I have grand plans for both my blogs and my podcast, and I’m hoping 2010 is the year that I have the time and resources to see some of those plans come to fruition.

In the meantime, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!

I got this book through a giveaway from Zondervan. No expectations of a review, no money changed hands, none of that stuff. But I’m going to review it, because this book raises some interesting points that I think Christians are going to have to address and discuss. More and more people are doing church online. In SimChurch, Douglas Estes tries to define exactly what that means, and what it means for the church (and the Church, for that matter).

We’ve all been involved in a virtual world of some sort, whether we play online roleplaying games (MMORPGs) like World of Warcraft or simply hang out in a chat room. We interact with people in a space that is not physical — we’re not actually with the people we’re chatting with, you’re not really riding that unicorn getting ready to kill that ogre with your mace. That’s how we define a “virtual world” — it’s a world that does not exist physically, but is constructed so that people can gather there virtually, or electronically. How much we interact varies by individual; I know people who have more friends online than they do in real life, and interact with people more from the comfort of their desk chair than they ever would in a club. As these virtual worlds are constructed, the questions for the Church become “Should we attempt to introduce a Christian influence in these virtual worlds? And if so, how do we do that?”

There are certainly those who say that the Church should not waste resources on any type of “virtual world” ministry. Estes refers to Douglas Groothuis’ book The Soul in Cyberspace repeatedly in this book; Groothuis seems to be the chief opponent to virtual ministry, and Estes interacts with his arguments throughout SimChurch. I found this interaction quite valuable – Groothuis makes several good points, and Estes’ interaction with them is important in the discussion of virtual ministry.

One thing that Estes makes clear is that virtual ministry is not simply having a website or blog, or even podcast, for your church. The most important part of any ministry is building a community, and that is a vital part of virtual ministry as well. The biggest question that Estes attempts to answer in SimChurch is whether these communities formed in cyberspace constitute a church as defined in the Bible.

The most important consideration is simply what is meant by being “present” at a church service. Christ promises us that where two or three are gathered in His name, that He is there with them; does that include gatherings conducted via computer networks, as well as physical meetings? Estes introduced me to the concept of “telepresence” — “being present at a spatial or geographical distance through the help of technology.” (p. 63) The chapter on telepresence gets far more philosophical than I thought this book would ever get, with discussions of Descartes and Plato, but it’s important for us to really understand the concept of presence to really understand how a virtual church can work, and be a Biblical church. Once our definition of presence goes beyond physical presence, virtual church works.

There are problems with virtual ministry. When preaching to an avatar, for example, are you speaking to the virtual person or the real person behind the keyboard? How do you contextualize the Gospel when you have an 18 year old middle-class white male whose avatar is a 28 year old Hispanic woman? Which identity are you talking to? Of course, most pastors will agree that there are people filling physical pews in churches today who aren’t the people that their churches think they are; we all have secrets and masks. We all play roles. Digging through the layers of masks and deceptions to get to the real person underneath is a large part of ministry in the physical world; the virtual world makes this more important, and often more difficult, but it’s not a new problem. Virtual worship makes it easier for people to be passive observers rather than involved worshipers, but again that’s a common problem in even the most vibrant churches today.

The only “virtual church” I’ve ever attended was LifeChurch. I’ve attended a couple times – the services are good, the music is good, the preaching is Biblical and good, so I have no complaints about it. But virtual church isn’t my thing — I had a really hard time actually participating in worship online. It’s not limited to church, either — I downloaded Second Life a couple weeks ago, messed around with it for a little less than an hour, and uninstalled it. While I can spend hours playing an MMORPG like Champions Online or Guild Wars, the whole “virtual world” thing leaves me a little hollow. In Second Life, I keep wondering “What’s the point? What am I supposed to be doing here?” In virtual worship, I felt very disconnected from what was going on on my monitor.

That said, virtual churches are here, and they will continue to flourish – especially when physical churches aren’t doing enough to minister to people in their communities. Not every physical church should add a virtual campus to their ministry program, but more churches should be doing it than there are now. For every person who, like me, doesn’t feel comfortable worshipping in front of a computer monitor, there are people who will attend a virtual service in the privacy of their own home who would never show up at church on Sunday. We need to be reaching people where they are, and people are spending more and more time online. I personally see internet churches as more of an extension of a physical ministry than a stand-alone ministry (which is how Estes sees them), if for only financial support reasons, but I certainly think that virtual ministry is something that churches should be involved in.

