July 2007 - Posts

• Useful worship resource - the internet

  Being the music director in my church, I like to try to find songs that will be useful to teach. Obviously one option is to buy every album that comes out from Hillsong, Planet Shakers, Parachute Band, Soul Survivor, Passion, etc... and to sift through them to find ones that seem good. If the other option is to pray for inspiration and to write my own, then I'm all for getting the songs from elsewhere. Writing music is something I seem to struggle with. Mostly it's the words though - despite have 66 books of great lyrics right there. But that's for another post. This post is about trying to find songs out there that I can teach the church. Another area of this which will be covered in a separate post is the copyright side of things. For now, I'm going to assume that you the reader are covered to be able to use any song you find, but please check that you actually do have those rights. I don't actually buy much music on CD though. And here's why... there's this fantastic resource for finding songs. It's called the Internet. You know, that thing that causes people to fall into sin by providing easy access to pictures they shouldn't be looking at, and where your kids can meet people you really don't want them to ever meet. But for someone trying to find songs for their church, it can be invaluable. More on how it can be so useful soon... Posted Jul 29 2007, 12:05 AM by Rob Farley with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Beginner, worship

• Peddling the word of God

  One of the things about technology today is the freedom that it gives us to get the message of the Cross out there into the hands of people on the street. MP3 audio is able to be consumed by virtually every personal computer and most mobile phones and certainly all the various digital media players on the market today.  A single message recorded in text or MP3 can be distributed and shared by almost the entire western world and a reasonable proportion of the rest of the earths population (language barriers aside). In addition, CD players are almost ubiquitous, and the ability to create new mediums is now cheap and easy compared to the past. Not only this, but we live in an age where we have some very experienced and very powerful teachers and preachers and some incredible Christian thinkers. In a world where western Christians have so much potential and content, you'd think that we'd have nothing holding us back - but we do. It seems that the key thing holding believing Christians back is apathy, which is induced by modern journalism fueled by secular (at best - socialist more realistically) agendas.  One of the side affects of this secular mind-set is that everything must be done for a dollar.  You cannot just give stuff away - you must charge for it. I've just finished listening to an audio file by a thinking believer who is in a unique position to understand some of the affairs of the modern world - and what he says is bone jarringly chilling, and something that politicians, Christians and the average Joe on the street should know.  But when I visit the web site that hosts this content, I find that it is material that is copyright protected and distributed for a fee. This is preposterous. Its like being warned that your neighbors house will be burned down tomorrow and rather than warning him to flee for his life or stay somewhere else, you go and tell him "I have something important to tell you - your life depends on it, but you have to pay me for it". If the message is critical (and isn't any good Bible based teaching?), why do we charge for it?  Isn't there enough barriers to people getting into the word of God?  Do we need to introduce another one (money)? I've asked big, well known and well respected ministries about this in the past and have had answers like - "we have more than 100 people working here - we have to support them".  Maybe you do have lots of people in your ministry - but are they there for money or for Christ?  Is your ministry there for money or for Christ?  Have you set your ministry up for ultimate failure by paying staff a salary from earnings rather than depending on Christ to supply all your needs?  Ultimately these ministries will fail to reach the mass they could because they have limited the accessibility of the ministry to those with money - rather than limiting it to whosoever will. Do those who preach the word not believe that God owns the world and that all the resources of the universe are at His disposal and he can direct them where he wills?  Do we not trust the Lord of the universe - whom we say and even preach that we trust? I cannot see how any ministry can justify charging for the word of God or the teaching of the Word.  In fact, I'll go as far to say that this approach (charging for ministry material) is the equivalent of peddling the word of God (2 Cor 2:17).  Jesus gave the disciples a principle to work by when he sent them out. He told them "You have received without paying; give without pay."  In case you mistake this to mean that organizations should be non-profit - he continued "Acquire no gold nor silver nor copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals nor a staff, for the laborer deserves his food" (Matt 10:8-10).  The instruction was clearly to minister without imposing costs. There has to be a better way that truly honors the Lord and aids (rather than hinders) the dissemination of the Word of God. UPDATE: One thing I should point out is that I'm deliberately distinguishing between those calling themselves ministries and those calling themselves companies.  Companies charge - thats what they do - ministries shouldn't. Posted Jul 27 2007, 07:33 PM by Darryl with 6 comment(s) Filed under: Intermediate, Bible, Audio

