[bookport] Compact Flash and BookPort
- From: "Sharon McBride" <sharon.mcbride@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:35:53 -0500
Hello,
First I may need to eat a bit of crow about the CF Cards. When I went to
Best Buy, Circuit City etc...and asked for CF Type I cards, they all said
they didn't carry them. I think, in fact, they don't carry CF Type II
cards...at least from what I am reading on the BookPort List. They are
saying that it is the Type II that is becoming harder to find. I am not
convinced either way yet and just need to bite the bullet and buy a "regular
CF card" and see if it works. Still, when spending the money...I want the
package to say TYPE I. So much for getting technical support from teenagers!
Next, I have happened upon a link that you may be quite familiar with:
www.aph.org/tech/bct.htm Rather than using the podcasting software, I just
opened the podcast I was interested in. It began playing in Windows Media
Player and I used a save as command from the file menu to save the file to
my computer. As these are not zipped files, the download on BP files took
about 2 minutes each (using broadband).
These are in MP3 files and there are some excellent instructions regarding
the BookPort and other topical issues. These are PodCasts and there is a
way with free and/or cheap software to have the computer capture the podcast
and send them to the BookPort. Podcasting seems to be the new wave of
interest and while I am interested (in terms of the instructional value), I
don't have the time until September to really learn as much as I would like.
To my dismay, the BP list was very chatty while I was away for a few days
but there was some valuable info buried in all the discussions of "out of
stock" comments (such as an extensive 20+ messages about CF cards).
Next, the attachment is an instructional manual/beginning curriculum guide
from SET-BC specific to the BookPort. It does not cover all of the advanced
features but is nicely done with JAWS instructions for the software. The
JAWS instructions have both desktop and laptop instructions. They used
screen capture images for the transfer software lessons which adds to the
usability for the sighted TVI's. It was a download thus, this is NOT a
copyright violation.
As a final an unrelated comment--laptops have been getting larger lately as
sighted folks seem to want the wide screen for DVDs. Best Buy had an ad in
Sunday's paper for an HP with Windows Media Edition for $1100. The striking
thing about the laptop was that it not only had a keyboard with regular
sized keys, it had a num pad. The keys for the six pack were there but they
were above numpad. Interesting way to have the functionality of the desktop
keystrokes and the portability of the laptop.
I called FS and they confirmed that they support XP media edition as that
media edition is XP Pro with some extra bells and whistles for folks who
want to record live TV using their computer etc...I don't care at all about
the TV functions but I am interested in the keyboard extension.
Sharon
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