Hi Monica,LOL I must agree about that accessible Kindle PC app... I own it, and while I love being able to read a Kindle book, it's exceedingly simplistic, particularly, as you say, for anything where I might wish to search to reference something later. *smile*
So, for purposes of Bookshare eligibility, if I find a book that is available as a Kindle publication, is it still eligible to be scanned for Bookshare account holders? I believe the answer is "Yes", but if I'm wrong, I'd love to be corrected prior to scanning something that I thought was eligible and turned out not to be.
Many thanks! Kim -------------------------------------------------- From: "Monica Willyard" <rhyami@xxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, March 02, 2012 2:43 PM To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: A Better Way to Read Ebooks
Hi Susan. You've asked a good question. I'll share what I know, and maybe someone else can fill in some things if I miss something. Kindle books have a proprietary format and have DRM protecting them. QRead can't open them because it is against American copyright law for the developer to break the DRM to open the file. We are allowed by law to do that individually for personal use if a book isn't accessible, but doing that is a difficult process. Books from Apple are different though. They are in Epub format. I think they have some protection on them. I'm not sure because iBooks is so accessible on the iPhone/iPad that I haven't tried opening them in anything else. QRead just came out today, and I haven't experimented with my books from Apple yet. Kindle books are accessible if you use the Kindle for PC with the accessibility plugin provided by Amazon. It's a clunky reader at best, especially for reading nonfiction and textbooks. Still, we can use it, and it does work. I'd love it if QRead could legally open Kindle books. For now, that is not possible due to how Amazon puts DRM on their books. -- Monica Willyard Visit my GoodReads book shelf at http://www.goodreads.com/plumlipstick On 03/02/2012, Susan Lumpkin <slumpkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Hi Monica,I'll probably give you your laugh for the day! Are Kindle or books from theApple bookstore considered to be a proprietary format or are they E-pub books? Hope you're not laughing too much! Susan (smiling) -----Original Message----- From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Monica Willyard Sent: Friday, March 02, 2012 9:14 AM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] A Better Way to Read EbooksHi everyone. I've seen many questions from blind people on this list abouthow they can read different formats of ebooks accessibly and how they canget the most from Bookshare's own books. We've talked about how we're tired of running around trying to figure out how to read various types of ebooks, feeling like we want to pull our hair out. I found something new today, andI think it will help Bookshare's users and blind volunteers. Check outhttp://q-continuum.net/qread/ for a better way to do things. For the first time, we have a program that can read pdf, epub, Bookshare, text, and other types of books with one easy to use interface. The program is called QRead, and it's on sale for $20 till CSUN ends. There is a free demo version thatloads 30 percent of your book so you can see how it works.One of the features I like best is the ability to keep your place in bookswhen you shut down the program. I also like that it can unzip daisy books from Bookshare on the fly, letting you start reading immediately without thinking about where to unzip your book.I don't work for the developer or anything. I'm just really excited to haveone interface, one reader for the PC instead of trying to sort out whichprogram will open a particular type of book. It's worth trying if you wantbetter options for handling ebooks. -- Monica Willyard Visit my GoodReads book shelf at http://www.goodreads.com/plumlipstick To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxput the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list ofavailable commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line. To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxput the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list ofavailable commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxput the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
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