The latest release of Universalis adds some new local calendars. Each diocese in Scotland is now included, and so are Plymouth and Singapore. As usual, various misprints are also corrected.
New release: new calendars
Posted by universalis on 7 July 2015
Posted in Calendars, Downloadable Universalis | 1 Comment »
Kindle e-books for Ordinary Time
Posted by universalis on 21 May 2015
In a few days’ time it will be Pentecost, and those of you who have “Advent to Pentecost 2015” e-books on your Kindle will be wanting to get a new e-book to take you from Pentecost 2015 to the beginning of Advent.
How you do this depends on how you got the e-book last time.
If you created the e-book on your own computer
Do it again, just as you did before. All you need to change is the period you want the e-book to cover. This page has links to the instructions for Windows and Mac.
If you sent the e-book to yourself using our web site
You started at this page and entered your registration code. So do the same thing again. Remember to open the list under “Which month do you want?” and select “Pentecost to Advent 2015”. And of course, press the Create button at the very bottom of the page!
If you bought a pre-packaged e-book from Amazon
We also make a few standard Liturgy of the Hours e-books which can be bought directly from Amazon. The e-books are half a year long and (just like a printed book) once an e-book is obsolete you have to throw it away and get a new one. All the same, some people find this more convenient than buying a registration code and creating the e-book themselves.
The e-books we offer are:
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Liturgy of the Hours 2015 (UK & Ireland, Ordinary Time), available from amazon.co.uk for £5.99, from amazon.com.mx for 34.99 pesos (about £1.50), amazon.in for 69 rupees (£0.70) and amazon.br for 3.99 reais (£0.85).
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Liturgy of the Hours 2015 (USA, Ordinary Time), available from amazon.com for $9.99.
- Liturgy of the Hours 2015 (Australia, Ordinary Time), available from amazon.com.au for AU$9.99.
Posted in Downloadable Universalis, e-books | 1 Comment »
Our Lady, Help of Christians in 2015
Posted by universalis on 10 May 2015
Australia celebrates the solemnity of Our Lady, Help of Christians on 24 May each year.
When a solemnity falls on a Sunday, it depends on the importance of the Sunday. Sundays in Ordinary Time are obliterated and replaced by the solemnity. An ordinary Sunday of the Year is obliterated, but if we are in Advent, Lent or Easter then the Sunday is kept and the solemnity is postponed to the Monday. This is laid down in the Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, §5 and §60.
Accordingly Our Lady, Help of Christians will be on Monday 25 May in 2015.
The reason I am mentioning this specially is that the otherwise excellent St Paul’s Missals for Australia state that in years when 24 May falls on a Sunday, Our Lady, Help of Christians is to be celebrated on Saturday 23 May. The St Paul’s Missal is wrong. I have specifically confirmed with the liturgical authorities in Australia that there has been no change of the standard rule and that Our Lady, Help of Christians is on Monday 25 May, just as the rules say. Here is the official Australian calendar for 2015.
Note: If the Australian bishops revert to celebrating Corpus Christi on its proper day (Thursday), then Sunday 24 May 2285 will be the solemnity of Our Lady, Help of Christians, replacing the 8th Sunday in Ordinary Time. If they keep celebrating Corpus Christi on the Sunday after, as they do now, then Sunday 24 May 2285 will be Corpus Christi and Monday 25 May will be Our Lady, Help of Christians.
Posted in Calendars, The Universalis site | Comments Off on Our Lady, Help of Christians in 2015
Apple Watch: the Gospel on your wrist
Posted by universalis on 16 April 2015
Apple have accepted our Apple Watch apps, and they are in the App Store now!
Universalis
Universalis is approximately £10.49 / $13.99 / €13.99 from the App Store.
Catholic Calendar
Catholic Calendar is free. So there is no excuse not to have it – and you should tell all your watch-loving friends about it as well.
What the apps do
As far as the Apple Watch is concerned, both Universalis and Catholic Calendar behave in the same way. (The differences come in what the apps do on your iPhone or iPad).
Glances
There is a Glance to tell you what the feast or saint of the day is. Tap it to see the Gospel.
The app itself
When you open the app, you’ll see the calendar for the next few days. You can turn the crown to scroll through the list.
If you tap on a day, you will see the Gospel for the day. Use the crown to scroll through the whole text of the Gospel.
