Ad: Save with State Farm® Insurance
ie8 fix

prayer

Accurate Times for Islamic worship

For Muslims, time, place, and direction are critical to worship. Accurate Times by the Jordanian Astronomical Society is the perfect tool for the task. This compact freeware calculates prayer time, sun time, direction, date, and other data with an accuracy of two seconds or less. It offers Arabic and English language options, accurate graphical displays, and some important extras.

Accurate Times has a simple, compact interface that is nicely configured, displaying our location and other data as well as the day's prayer times. The layout slightly resembles a telescope control panel, which (not surprisingly) it is, in a way, … Read more

iPhone rosary app helps you count your blessings

My dad is never without his rosary beads. He wants to go to heaven, you see. He believes it's better than Birmingham, England. He refuses to listen when I tell him that everywhere is better than Birmingham, England.

When I was younger, he would use one of those long strings with groups of 10 Hail Marys separated by 1 Our Father and a crucifix at one end. He then graduated to a little metal ring that just had the 1 bead for an Our Father and 10 for Hail Marys and fitted around his finger.

This was worrisome, because … Read more

Buggy call to prayer

The Athan Software reminds users of the five daily Islamic calls to prayer. Although the program is nicely designed, it has some functional problems that made it difficult to use.

The program's interface is intuitive, with its functions arranged neatly with buttons. We had no trouble figuring out how to configure the program; everything was quite obvious. The program's built-in Help file gives a clear explanation of its features, but unfortunately, it offered no troubleshooting tips for when things don't go as planned.

The problem that we encountered was with defining our location. The program has a … Read more

Hail Mary on a digital handheld

If the "Saint B" and "Saint USB" can find a following, then certainly there must be a market for the "Electronic Rosary."

We thought it might be a joke when it started making the rounds a few days ago, but Boing Boing has found a site that's selling it, albeit in Italian. (At least it's not in Latin.) It provided this direct translation of the description for the digital artifact, which is made by an Italian company called Prex: "The Saint rosary is recited by a feminine voice and a chorus … Read more