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I recently decided I wanted to embark on studies of neuroscience. As someone who suffers from childhood onset Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Major Depressive episodes I know that much about me is tied up in my neurological makeup. Recently I was reading some journal articles about the latest developments in OCD and depression treatments and wanted to understand more about the underlying processes…thus my desire to learn neuroscience.

I spent some time surfing around the web looking for resources. I found a number of resources but many seemed outdated, unmaintained, or only partial. I looked for various textbooks on the subject but their prices were fairly high ($60 on eBay, etc.). I know, I know, that isn’t much at all…but it was more than I wanted to spend at the moment.

I eventually stumbled upon Neuroscience Online: An Electronic Textbook for the Neurosciences. It is a free and online project from The University of Texas Medical School. It is written by a number of faculty members and overseen/edited by Dr. John H. Bryne, Department Chair for Neurobiology and Anatomy.

The work consists of four major sections which are further divided into subsections (chapters): Cellular and Molecular Biology, Sensory Systems, Motor Systems, and Homeostasis and Higher Brain Functions.

I’m just plowing through Cellular and Molecular Biology at this juncture, but the scope and quality of the work is quite impressive. There are numerous images and animations of high-quality throughout the work that help illustrate the various concepts being discussed. So far it has been fairly understandable to my lay perspective (I have no background in medicine and minimal in chemistry, biology, and so on). Numerous terms are clearly defined, though there are also numerous terms which a lay individual (such as myself) are unlikely to be familiar with – but which one can use a search engine/dictionary to define.

Kudos to Dr. Byrne and all his collaborators for an excellent resource!

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When you visit the site the temptation is to surf away immediately. Its pretty ugly, which Utley has indicated is to keep bandwidth demands down for third world countries and to ensure the site is viewable on the widest variety of devices (I still think its ugly, and will make him a nicer version…if he ever wants one…for free), but this is an instance of where we shouldn’t “judge a website by its template”, errr, “a book by its cover.”

Utley studied at East Texas Baptist College, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Baylor University, and Wycliffe Bible Translators‘ Summer Institute of Linguistics. He has been a professor in biblical studies for many years – but isn’t limited to academia for his experience and does not bring an ivory tower perspective to his commentaries. His experience pastoring a number of churches provides him with insight into the grime of life and the challenges of practical application.

His commentaries are a bit technical for the lay reader – but the lay reader should still be able to “make sense” of around 95% of the content. Unfortunately, he includes a fairly extensive introductory section highlighting some of the Greek and Hebrew concerns – which is quite overwhelming (and I’ve taken a year of Greek). I’d recommend anyone without a strong interest in the original languages to skim / skip this material and wait till later to read through it – when the interest or need is arisen.

Utley brings an excellent combination of textual analysis with practical application. He provides extensive but not overwhelming commentary on the passages, dealing with them in a thorough manner.

Perhaps one of the finest points of his texts are his inserts, which occur with astonishing frequency and depth. When the text deals with a topic that would “derail” the study of the text but deserves consideration (e.g. free will, holiness, etc.) Utley includes an insert which is a detailed discussion of the topic set apart from the actual analysis of the text. Then he refers to this insert throughout the rest of the commentary when necessary – and one can go back to it to “refresh” on a fuller understanding of the topic.

Utley brings an awareness of his theological presuppositions and makes a conscious effort to embrace the text in spite of his convictions, something which I appreciate deeply.

Overall, this is a wonderful set of books – I highly recommend them – and the price is right! IMHO, these should rest right alongside Tom Constable’s Notes (also freely available).

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Why would I suggest ScrewTurn as worth a turn or two? Well:

• It depends on whether you are looking for a Windows based stack or a Linux based stack. There are lots of options out there for Linux based stacks – but for Windows there are far fewer.
• As mentioned above its free, open source, and licensed under the well-known, widely utilized GPLv2.
• ScrewTurn also seems to be under continuous development with regular releases and well supported forums…and its not some new project that just popped out of the woodwork – its been around for a while.
• Its extremely easy to setup. Anyone who can learn how to purchase some shared hosting and use an FTP client can get ScrewTurn up and running within minutes.
• It supports a good variety of databases (e.g. MSSQL and MySQL) but also allows for flat filesystem site creation (what I use on freewargamer). This makes setup/management even simpler and reduces the requirements in a shared host (which usually limit or don’t provide database access).
• The UI is simple and easy to use. Its intuitive.
• It has WYSIWYG editing of articles.
• It supports Active Directory integration!

The list could go on – but check it out for yourself. Enjoy! (P.S. they recently released the final version of 3.0 which is pretty awesome).

Later I would save for months to purchase Visual Basic 5. $100+ is a lot of money for a teenager – but I wanted to program so bad that I scraped and saved.

After that there was the ASP.NET Web Matrix – a predecessor to the great tools Microsoft now offers for free. Unfortunately, its development was abandoned and for a long period of time I was left in a painful lurch….but then Microsoft started the trend that has made me extremely happy – free lite development tools.

These development tools include Visual Basic 2008 (for desktop applications), Visual C# 2008 (also for desktop applications, but in C#), Visual C++ (just like the last two), and Visual Web Developer (for web applications) – all in the Express line. Additionally they’ve thrown out there SQL Server Express (database back-end) and SQL Server Studio Management Studio Express (for writing SQL and managing databases).

While these applications are noted as “express” that doesn’t suggest that they are majorly crippled – rather they are extremely full functioning applications which can be used to create many impressive applications. For the new, hobbyist, or small business developer many times the Express Editions will be all that you ever need.

This was a smart move on Microsoft’s part – it gets people hooked on Microsoft development young – and it works great for us as well – because we get free development tools. By the time Microsoft expects us to shell out cash – well, we are probably making some from our now decent development skills. Go grab yourself some free development applications: http://www.microsoft.com/express/.

For me, Skype is and has been a service of great use – allowing me to move to cell-only, losing the landline, but at the same time keeping a inexpensive and constantly available alternative. Skype at its most basic is a free chat application – allowing users to converse via voice, video, and text. Where it passes far beyond many of its competitors is in its ability to call out to traditional phones (landlines and cells) and to receive calls from the same.

Skype offers all of this at drastically low prices. $2.95/mo. will let you call unlimited anywhere in the U.S. and Canada and $12.95/mo. will let you call unlimited to forty countries around the world. Add $60/yr. onto this and you get inbound calls with your own traditional phone number. Finally, dump on voicemail for another $20/yr. All told you are paying $116/yr. for unlimited calls within the U.S. and Canada!

And Skype will travel with you. Going on a vacation? Business trip? If you have your laptop and a internet connection you can make calls with your Skype.

Skype also offers a number of advanced features for businesses and individuals – such as normal phones that use Skype – offering traditional phone convenience without the need to use a computer (though they shouldn’t be used for emergency 911 calls). A whole ecosystem of products has grown around Skype – some of them quite advanced and feature-filled.

Take a look at Skype. Its free. If you want some of the premium features – it does cost, but they won’t trick you into buying anything and if you do buy a subscription from them its amazingly reasonable.