• Digital Christianity - Pro's and Cons

  Did you know that it is possible to be a Christian, be soaking yourself in the word daily and yet rarely or never use a paper Bible? Having done the little series on Tablet PC's (part 1, part 2) and OneNote, I hope you can see how this is possible: Use a Tablet PC or UMPC Take notes in OneNote or Windows Journal Use one of the excellent Bible software packages for Bible reading, notes, journaling, prayer lists, etc Sync your mobile data Cons It is not all roses (yet). There are some serious shortcomings of doing this. Here is My quick list It is expensive, and for many (most) people hard or impossible to justify You need to carry your tablet or UMPC with you - wherever you want to use it You become tightly dependant on the life of your battery and power supply Starting your computer is slower than opening your Bible (unless you use standby/sleep rather than shutdown/hibernate) Sharp learning curve for many people The last point is one that we'd like to address with this website to a certain extent if we can Pro's Having got all the bad stuff out of the way... there are some great benefits to doing this: Instant, exhaustive search - where you are- anytime All your notes and possibly entire library where you are - anytime You are not restricted to just reading, you can also listen and watch good content You can also consume relevant information from the Internet and watch trends and learn form others The trade off is flexibility vs simplicity.  This is where technology typically fights it out with traditional solutions.  Technology still has a long way to go to make this as easy as it should be, but it is getting there, and it is possible today - for a price. For many believers the cons will out weigh the pro's, however, it is possible to be completely digital today and there are advantages to it, In reality this could be in your future. The world is changing and technology is becoming more affordable. If we have access to technology we need to start to use it to grow in Christ - the time will come when we could be much more dependant on it. Posted Jul 25 2007, 09:14 AM by Darryl with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Intermediate, Bible, Tablet

• How we record sermons

  The church I go to is small. It's a new church still, and will grow more in the future. But that's no reason not to record the sermons and get them out onto the internet. Domain name registration is cheap - we just paid about AU$40 for the next two years. And hosting can be cheap too if you're lucky. But recording sermons? That sounds complicated, right? Traditionally, churches recorded sermons on tape decks, hooked up to the sound desk. While people were getting prayed for at the end of the service, a team of people would be frantically making copies of the tapes, so that as many interested people as possible could leave church that day able to listen to the message again. And that's really important for getting a message to hit home. But tape decks are old technology. These days people want them on CDs, or in MP3 format. The technology-savvy people will want them in a podcast, so that they have a copy of the sermon sync'd onto their MP3 player without them having to do a thing. If you have a sound desk, one easy option is to hook up one of the outputs into the mic jack of a computer. But most people don't want to take a laptop into church, and many churches don't have the luxury of having a computer available to do the recording. We don't even have our own building, and so a different solution was required for us. And the answer is simply an MP3 player. Many models have a recording function as well, to turn them into a dictaphone. Our preachers click the record button just before they start, and they click the stop button at the end. Later, the MP3 that results gets uploaded to a site, and I make minor alterations to the XML file that contains the RSS feed information, pointing it to the latest file. More on RSS in another post I think. So if you're not recording your sermons because you don't want to use a tape deck, then consider just using a dictaphone-style MP3 player. You could probably record it from anywhere in the church, but we find that giving the preacher control helps make sure that it starts and stops at the right time. But your mileage may vary. Just don't let the size of your church stop you making sermon recordings that take up so much less space than a cassette tape. Posted Jul 24 2007, 02:35 PM by Rob Farley with no comments Filed under: Beginner, Hardware, sermon, MP3 players, iPod

• Carrying your bible with you all the time

  As a guy, I often envy the fact that women carry handbags. They have this fantastic way of carrying whatever they need, all the time. If I had a handbag, I'd look strange. Instead, I tend to overload my pockets, but that has other drawbacks, and you can't carry much that way - particularly not a decent Bible. A small one, sure... but as soon as you want to be able to have something with study notes, or a concordance, forget it. As a bloke, it's a problem! But for the past year or so, it's been easy. I got myself a Windows Mobile phone. I always have this with me, because it's my phone. I got a stylus that is a pen in disguise, so now I also have a pen with me all the time too. But best of all, I got some Bible Software for it, so now I have the Bible with me wherever I go. I can also download Christian podcasts so that I can listen to the Bible, or a sermon, a study, whatever if I'm driving. I have one with quite a big screen, which makes it bigger and more cumbersome, but easier to read. My phone is an O2 IIs - although that's quite an old model now. I use Laridian to read the Bible, with about 10 different versions, as well as a Strong's Concordance, various daily studies and bible dictionaries. And I use Egress as an RSS reader, to let me download podcasts as well as other studies. I even use it to read BibleTechnology! Posted Jul 23 2007, 01:02 PM by Rob Farley with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Beginner, Mobile, Bible