As well as the Gospel, you can see the First and Second Readings for the Mass of the day. To get these, press firmly on the Gospel screen, and a menu will pop up. Simply choose the reading you want.
All these pictures are for the bigger, 42mm Apple Watch. If you have the smaller, 38mm, model, then here is what you will see:
Posted in Downloadable Universalis | Tagged: Apple Watch, Catholic, Gospel, Prayer, Universalis | 1 Comment »
The Apple Watch
Posted by universalis on 28 February 2015
We have completed the development of our Apple Watch apps, and they work beautifully. As soon as Apple start accepting submissions to the App Store, we will submit these apps, and with any luck they will be available from the very first day of the Apple Watch – just as Universalis was on the very first day of the iPhone App Store.
These apps are not a separate product. They come as part of the Universalis and Catholic Calendar apps which are already in the App Store. If you haven’t got either app, Universalis is approximately £9.99 / $13.99 / €12.99 and Catholic Calendar is free. So you have no excuse not to try it out!
What the app does
When you open it, you see the calendar for the next few days. You can turn the crown to scroll through the list. (Universalis gives you yesterday, today and the week ahead; Catholic Calendar gives you yesterday, today and tomorrow).
If you tap on a day, you will see the Gospel for the day. Again, the crown will let you scroll through the whole text.
As well as the Gospel, you can see the First and Second Readings for the Mass of the day. To get these, press firmly on the Gospel screen, and a menu will pop up for you to choose the reading you want.
And that’s all.
All the pictures are for the bigger, 42mm Apple Watch. If you are getting the smaller, 38mm, model, then here is what you will see:
One more thing…
The Apple Watch has things called Glances. A Glance is a single screen of information. You can jump from one Glance to the next with a flick of your finger.
Our Apple Watch apps provide a Glance which tells you what the feast of the day is. Instant, and simple. And if you tap on the Glance, it opens the app.
Posted in Downloadable Universalis | Tagged: Apple Watch, Catholic, Gospel, Prayer, Universalis | 1 Comment »
The Eastern General calendar
Posted by universalis on 23 February 2015
When you are looking through the list of available local calendars in Universalis, you may be puzzled by the mysterious “Eastern General” calendar which appears just before “Europe” in the list. Here is an explanation.
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Amazon bug in Kindle Fire
Posted by universalis on 11 February 2015
On 10 February 2014 a bug was reported to us on the Kindle Fire, which caused the Universalis app to stop working. The bug only affected certain models of the Kindle Fire, and possibly only certain users of those models. Amazon are incapable of providing technical support.
Everybody’s Universalis apps started working again, eventually. The full details are below, copied from the original article.
On 10 February 2015 the same thing has happened. The symptoms are the same, and again the problem seems to cure itself spontaneously in the end. Because it is an intermittent problem, it is not possible to tell what is causing it, or what actions will make it go away, or whether it is just necessary to wait a day or two for the problem to go away by itself.
The Universalis app for Android exists in only one version, for all Android devices, so there must be something special about the Kindle Fire.
Symptoms
The Universalis application works perfectly in every respect except the following:
- All the text pages (the Hours, the Order of Mass, Readings at Mass) are completely blank.
- In the “Font size” setting screen, the sample text is blank.
Circumstances
For some people, this happens all the time. Others have found that it sometimes happens and sometimes doesn’t: they try, and they see blank page; they try a little later, and they see text.
One user reports that deleting and re-installing the Universalis application cures the problem (for a short while). Others report that it doesn’t.
Some people report that shutting down their device and starting it up again cures the problem (for a short while). Others report that is doesn’t.
One user reports: “I switched my wifi off and on again and I got to Vespers. Setting it up for Compline failed. Switching wifi off and then on again brought up Compline.” We would be very interested to know if other people have the same experience. But that user then wrote back and said that the next day everything was working perfectly!
Versions affected
| Amazon’s name | Software version |
|---|---|
| Kindle Fire HD (Previous Generation) | System Version 7.4.6 user 4620220 |
| Kindle Fire HD (Previous Generation) | System Version 7.4.7 user 4730120 |
| Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ | System Version 8.4.6 user 4620220 |
| Kindle Fire | System Version 10.4.6 user 4620220 |
No report received
Please let us know if you have any of the following Kindle Fires:
| Amazon’s name | Software version |
|---|---|
| Kindle Fire HD | 11.3.1 |
| Kindle Fire HDX | 13.3.1 |
| Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ | 14.3.1 |
| More models have been added since this article was originally written. | |
Please help us to make these lists complete. Here are instructions for finding out the version of your Kindle system software. Here are instructions for finding out what model of Kindle Fire you have.
