Thanks, Bob, you were right. The public domain books act somewhat differently. Thanks, Sue S. ----- Original Message ----- From: Bob To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 7:33 AM Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: Comparison Shopping Sounds like you still need to unpack it with the bookshare unpack tool. ----- Original Message ----- From: siss52 To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 4:50 AM Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: Comparison Shopping Speaking of Braille files, I tried downloading Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, which is a public domain book. Well, I clicked on the BRF digital file, as I do for other books, and there was something different about it. I downloaded it, but when I opened it on my Braille-Lite, I got garbage, and the extension said .bks instead of .brf. Anyone clue me in on this? Thanks, Sue S. ----- Original Message ----- From: Maria Kristic To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 3:53 AM Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: Comparison Shopping Sure, the PACMate can be used to read Bookshare content. A free Bookshare Unpack Utility is available from the Freedom Scientific Web site, allowing one to directly unpack BKS files which one may download directly to the PM or copy over from a PC; the interface of the PM BKS unpack utility is similar to the PC one in some respects. BRF files can be read in FSEdit, the FS-developed word processor found on the PM in addition to Word Mobile, and one can purchase the FSReader DAISY reader to read Bookshare DAISY content-and it will also read RFB&D books again on the Omni (it does still on the desktop version of FSReader, a separate product purchase, and it did on the classic X-series PACMates, but that hasn't yet been restored on the new Omnis) once RFB&D gets around to testing it on the Omni, confirming that it doesn't work like they've been hearing from quite a few people including myself, and issuing a corrected User Authorization Key for the user to purchase from them and use to authorize FSReader to play RFB&D material. As for mainstream players, sure, if you can get the BSO content in to MP3 form (using, say, Kurzweil or OpenBook; or, getting the BRF file in to TXT using a Braille translator like the free WinTrans, or electing to unpack an HTML version of a DAISY book and then opening that in a program which can convert it to MP3, such as the shareware TextAloud, freeware DSpeech, or a Web site like ReadTheWords.com), then, you'll be able to play them on one. One relatively cheap player which has gotten some good reviews in the blindness community is the Creative Zen Stone-for reviews, check out AFB's AccessWorld and www.hartgen.org--at, I believe, $40 (don't own one, so going on memory RE the price). HTH, Maria Skype: MariaKristic AIM: MCKristic Email/MSN: maria6289@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Google Talk: Maria.Kristic@xxxxxxxxx Yahoo Messenger: mariakristic@xxxxxxxxx ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx [mailto:Rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx] Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 10:34 PM To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Comparison Shopping Thank you all for your praise for the Victor Stream and I want to encourage anyone else who may have comments to continue to make them, but I did not name my subject comparison shopping for nothing. Have any of you had experience with any other portable devices for reading Bookshare books? Do I understand correctly that the Pacmate can be used for that purpose? How about MP 3 players that are not made especially for us blind people? Those would be a lot cheaper. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.5.5/1569 - Release Date: 7/23/2008 1:31 PM