• OneNote - one of my favorite applications

  In my opinion, one of the coolest pieces of software available for tablet PC's today as OneNote.  Microsoft OneNote is part of the Office Enterprise SKU of Microsoft Office 2007.  You can also purchase it separately and regardless of whether you have a tablet PC or not - it is a very useful piece of software. I want to profile this little piece of software because it has a couple of uses that are unique to those wanting to study the Bible. By way of introduction, here are some of my favorite features that you can take advantage of on any computer with OneNote: Store your notes as you would on paper - by folder and with tabbed names You can put anything into a note - ink, text, sound, images,files, folders, or whatever else you happen to have on your computer. You can record sound with it You can record sound in OneNoe from a meeting while you take notes When you've recorded sound and taken notes you can listen to the audio at the place where you wrote/typed the note You can share a OneNote note with other OneNote users on a network and contribute to the same note concurrently Search through all your notes (handwritten or typed) quickly and easily. The OneNote Printer Driver - more on that in a future post Do screen captures with Windows key + S File based - so it works with foldershare (see previous post on syncing) If you have a Tablet PC (see intro to tablets parts 1 and 2), it will also allow you to handwrite with ink.  OneNote is pretty good at recognizing your handwriting should you want it do so.  In addition, because OneNote recognizes your handwriting you can search through your handwritten notes as well as your typed notes. So how does this make any difference for believers?  Well, here is some of the things I use OneNote for: Lists (e.g. prayer lists, etc) Bible Study (particularly the observation stage) Taking notes in Bible Study or in church for sermons Don't forget to record the audio while you are at it :-) Writing out prayers Anything you'd normally use paper for And don't forget that you can search through it all - even handwritten notes. As a comparison to paper the OneNote is even better on a tablet, but all these still apply whether you have a tablet or not. In my next post I'll do a little more on how you can use OneNote and a tablet together for Bible study. Posted Jul 22 2007, 08:16 AM by Darryl with no comments Filed under: Beginner, Intermediate, Software, Mobile, Tablet

• Introduction to Tablet PC's - part 2

  This is the second article in a series - if you haven't already and you are new to this, please read part 1. A few years ago - actually just one year ago the Tablet PC was out of reach of most people.  When we looked around for a Tablet PC around a year ago for our pastor, we found that a decent Tablet PC cost around NZ$4000.  We ended up buying him a second hand Tablet PC for around half that. Today however, things have moved on a little.  A little over a year ago Microsoft announced the UMPC - or Ultra Mobile PC.  These are tiny devices around the size of a novel - perhaps slightly longer - that were purposefully intended to be a full blown PC and a Tablet and affordable.  Previously something PC and portable in one package caused the price to go up.  Putting Tablet functionality in with it just added to the price further.  The Ultra Mobile PC is changing the Tablet PC market - slowly, but inevitably. I've been a UMPC owner since they first hit the market, and I find I use my UMPC every day.  If you are a bible geek like I am, you'll love having all the books in your library with you wherever you go, not to mention your notes and the ability to simply pick up your UMPC wherever you are and start reading or studying. Given these devices are (for the moment) all slates they are all pretty small and for the most part pretty light (around 3-4 lbs).  This means that they can fit in your purse, or in a small bag - in fact - if it can fit your Bible in it - it can probably fit a UMPC.  In addition -while they don't have a keyboard for input (well... there are exceptions) they have a touch screen.  This means that for Bible Reading you can use your fingers to navigate the pages or text.  If you want to enter text on an UMPC there are several options.  If you happen to have a UMPC with a keyboard (see below), you can use that.  If not, you can simply use the handwriting recognition system to write in your text, or you could plug in an external keyboard and use that. I mentioned affordable above... Let me explain that. Samsung have recently announced the availability of the Samsung Q1 Ultra.  The Q1 Ultra is an updated iteration of the year old Q1 - one of the first UMPC's to hit the market.  The Ultra comes in a variety of models at price points that vary based on the features.  There are currently two on the market with two more models due to come on the market next month. Currently the two models are the Samsung Q1 Ultra and the Samsung Q1 Ultra EL  The EL model is lacking Bluetooth and the cameras, but other than that is much the same as the Q1 Ultra - and the best part is that these can be purchased in the US for US$799 - around NZ$1000 (more on specs and prices here).  The next model up has a couple of additional features, but if all you want is something basic that does the job we are talking about above - the EL will do fine for all but the ultra techy. While US$799 might sound reasonable, the vision for these devices is for them to be priced at US$500, so while we are getting there, we are not there yet. Next - moving beyond paper... Posted Jul 21 2007, 10:31 PM by Darryl with no comments Filed under: Beginner, Hardware, Mobile, Tablet

