Has anyone purchased the Puritan Hard Drive?
Has it proved to be of value?
If so, how?
Has anyone purchased the Puritan Hard Drive? Has it proved to be of value? If so, how?
I have it. If I'm honest I tend to use it only if I know what book I want to read. I rarely use the search to find books, although that's partly because I have the download version. With that, you can only download books one at a time. If I had the 'proper' version, with all PDFs stored locally, I might build up an Acrobat index using Acrobat Pro and use that search facility, as the interface is very clunky. You can still search books you haven't downloaded, as there's an index of major works available for each book. But you can only search for one keyword at a time.
On the other hand, once you've found the work you want, the scans are pretty good. They're clear, have been marked up well (in terms of a TOC, at least), and the OCR is very accurate (much better than you'd expect). The only fault of the scan is that the dpi setting is very low, presumably for space reasons (they must have been scanned at a higher dpi, and then reduced after OCRing).
I'd love to see them all in Logos instead, but until that happens, I'm happy with my purchase. I just wish they'd put some work into the software and allow you to download all the books and create a proper index.
I'd love to see them all in Logos instead
Me too. I wonder what the chances are that will ever happen.
Has anyone purchased the Puritan Hard Drive? Has it proved to be of value? If so, how? I have it. If I'm honest I tend to use it only if I know what book I want to read. I rarely use the search to find books, although that's partly because I have the download version. With that, you can only download books one at a time. If I had the 'proper' version, with all PDFs stored locally, I might build up an Acrobat index using Acrobat Pro and use that search facility, as the interface is very clunky. You can still search books you haven't downloaded, as there's an index of major works available for each book. But you can only search for one keyword at a time. On the other hand, once you've found the work you want, the scans are pretty good. They're clear, have been marked up well (in terms of a TOC, at least), and the OCR is very accurate (much better than you'd expect). The only fault of the scan is that the dpi setting is very low, presumably for space reasons (they must have been scanned at a higher dpi, and then reduced after OCRing). I'd love to see them all in Logos instead, but until that happens, I'm happy with my purchase. I just wish they'd put some work into the software and allow you to download all the books and create a proper index.
I also purchased it, before I got serious about Logos.
I used it rarely, so I gave it away.
I thought their goals were great, and the implementation was quite usable.
Hi,
I'm thinking of buying the puritan hard drive on demand edition, with an offer they having running atm. I just wanted to check with other users:
From what I read in this thread, you can only download one resource at a time. Does that mean you can only keep one downloaded file at a time, or that you have to select the files individually for them to download.
I was hoping to store the 100gb or so of pdfs in my 1tb cloud so that I could access them for reading from my tablet. Do you think that would be feasible, or would it take too much user input to download each file individually.
I appreciate any advice.
Blessings
Duncan
It means you can only download one resource at a time. The download happens quite quickly (assuming you have a high-speed internet connection), but it doesn't happen in the background, which means you have to wait for the download to finish before continuing to use the software. If you're prepared to go through this process enough times, you can keep as many downloaded resources as you wish.
Because the download version was under $100 I finally decided to get it a couple days ago. I downloaded over 1800 items today, with high speed it is not long. I don't see near the number of resources they claim, most are mp3s but I'll go though some of the video tutorials tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps I'm missing something. As it is now I'm sure I'll get more than my moneys worth out of it - that is what counts after all.
That's good to know Robert, that the downloads are reasonably quick. I'm on an 80Mb fibre connection, so I might be ok. I just wasn't sure whether I needed to stretch to the usb drive version, if the downloads would take a long time. You see, I plan to upload the pdfs to my livedrive cloud to access from my 10" tablet for reading on the go.
Can I ask, are you able to choose the location on your pc the files download to, or is the folder they download to easy to find? Also, could someone tell me, when you order and pay on their website, do you get download links automatically emailed, or does it take a few days while a person sends it?
Thanks
Can I ask, are you able to choose the location on your pc the files download to, or is the folder they download to easy to find?
I don't think it's possible to change, it just uses subfolders of the place your installed the programme. You would need to use symbolic links, or install the program on your LiveDrive to ensure that the files it downloads were saved to your LiveDrive.
That would be ok, as long as I can locate the folder, I can copy the pdfs to the livedrive cloud. I would probably want them stored on the laptop anyway.
How do you find the searching Mark?
The interface is very clunky. You can search books you haven't downloaded, as there's an index of the important words available for each book. You can only search for one keyword at a time, but when you perform a second search you can choose to AND or OR the results to the old search (called 'limit' or 'add').
If you have Acrobat Pro, or similar software, you'd be better creating your own index out of the PDFs themselves. That would allow you to search the full text of each downloaded resource, which currently you can't do.