My review for The Brutal Telling has been published at Blogcritics Magazine, so go there and read it. In short, this is a VERY good book, and I look forward to reading more of Penny’s work (including the previous stories in this series – yes, it’s another one of those books).

I received Invasion thanks to the LibraryThing Early Reader program. I get a free book, you get an honest review – and if you buy a copy, I get 4% from Amazon if you click the picture. I think that works out to about fifty cents

Thomas Kydd is a commander in the Royal Navy, facing Napoleon’s fleet across the English Channel. Invasion is imminent, and Kydd has been placed at the front of the action. Then, he’s pulled off the front lines and asked to be the government liaison with an American inventor, one Mr. Robert Fulton. It’s not steamboats that His Majesty’s Navy is interested in, though — it’s Fulton’s submersibles and his torpedoes – and how much he’s told the French about them. Because the Royal Navy is outmatched, and Fulton’s high-tech firepower may be what tips the scale back in their favor.

Invasion is the 10th book in Stockwin’s Kydd Sea Adventures series. Right there you know there’s plenty of backstory that you don’t get in this book. Add to that the fact that the reader is dropped right into the middle of the action in chapter 1, as Kydd is demanding a hearing from his commanding admiral, Sir James Saumarez, to clear his name of charges leveled in previous books. I spent most of the first couple of chapters totally confused, which is part of the reason it’s taken me so long to finish this book (I got it back in September!). Add to that the thick dialect that much of the dialog is written in, and this one almost got put into the DNF pile.

But that would have been a shame, because the book is actually quite good. In a series as long-running as this one, you’re not going to see much characterization in individual books, but you will see a fast-moving plot with a lot of action. If you love the age of wooden ships and iron men, you will enjoy this book — and this series, for that matter. Stockwin, a former Naval officer himself, knows his stuff; if you don’t know a lot about the age of sail, you’ll learn from this series.

One of the abiding themes in this particular book seems to be the changing state of warfare at the time. We see some of this in the American Revolution, with the British constantly calling the American militia’s guerrilla tactics “ungentlemanly” and “against the rules of warfare.” In Invasion, we see this even more, as the Royal Navy debates the idea of using weapons that will essentially make warfare less personal, and probably less glamorous as well. The idea of using stealth to surprise an enemy was frowned upon back then; today, it is practically a requirement for any battle plan.

I am embarrassed to admit that I was ignorant of Fulton’s role in developing submarines back in the 1800s; in fact, when I first requested a copy of this book, I though that it was an alternate history because of that. So I learned something in reading the book, which is always a good thing, as I’ve mentioned before.

Something that I mentioned in last night’s review of the Glo software has already been fixed. If the caption on the photograph (or other media) is too long to fit in the box, you can now click on MORE to read the rest. I’m sure there were other changes made (the update took a while), but I’m still playing with it. If I find more, I’ll edit this post.

I received Glo thanks to the Amazon Vine program – they get free products from publishers and distribute them to interested reviewers. The only thing I get out of it is a free product and a few $ if you buy it using the affiliate link (click the picture).

The first thing you will notice about Glo is that it’s a huge program — the install is 18 GB. No, that’s not a typo; that was, in fact, a G. As in giga. This is a huge program. Glo installs all video, all pictures, all maps, all everything. That’s nice, because you don’t need to carry the DVDs with you when you’re traveling, but an option to run videos from the DVD would have been nice. The size makes this a long install – on my brand-new laptop, it took a bit under an hour and a half; the instructions tell you to expect between one and three hours for the install, so I got off easy. Your mileage may, of course, vary.

Once you get it installed, you will notice that Glo is completely different from any other Bible software you’ve ever used. Traditional Bible software has a standard appearance and interface — you have the Bible pane, the Reference pane (sometimes called the Commentary pane), the Dictionary pane, and occasionally some other resources. They pretty much all look like this screenshot from e-Sword (my own Bible software of choice):

Glo doesn’t look anything like that.