• Introduction to Tablet PC's - part 1

  This is the first part of a series about Tablet PC's. "OK",  I hear you say, "I thought this site was about helping believers with technology?".  Indeed it is.  This is a means to an end.  Tablet PC's are a reasonably new thing, but going forward will become more and more useful.  In fact over time, some have predicted that most laptops sold will be Tablet PC's.  Maybe... Anyway, for believers these devices offer opportunities to use technology in a new way. Before I go on, I should pause and explain what the difference is between a laptop and a tablet.  Simply put a tablet PC has a screen that is sensitive either to a special pen (that comes with the device) or to touch.  This means that you can write on the screen of the computer and have it recognize the pen stroke as ink.  Yes, you can now draw pictures on your computer with a pen just like you would on paper.  If this all sounds new and odd to you, you are probably wondering how drawing on a vertical screen is a good thing.  Well, Tablets are designed in two formats - slates and convertible laptops. A slate is the digital equivalent of small tablets of stone.  It doesn't have a keyboard (although you can attach one should you desire to), instead the machine is the size and shape of a screen that happens to have all the computer components integrated into it.  These are the most portable, but not always the most versatile. The second form factor - the convertible laptop - is a laptop with a special hinge for the screen that allows the screen to rotate 180 degrees and then fold down over the keyboard - that is it converts to a slate. To further confuse matters there are now two types of tablets available on the market.  The first is the traditional A4 or larger sized tablet.  These come in both convertible and slate form factors.  The second (at the moment) only comes in slates.  These two classes of tablets are known as "Tablet PC's" and UMPC's - short for Ultra Mobile PC's  Tablet PC's have been around since 2001, however UMPC's hit the market in April 2006, so they are very new - and IMHO the more interesting of the two types of devices. Why do I feel the UMPC is more interesting?  Two reasons - size/weight and price.  More on this in the next in this series. Here I just want to point out that there are a few key advantages to a Tablet.  Firstly obviously - the natural interaction between pen and paper is transposed into the digital age.  Secondly if you are not a good typist, writing on the device is now a viable option - which for many people is easier than figuring out all those keys.  Thirdly it opens up efficiencies that simply dont exist on paper.  I'll do some more explaining in the next post in this series.  Stay tuned. Posted Jul 21 2007, 10:34 AM by Darryl with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Beginner, Tablet

• Dodgy stuff on the internet

  Christians need to watch out -- especially the men -- for dodgy internet content. An atheist friend recently told me of his annoyance at the Cretans perpetrating much of the muck on the web who deliberately target children and young adults. Well, I don't think atheists have much of a case to argue re moral values since moral laws require a moral law giver whom atheists deny exists! But aside from that, being made in God's image and having the stamp of a conscience, my friend is at least correct in his conclusion. So what am I going to write about in this post? One of the biggest domain name hosts on the internet is www.GoDaddy.com and I have a site or two registered thru this company. But tonite I found myself a little curious once again about the COE of GoDaddy -- so went to his blog. From a cursory look, Bob Parsons (the CEO) is a plainly a dodgy character who likes his girls. But he also seems to like using them to add spice to has advertisements. Enough so that more than one person has left his company and moved on because of his ads. What should Christians do with registrants like GoDaddy? Should we leave and find a better, more moral host? I think so. So, who do you recommend? Posted Jul 21 2007, 02:09 AM by robocop with no comments