Posted in Downloadable Universalis | Tagged: Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD, Kindle Fire HD System Version | Comments Off on Amazon bug in Kindle Fire
The same Gospel twice!
Posted by universalis on 21 December 2014
Yesterday, December 20, we had St Luke’s Gospel about the Annunciation. Today, the fourth Sunday of Advent, we have St Luke’s Gospel about the Annunciation.
This is not a mistake!
Posted in Calendars | Comments Off on The same Gospel twice!
How texts evolve
Posted by universalis on 14 December 2014
In normal times, the way a text survives is by someone copying it out before the manuscript falls to bits and is lost. Of course errors happen, and it is then the job of scholars to collate the existing texts and work out what the original was.
Rather a good example of this has just come up, so I thought I would post it here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on How texts evolve
Christmas presents from Universalis: e-books
Posted by universalis on 25 November 2014
Last year’s blog post explained how to give Universalis apps as presents to your friends. Now it is turn of e-books, for your friends with e-readers.
Giving the ability to make e-books
In general, you make a Universalis e-book by creating it for yourself. You buy a registration code, and either you use the Universalis program on Mac or Windows to make yourself an e-book or, for Kindle e-books only, you can use our web site to send an e-book directly to the Kindle. In either case, you need a Universalis registration code, which costs £19.99.
So as a once-and-for-all present to your friend, you can buy a registration code as a gift. To give a code as a gift, please buy it from us in the usual way. Forward the 9-digit code to your friend, and then, to avoid confusion in the future, send us an email to let us know that the code belongs not to you but to your friend (your friend’s name, address, and email would be helpful).
Pre-packaged e-books
We have built a few pre-packaged e-books, which make perfect Christmas gifts. They are:
- Liturgy of the Hours 2015 (High Seasons) – for England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This gives every Hour for every day from now until Pentecost 2015.
- Liturgy of the Hours 2015 (High Seasons) – for the United States.
- Liturgy of the Hours 2015 (High Seasons) – for Australia.
- Mass Readings 2015 – for England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This gives the readings at Mass for every day from Advent until the end of 2015.
The links shown above will take you to the relevant Kindle Store listing.
For the Kindle only, in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales only, there is an alternative, because we sell two pre-packaged e-books which make perfect Christmas gifts. There is the Liturgy of the Hours 2014 (High Seasons), which gives every Hour for every day from now until Pentecost 2014, and there is Mass Readings 2014, which gives the readings at Mass for every day from now until the end of 2014. Both of them cost £6.17 and you can view them on Amazon by clicking on their titles above.
The snag is that, except in the USA, Amazon don’t allow you to give e-books as gifts. They do, however, offer various kinds of gift cards, so you can give one of the right value and hint to your friend what you would like to him to buy with it. You might send him the links to the e-books, to help.
In the USA, you can give e-books as gifts.
Making e-books yourself
There is nothing, technically, to stop you making an e-book for (say) 2015 and giving it to your friend. But please note that you shouldn’t do this just like that, because when you bought your registration code it gave you the right to create e-books for your personal use only. It isn’t fair to us or to the copyright holders to go round the place pirating!
Here is what one of our customers has done. She has a friend who is an elderly priest, and she has set up his Kindle for him. In setting it up, she has noted the Kindle’s @kindle.com email address (every Kindle has one) and now, whenever it is time for a new e-book, she sits at home and sends the new e-book to that address by email, and Amazon deliver it wirelessly to her friend’s Kindle.
The procedure is the same as if she were creating Kindle e-books for herself (the instructions are here), but instead of saving the e-book to her Kindle she saves it to her desktop and then emails it from there. She makes one-year e-books, and sends them just before Christmas as a sort of extra Christmas card.
Being upright and decent, our customer has bought a registration code for her friend. We know about this because she asked us whether to switch registration codes from her own to her friend’s before creating his e-book and then back again to her own afterwards. I said no, no need at all: the aim was for the right number of licences to exist, corresponding to the number of users. Flipping the codes the whole time wouldn’t benefit anyone: it would just be pedantic.
Posted in e-books | Tagged: Christmas, kindle, Liturgy of the Hours, Universalis | Comments Off on Christmas presents from Universalis: e-books
Electric Prayer 