One of the keys to have a consistent and strong faith is to spend daily time reading Scripture.  Often this is aided by using devotional materials that point believers to a particular topic of thought, a central truth or a challenge for that particular day.  While these extra materials are never intended to replace Scripture itself, they do have an important role in daily quiet time.

Laridian, the makers of PocketBible^© have created a Pocket PC based application to help believers read the Bible consistently as well as devotional materials in one place. The application is DailyReader™ and true to Laridian’s form, it is a great application.  Well written and intuitive to use, DailyReader™ works in principle the same as PocketBible^© in that there is the reader application itself then users can download or purchase various devotional materials to be used.  The type and amounts of devotional materials offered by Laridian is outstanding.  Costs for the materials range from free to around $10 (US).  Laridian has developed several of these themselves, offering plans for reading the New Testament, Old Testament or the entire Bible in a year.  As with their Bible translations for PocketBible^©, there are new materials being made available for DailyReader™ regularly.  Perhaps the most important feature is that DailyReader™ integrates completely with PocketBible^© translations.  This means that when using DailyReader™ devotionals that have a hyperlinks to Scripture, DailyReader™ opens up the PocketBible^© translations to read the text.  This eliminates the need to have different translations for the two applications and also eliminates the need for multiple taps by users which in turn keeps them focused on the purpose of the application and their quiet time, not on the application itself.

DailyReader™ is a small application, taking just under 250K of storage memory.  As with PocketBible^©, Laridian suggests installing the application itself into the Pocket PCs main memory while storage the devotional materials on a storage card.  Generally speaking, the devotional materials are less than 1MB each in size.  For example, Experiencing God Day-by-Day is only 351K in size.

The DailyReader™ interface is simple but effective.  Upon starting the application, DailyReader™ will prompt users as to which devotional material to load.  If there is only a single devotional loaded, it will open that file.

On the taskbar at the bottom of the DailyReader™ display are the various controls for the application.  Users will note that there are only two menus, Edit and View, with a series of tap enabled icons.  From these icons virtually all features of DailyReader™ can be accessed.  The only time that the menus need to be accessed is during the initial configuration of the application.

One of the first things users of DailyReader™ need to do is direct the application to where a Bible translation is located on their Pocket PC.  DailyReader™ uses the same files as PocketBible^© so there is no need to have a separate set of translations for each application.  To do this, tap the View à Options… menu.  From this menu, all of the configuration of DailyReader™ can be done such as how the books are opened, date format and fonts as well as the overall appearance of DailyReader™.  On the Bible tab, users use the browse button to locate the Bible translation that they want to link to while using DailyReader™.  Once this is done, tapping OK will bring users back to the main display.  With this configured, when users tap on a hyperlink within the text of the devotional materials, DailyReader™ will open the configured Bible.

When DailyReader™ is opened; the materials to be studied that day are presented.  Once the reading is done, users can tap the top checkbox indicating that the reading was completed.  By doing this, DailyReader™ gives users a quick indicator of if they still need to study that particular day’s material.

The first icon on the DailyReader™ taskbar is the calendar function.  By tapping this, users can select the month day and year that they want to review.  By default, the application will go to the current day based on the system time.  However, this is a handy way to move around the devotional material should users be looking back for a particular topic or information.

Next to the calendar function are the forward and backward icons.  By tapping these, DailyReader™ will go forward or backward to different days.  This is very handy when a day of study was not done or if users want a sneak peek at what will be covered the following day.  

The final three icons on the DailyReader™ taskbar are to control how the devotional materials and Scripture are displayed while studying.  Normally, when reviewing devotional materials, DailyReader™ has only the devotional materials displayed (see the example below)

By default, when users select a Bible text via a hyperlink in the devotional materials, DailyReader™ opens the Bible with it being the only thing shown as seen below.

However, users do have an option of having both the devotional materials and the Scripture reference open at the same time in a horizontal split mode.

By having the ability to customize the display in this way, DailyReader™ makes it easy for users of the application to choose the best way for them to study.

As one would expect from a Christian based company, Laridian’s technical support and overall user support is second-to-none.  Technical support is always accurate and timely and willing to go the extra step to help users.

Laridian’s DailyReader™ is an inexpensive $9.99 (US) with devotional materials ranging in price from free to $9.99 (US).  Bible Translations are also available on the Laridian website.  They range in price from free to $24.95 (US).  Further information about DailyReader™ and other Laridian products can be found on their website.

Daily Bible study for believers is essential in building their faith.  In our technology driven world, Laridian has provided an excellent resource and place to help in that study with DailyReader™.  It is, like PocketBible^©, an essential application for the Pocket PC enabled Christian.

Clinton Fitch
Editor
Clinton Fitch (Dot) Com! (http://www.clintonfitch.com)
HPC:Factor (http://www.hpcfactor.com)