• Books and audio - the next wave of learning

  Rob asked the question "Are books dead?" and I thought that I'd spend a few minutes talking about how the market is changing in perspective of technology and learning material. Firstly, human beings have three primary ways of learning- sight, sound and touch/do.  Typically we are more proficient in two of these and weak in one.  Our preference also tends to vary a little depending on what is being learned.  For example, driving is something that most people learn easiest by doing, where time management is something that I find difficult to learn by doing - unless I've taken in some information to help me with it. Anyway... when it comes to learning academically we tend to learn best by reading and listening.  Thanks to the MP3 format and the Internet, it is now easier than ever to grab good quality information and listen to it.  If you restrict your listening time to when you are at church or a weekly bible study (assuming you actually listen), you are really missing out. There is lots of time in our days where we have time to listen.  I tend to use the time I spend driving listening - driving doesn't require exclusive mind share, so this is pretty easy.  You may also find things like doing the dishes, making dinner, walking the dog, jogging all times where you could be listening.  There are distinct disadvantages to video that don't exist with audio.  Try watching a video while you drive the car or do the dishes - we (perhaps I) find it difficult to watch, listen and do something all at the same time, but listening and doing something are entirely possible. On the subject of books, In many situations you could select listening over reading, particularly sermons, but with digital libraries books are changing.  The days of reading books from cover to cover is disappearing (apart from novels), but until technology is able to manipulate audio the way it can text, there will be a place for text.  There are some key advantages that text has.  Specifically you can: search it easily (this is a really big deal) leave it open while you take it in (as opposed to rewinding it continually) copy and paste it easily into other contexts (e.g. blog posts) you can skim it and read just the bits you are interested in (much easier than with audio anyway) It can be displayed on a wider variety of devices meaning you reduce dependency on audio subsystems, suitability of times to take it in, etc You can mark it up (highlight key phrases, etc) All these things are highly relevant in terms of taking information in and all these things are available in major Bible software and library applications today. If you are looking at putting together a book today that will be published digitally or even if it wont be, consider how you expect the book to be used.  Theology books such as the Moody Handbook of Theology (also in electronic format here) are good examples of how a book can be organized well for online or offline use.  It is very easy to find just what you are looking for as it is broken into short well indexed components that are easy to absorb in about 5 minutes or less.  If you have long wordy chapters people will read it once and then put it on the shelf and not refer to it again because it would be too hard to find the specific piece of text they were looking for.  This doesn't mean that you can't make long complex arguments in books - rather that the arguments should be broken into smaller discrete components - which people will find easier to understand anyway. I hope Phil Johnson reads this ;-) Posted Jul 20 2007, 06:52 PM by Darryl with no comments Filed under: Beginner, lecture, sermon, DVD, Video, Audio, Books

• Bible Technology conference

  This is great news! The team at Logos will be kicking off a Bible technology conference in January 2008! This is an exciting time for Bible technology! Web 2.0 and Internet-connected mobile devices offer new ways to interact with Scripture. Bible software developers are building new visualizations and data sets. Publishers are excited about delivering content electronically. And open source projects and APIs are sparking creativity and getting more people involved in developing technology for Bible study. This looks like it would be a great event to get along to if you are interested in Technology and how it does/will affect believers in the future. I've proposed a session - I hope it gets accepted - it would be great to speak at an event like this and would make a welcome change to just speaking at technical events. Full details available at http://www.bibletechconference.com. Posted Jul 20 2007, 06:19 PM by Darryl with no comments Filed under: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Software, Mobile, Internet, BibleTech08

• Eagerly Waiting

  I am waiting for delivery of my Altec Lansing iPod speakers from an eBay supplier. They should be here today. These speakers are cool. My iPod just plugs in to them and is controllable via a remote control. They are not designed to make you deaf -- there are other ways to accomplish that -- but these are a great solution for daily podcast listening when its wakey-up time. So, the plan is to put these across the bedroom and the remote at bedside. Then its Bill Craig lectures -- he's probably the leading Christian philosopher/apologist that atheists all tremble before -- for 6am lectures. I can hardly wait! Check Bill Craig out here. He has an excellent series on defending the faith available via podcast here. Posted Jul 20 2007, 01:03 PM by robocop with no comments

• Do people still read?

