[bookshare-discuss] From Jim Fruchterman
- From: Ann Parsons <akp@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: blind-x@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 08:55:14 -0500
Hi All,
I don't know what on earth SAMN is doing with forwarded messages, but
here's the message from Jim Fruchterman.
Ann P.
Subject:
Buzz
We've been working on this,Ann . Here's the answer. Feel free to
forward widely. Jim Fruchterman
Bookshare wants to thank our users very much for their comments
responding to our email regarding the new site upgrade. We thought it
was important to answer some of the questions that have arisen about
our move to the new zip format. These questions mainly affect people
who have hardware access technology devices such as notetakers.
Once our new website goes live, our books will be compressed as
standard zip files instead of our former proprietary compression
technology for packing books. After much consideration, we decided to
make this change because zip is a common technology built into the
operating system of most computers. If your computer does not have zip
or the Macintosh equivalent, we have links on how to get free software
to unzip files on the new site.
Access technology vendors also preferred we go to a standard
compression like zip, which is easier to support and has some exciting
enhancement possibilities (like AT working with a single zip file
without needing to unzip). We began working months ago with access
technology vendors regarding the transition to zipped files. We expect
that the transition will go pretty smoothly for members who use PCs and
Macs for downloading our books, either for use on their personal
computer or for transfer to other devices. For example, the new
version of Victor Reader Soft provided with the new website will
support the zipped files without needing them to be unzipped, as well
as lots of other cool improvements.
Hardware devices that used to handle our packed files by connecting
directly to our website need to have software upgrades to support
zipped instead of packed files. Note taker vendors are already
preparing upgrades to their software to handle zipped files. Many of
the vendors have their upgrades ready, and others are expected to be
ready in the coming month. The Wizard that you'll see on the new site
on your first visit has contact information for your vendor.
The only people adversely affected will be those with obsolete devices
that used to support packed files and cannot be upgraded. You can work
around this problem by using a computer to download the books you want,
unzip them and then copy the book files to your note taker.
The change affects the following hardware vendors and note takers:
HumanWare
BrailleNote and VoiceNote mPower
BrailleNote PK
The BrailleNote Classic will not be updated, since HumanWare no longer
maintains or updates their proprietary software for these models
Freedom Scientific
Pac Mate and Pac Mate Omni
Level Star
Icon
American Printing House
Braille Plus
Springer Design
BookCourier
GW Micro
Braille Sense and Voice Sense
The Bookshare team
Date:
Friday, January 9 at 10:29 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Ann K. Parsons
Portal Tutoring
EMAIL: akp@xxxxxxxxxxxx
web site: http://www.portaltutoring.info
blog:
http://www.samobile.net/users/akp/blog
Skype: Putertutor
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost."
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