[bookport] Re: Feature question/suggestion
- From: buhrow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Brian Buhrow)
- To: bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 10:43:06 -0700
Hello David. This is an interesting idea. There are a couple of
limitations and challenges to sort out before this could become feasible.
1. When you plug the Bookport into your computer, it attaches itself as a
storage device. As such, it is a USB client, not an USB hub. What that
means is that it expects to be controlled remotely by a USB driver and not
to control other devices. So, if the printer in question that you plug
into is one which can deal with external storage devices, like many
printers of today do, which allow you to plug your camera directly into a
special USB port on their front panels, then you're golden from that
perspective. That is, today, with your existing Bookport, you can walk up
to one of these camera ready USB printers, plug in, and dump your files
from the Bookport to the printer by means of the interface on the printer
itself. How useful this is to you depends on how accessible your
printer's navigational interface is to you.
2. The second issue has to do with what is actually on your Bookport.
When you send data to your Bookport using the transfer tool, it gets
modified from its original form to meet the needs of the Bookport's
indexing interface. So, the file which exists on the Bookport may or may
not resemble the original data file, depending on what the file looked like
originally. As a consequence, if you were to dump the data file from a
book on the Bookport to a printer, there's a very good chance it wouldn't
look right at all. Also, if you're thinking of sending to a braille
embosser, remember that the Bookport doesn't deal in contracted braille,
and so isn't likely to have contracted braille on its flash media, even if
the original form of the document was contracted braille.
-Brian
On Apr 13, 12:00pm, "David Tanner" wrote:
} Subject: [bookport] Feature question/suggestion
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} Spacifically, I am wondering about being able to be reading a file and =
} decide to dump it to a Braille embosser or a printer as though the =
} printer were a generic printer. Obviously you wouldn't want to even =
} think about any kind of spacific printer drivers, but just the ability =
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>-- End of excerpt from "David Tanner"
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