  The following is a letter I wrote in reply to a question about getting books into the hands of students. What do you think? Do you still read books? Or are they outdated?   Hi Mark, First, I think u would be making a mistake to go just with books. There are also many good DVDs available (in this DVD saturated culture). The ID DVDs would be a good start. One list can be found here: http://christian-apologetics.org/mcas/content/view/84/78/ Secondly, while I have a large contemporary book collection, I use MP3s far more often than books because I can plough thru them while driving, walking, cutting firewood or whatever. See for example: www.apollos.ws; www.biblicaltraining.com; www.bethinking.org; www.reasonablefaith.org; Thirdly, the internet with blogs and numerous scholarly articles are more up-to-date and relevant than many books. You can get onto mailing lists and freely receive top quality cutting-edge material via email. Many blogs are listed on www.christiannews.co.nz and www.christian-apologetics.org/mcas/ for example. I am not trying to minimize books; but really, I think they have in some sense ‘had their day’. I think multimedia and audio listening also suits some people’s learning abilities better than books. So what books would I recommend? Basic : Lee Strobel : The Case for a Creator (book) (Audiobook) + many others Ravi Zacharias : Jesus Among Other Gods (Book) (AudioBook) + many others Intermediate : John Piper, John MacArthur, Ravi Zacharias, Ken Samples……. Advanced : William Lane Craig : Reasonable Faith JP Moreland : Scaling the Secular City Book; Love Your God With All Your Mind Greg Bahnsen : Always Ready Book Francis Schaeffer : A Trilogy of Books Schaeffer has had a huge impact on many people and although a bit old may be even more relevant today than 20 years ago. Craig and Moreland are the top of their field and outstanding scholars. Bahnsen is a little new to me but his thinking has had a big effect on my thinking. Hope that helps. Regards, Robo Posted Jul 19 2007, 12:08 PM by robocop with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, iPod, Apologetics, DVD

• Synchronizing notes between computers

  I use Logos between two computers.  One of these computers stays at home and the other goes with me pretty much wherever I go.  Because of this, I tend to do study in a number of places including: At home In bed (when I can't sleep) In cafe's At church At friends and relatives houses Other random locations Because of the somewhat random nature of my location when I'm studying I have a need to ensure that my notes are with me and are consistently saved and shared between the computers. I do this using a little product called Foldershare. Foldershare allows you to synchronize files and folders between multiple computers - both yours and friends or family. The way it works is you essentially: Sign up for a free account at http://foldershare.com Download and install the software on your computers Create a library (you can have a maximum of 10) and point it to your notes folder (In my case this is My Documents\Libronix DLS) Download and install the software on your second computer Add each computer to the library you just created by clicking the foldershare icon and selecting the library you just created. Foldershare will now synchronize the folders automatically when your computers are online. So, now I can make changes on my mobile computer, and as long as wifi is turned on (or I'm otherwise connected to the internet) the files are automatically saved by Logos and synchronized to the other computer Libronix DLS folder.  This includes toolbars, notes, verse lists, prayer lists, etc.  The only thing it wont sync in this configuration is bookmarks. This product would work equally well on other solutions too. I also use it to synchronize One Note notebooks and general files and folders. Posted Jul 17 2007, 05:06 AM by Darryl with no comments Filed under: Software, Internet

• Copying DVDs to your computer

  Computers and technology are supposed to make things easier, right? Yeah right. Today's task is to prepare for the next apologetics society meeting where we will view one of my favorite DVDs: Tactics in Defending the Faith by Greg Koukl. Just as an aside, Greg has a talk radio program and you can grab the radio shows really easily via podcast. (The best way to do this is by way of Apple's most excellent iTunes.) He is a very clever, very gracious Christian and a mentor in the faith for myself. His clear thinking Christianity is something I aspire to! But back on topic here....... The problem to solve is that DVDs (and CDs for that matter) are prone to damage -- scratches, cracks, old age and all that. This is a disaster waiting to happen for a public meeting  So let's grab the data off the DVD and store it on the hard disk in MPG (mpeg) format so that Windows Media Center in Microsoft's Vista Ultimate or Windows Media Player can play them. This way, the meeting will go smoothly as the DVD won't be there to fail.  So how did I do it? Since Tactics is not a protected DVD, I simply downloaded VOB2MPG and installed it on my laptop, then told it where to find the video files on the DVD and where to put the converted MPG files on my laptop. Later I will store the MPG files on my Windows Home Server (best piece of Microsoft software ever written imo) ready for streaming to any computer in the house! Note: Please respect copyright laws and authors rights. Posted Jul 16 2007, 02:42 PM by robocop with no comments Filed under: Intermediate, Software, Apologetics, DVD, MPG, VOB2MPG