That's good to know Robert, that the downloads are reasonably quick. I'm on an 80Mb fibre connection, so I might be ok. I just wasn't sure whether I needed to stretch to the usb drive version, if the downloads would take a long time. You see, I plan to upload the pdfs to my livedrive cloud to access from my 10" tablet for reading on the go. Can I ask, are you able to choose the location on your pc the files download to, or is the folder they download to easy to find? Also, could someone tell me, when you order and pay on their website, do you get download links automatically emailed, or does it take a few days while a person sends it? Thanks Blessings Duncan
When you pay you get a link then. I used it to download the initial stub that you run to get the base app. I put it on an almost new portable usb hd. In there is a readme that directs you to an html page in the Apps directory you can use to download the index files. They are 7 zip files totaling 1.2 GB. They unzip to 1.43 GB and did not take very long to download. The program downloads the PDF files in a directory cryptically named PDF.
In there is a readme that directs you to an html page in the Apps directory you can use to download the index files. They are 7 zip files totaling 1.2 GB. They unzip to 1.43 GB and did not take very long to download.
Thanks for pointing that out - I didn't know about that. That eliminates the need for Acrobat Pro in my earlier comment, and means that you have full text searching for all the PDF files (even those you haven't yet downloaded).
The program downloads the PDF files in a directory cryptically named PDF
I have the old collections on CDs. I dread copying all of them to my hard drive.
You wouldn't, per chance, be referring to the 30 CD Reformation Bookshelf and 32 CD Puritan Bookshelf would you? 34.5 GB
I was hoping to store the 100gb or so of pdfs in my 1tb cloud so that I could access them for reading from my tablet.
All the PDFs together 'only' come to 24.8Gb, plus a PDF index of 1.4Gb, and the program/indexes of 1.6Gb. The 95-100GB referred to on the website includes the MP3 files, which are a further 59.3Gb, and the videos which are 4.32Gb.
I'm not sure if anyone has noticed, but many of the collections from this are being added to Community Pricing.
Since I don't have the Puritan Hard Drive I didn't know this but thanks for telling us. Has anyone compiled a list of these?
Gabe, it would be great if Logos literally went through the list of all the titles and put every single one in community pricing!
That is essentially what's being done. Check out a lot of the Reformed/Puritan stuff on CP lately (and going forward)!
Gabe, it would be great if Logos literally went through the list of all the titles and put every single one in community pricing! That is essentially what's being done. Check out a lot of the Reformed/Puritan stuff on CP lately (and going forward)!
Awesome! I've considered the hard drive but it just seems a little impractical for normal reading. The Logos app and a tablet will make all the titles easy to read on the fly. That's good to hear!
Thanks Gabe-
and the OCR is very accurate (much better than you'd expect)
Mark, or anyone else who has the hard drive, have you tried to convert any of these to ebook files?
Does the good OCR allow you to copy and paste and create your own ereader version that turns out pretty good? Also have you had any luck copy and pasting these into Word as personal books?
I'd be interested if I could read the books on a mobile device and convert them to personal books in Logos.
Does anyone have any experience with how the PH does with this?
About the Puritan Hard Drive (PHD) bible software
Though Logos is my primary bible study software by a very long mile, the Puritan Hard Drive (PHD) bible software continues to be very useful to me too.
I have the PHD on their original portable hard drive: this was the way they distributed the software when it first came out. But it is now available as a download. I don’t know much about the downloadable version.
I put the whole thing on my laptop hard drive. The whole library is 91.8GB of which the PDF files are only 26.1 GB.
The PDF books are scanned copies but most of them that I have opened are very clear and very readable. But I have come across some that are not so clear or that also have markings from someone who read the book before. This only shows that someone previously owed the book and marked them while reading it.
I have come across one PDF book that is still in the old English where their s looks like our f now and so you have blessed Saviour written as bleffed Saviour: General History of the Chriftian (Christian) church by John Brown. If there are others I don’t know at this stage.
Personal books: I have MS 365 which is very good at converting PDF files to word documents. I use this to make some personal books from PDF books.
Books from PHD can be made into personal books. But I have seen that the amount of editing one needs to make on the word document produced for it to be made into a personal book will vary and will depend on the quality of the PDF file being converted.
To illustrate this, I converted:
Once a person realizes that each book is a scanned copy of an original book and has not be edited or corrected in any way, then you will be able to live with it.
Over all I am satisfied with my purchase and I enjoy it each time I choose to use it.
I do hope Faithlife will continue to bring the PDF books into the Logos library.
I have the PHD on their original portable hard drive: this was the way they distributed the software when it first came out.
Before there was any software, you could buy paper versions of Puritan works printed by Still Waters Revival Books. (1995)
Originally there were two sets of CD-Roms (62 total) that were sold as The Pilgrim Bookshelf and The Puritan Bookshelf. Still Waters Revival Books had to discontinue the distribution of The Pilgrim Bookshelf. They then started marketing the Puritan Hard Drive.
Thanks Alexxy,
Very helpful! I'll have to think on this a bit before I take the plunge.
