logos

Logos Bible Software's not resting on their laurels with Logos 4, Logos 4 Mac, their iPhone and iPad applications, Biblia.com, and the soon-to-be-released Proclaim. Logos is launching yet another new service coming soon. It's called Vyrso, and it's a new way for users to purchase and enjoy reading Christian eBooks.

Vyrso is a new, online Christian eBook store that allows people to purchase their favorite Christian eBooks, and read them anywhere, from the specially-created Vyrso apps on mobile devices, to Biblia.com, to even Logos 4 and the Logos mobile apps. It's the perfect place to get your hands on your favorite Christian living and Christian general-reading titles.

I can see Vyrso easily taking on competing Bible bookstore sites that offer Christian titles in electronic form (in print form as well), and while I'm sure it probably won't directly take on Amazon (although I know I said "Watch out Amazon" in my title), for those of us who've used Amazon as a source for reading Christian titles, if Vyrso begins to offer a better selection and more flexibility by being integrated into Logos, I can see it lulling over some users to this new platform.

New church presentation software is coming out soon from Logos Bible Software called Proclaim and it’s located here http://proclaimonline.com. I and a few other church members have been alpha testing it, and it's definitely going to be amazing software! Unlike all other church presentation software systems, this one will allow pastors, worship leaders, and worship team members to all access and add to the same presentation before it’s presented, and then use the same application to run the presentation during the service.

To add to the excitement of the release of Proclaim, they are giving away $25,000 in worship resources in The Great Worship Resource Giveaway. They are going to have 100’s of winners of some of the best worship resources on the market. The giveaway is located on the Proclaim home page http://proclaimonline.com where you will see how to enter. You can also see all the prize partners there, listing out some great resources from companies like Planning Center Online, Graceway Media, Worship Leader Magazine, Centerline Media, Musicademy, Clover Sites, Christian Musician Summit, Luna Guitars, National Worship Leader Conference, and prizes from many more.

I’m excited about this new product Proclaim. You can see a video of the software on their site which gives a quick detail of how it will help worship leaders and ministry teams. Visit http://proclaimonline.com to see the video, and enter ‘The $25,000 Great Worship Resource Giveaway’.

Having been disappointed by the performance of my new netbook after importing all my Libronix 3 data into Logos 4, I decided to bite the bullet and buy a new primary laptop. (My previous primary laptop was a bit slugish with Logos 4, plus it could not play many of the newer games I wanted to get...)

I wanted to get a system that had a good video card with dedicated memory, Bluetooth, a 64-bit multi-core processor, an extended battery, and support for at least 8 gig of RAM. I generally prefer the major name brands for my primary systems, but could not find what I wanted at a price I was willing to pay. I ended up compromising by getting a standard battery and a shared memory graphics card and picking the HP Pavilion dv6-2150us. (Click on the link for specs and details on Amazon)

[amazon B00318CG9G full]

At the time I bought it, they were running $770 at Micro Center, but I picked up a open box unit for a $70 discount. In addition, I got a $50 rebate from HP about 45 days later. I have been very satified. I don't think I have blue screened even once. This is probably more to do with using Windows 7 Home Premium 64 than the hardware.

Logos 4 works great! Very impressed! As for the rest of my configuration, I use AVAST for my anti-virus, Zone Alarm for my firewall, MS Office 2007 for my productivity work, and Liberkey for most everything else. (Liberkey collects the best in freeware in a portable format designed for a USB key, but I install it directly on the hard drive as it does a great job keeping all its apps up to date. Portable Apps is another tool that does simular stuff, but its focus is on open source software, and it only just started updating its apps automatically.)