By Stephen Borchert
In our current high-tech world, we're inundated with gadgets that are always giving us one more thing to carry. It's nice to know that the Pocket PC is finally allowing us to reverse that trend. With Laridian's PocketBible for the Palm-sized PC, Handheld PC, and the new Pocket PC, it's possible to carry a Bible in your pocket.
What? You can already do that, you say? True, but now that you're carrying a Pocket PC, you can leave the paper copy at home. Besides, it'll let you deflect some of the criticism that says your pocket computer is merely a toy. PocketBible is loaded with features normally found only in desktop Bible study programs. PocketBible lets you carry around a Bible that takes advantage of the digital age by allowing you to instantly search for a particular chapter or verse or search for every occurrence of a particular word or phrase.
Installation
When I purchased PocketBible (formerly known as PalmBible) from the Laridian Electronic Publishing Web site at http://www.laridian.com, I was surprised to find they assigned me a unique user number. This allows me to download any of the products I've purchased whenever I want, in case I lose my copy. I purchased the PocketBible Reader and the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) Bible.
Other Bible versions available include the KJV (King James Version), KJV New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs, the NASB (New American Standard Bible), the NIV (New International Version), NKJV (New King James Version), and the NLT (New Living Translation).
I installed both the PocketBible Reader program and the Bible to the storage card to save memory, though either or both can be installed to main memory. The NRSV Bible is 2.91MB, and it has everything in it but the kitchen sink.
Features
Having used PalmBible (the previous version) for a while, I expected the Pocket PC version to be merely updated for the new Pocket PC interface. I was pleasantly surprised to find the PocketBible program to be not only an update of the previous versions, which are capable in their own right, but also expanded with additional capabilities. It also makes use of Microsoft's new ClearType to display the Bible in a format similar to that of the Microsoft Reader program.
User interface
The user interface has been carefully engineered to be functional and unobtrusive at the same time. A simple tap on the double-arrow icons on the bottom row brings up the tool bar and/or the status bar, and another tap hides them from view. See Figure A for an example.
FIGURE A
PocketBible's use of screen real estate is well organized and efficient. (click for larger image)