Glo starts off with five icons: Bible, Timeline, Atlas, Topical, Media, and MyGlo, and sorts the wealth of information it has differently for each. If you select Bible, you get an overview of Old and New Testament books, in either the KJV or NIV translations. Zoom in, using the scroll wheel on your mouse, and you get more detail – divisions in each testament, divisions in each book, etc. Click on a passage, and you get the text, study notes, and pictures, maps, and interactive tours. This last one is the most fascinating – click on John 2:14, and you’re offered a virtual tour of Jerusalem (ancient or modern), the Royal Stoa, or the Temple Courts. Taking the virtual tour gives you an annotated, 360 degree view of the area you’re touring. You can easily get lost spending time in these tours — I just spent 20 minutes touring the Temple Courts as I was preparing to write this review. Atlas is pretty self-explanatory, as are Timeline and Media. Topics breaks down the information into three categories: Biblical World, Christian Faith, and Life. Zoom in on one of those, and it’s broken down further, until you get to just the topic you want to study.

The interface is very intuitive, and I know my descriptions here aren’t doing it justice. If you’re looking for specific information, there is a good search function available that will get you to what you’re looking for quickly. It’s the browsing around, the random discovery, that are Glo’s strong points.

I’m a person who can spend hours surfing Wikipedia, going from article to article, reading and learning more and more about things until I’ve gone totally off track from my original search. Glo is the same way. Start off with a passage about Jesus cleansing the temple, then suddenly tour the temple. Then you’re off to passages talking about the different partitions, or the sacrifices, or an article about the temple tax, or …. You get the idea.

MyGlo shows you what is coming soon. Updates are promised that include a Bible reading plan (or plans) that track your progress within the program, audio commentary on some pasages, an audio Bible, and animated maps. The maps and reading plan are listed as coming in “November 2009,” so I’m hoping for an update in the next few days The others are listed as “Q1, 2010.”

Glo isn’t without it’s shortcomings – I love the software, but there are things I wish they’d have added. I mentioned the smaller install option above; one of the biggest objections I’ve heard in talking to people about Glo is that it takes up so much room, and takes so much time to install. Putting all the media on one disc would enable the user to choose whether to install all the media to their computer, or just some. I understand that the desire was to create something that you could take with you without having to worry about carrying discs along, but making the option available would have been a good idea. I’d also would have liked having a wider choice of Bible translations available. Zondervan is, of course, going to include the NIV on it’s software, and the KJV is a given since it doesn’t cost anything to add in. I’m hoping that other translations will be made available later on (from what I’ve read, there will be more content made available in the future; expanded Bible versions, including the NASB and ESV would be a great addition, even if they required some sort of payment to unlock). The FAQ does say that more translations are coming soon, so I’m hopeful.

If you’re used to typical Bible study software, it may take some time to get used to Glo’s interface. I’m writing this review right after taking my first test-drive, while I play with the software some more this evening. I’ll put anything I want to add to these initial impressions below.

{edit}Addition 1 — There is no attribution in the articles. There is a brief bibliography in most of them, and there’s a note that tells you where the article came from, but no identification of the author. I would like to know that as I’m studying. Most articles seem to come from the Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, which is old (1976!). Hopefully, once the software is updated a few times, there will be more references available.

I’ve also read some reviews of an earlier version that told of problems with the installation. I had no problems with the install at all (this might be because I wasn’t going from a demo version to the full version, or it could be that the problems were fixed – probably a little of both). I have noticed that as I run more software (Firefox, e-Sword, iTunes) that Glo does slow down a little bit, but not enough to annoy me. The software does use a lot of memory, so if you experience some sluggishness, you may want to exit some programs that you may have running in the background.

Addition 2: I’ve noticed in some of the virtual tours that the subtitles of the pictures end with ellipses, but I haven’t found anywhere where they continue the text. Clicking on the box does no good. And there is no manual, and a very sparse FAQ.

I’m BAAAAACCCKK!!

I haven’t been requesting very much lately, since I’m trying to get caught up. That’s working pretty well, though I’m still pretty far behind. But when I saw this book available through the Member Giveaways list at LibraryThing, I had to try for it. It’s the first thing I’ve ever won through the Member Giveaways, so I’m pretty excited. I’m a sucker for Arthurian fiction anyway, so this looks like a fun read — and it’s the FIRST book in a series, which will be a welcome change.

As always, the whole Mailbox Monday thing is instigated by Marcia over at The Printed Page. Head over there to check out what goodies other book bloggers found in their mailboxes this week!!