Handy Inspiration for Personal Organizers

A digital Bible on your computer is a wonderful tool, but what about when you’re away from your desk?

Bible software for personal organizers is available, and for my money, the best has come from Laridian Inc. (https://www.laridian.com), a software publisher based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The company is offering versions of the Bible for both Palm-based and Pocket PC-based devices.

The software--on both platforms--is priced from $30 to $40 depending on the Bible translation. It has two components: a $10 “reader” program and the Bible translation. The King James, New Living and New Revised Standard versions sell for $20 each; the New International Version and the New American Standard are $30 each.

The Palm product is called MyBible and provides a book-by-book index and a search feature that allows users to find a passage by keywords or verse. Wild-card searches can find a group of related words--typing “bapt*” will find “baptize,” “baptism” and so forth. Scripture selections can be bookmarked for future fast reference.

Memory can be an issue on some Palm models that have only 2 megabytes or 8 MB, so the firm lets users load specific books.

A complete Bible takes up about 1.5 MB of space on a Palm, the software’s maker said. The software also works with the flash memory storage cards available on newer Palm models.

On the Pocket PC side, the firm offers PocketBible, which is priced in the same way as its Palm kin.

PocketBible works a bit better than MyBible because it can take advantage of the Pocket PC’s color screen and highly variable type sizes.

As with its Palm counterpart, PocketBible lets users annotate selected verses and do advanced Boolean searches (for example, “Moses AND Pharaoh”).

Laridian sells its products online and through some retail and catalog outlets.

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Mark A. Kellner is a freelance technology writer and hosts “Mark Kellner on Computers” at https://www.adrenalineradio.com from 5 to 6 p.m. Thursdays.