This is also definitely true. It always worries me when one blind tech company gets a monopoly on a product type.
A. J.----- Original Message ----- From: "lana" <lana5@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 11:54 AM Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: can't play books on victor stream
The problem is that Humanware has a monopoly on reading devices in anything close to this price range. Book Port is no more. I'm not sure about Book Currier, and the other voice devices are four or five times the price. Also, the staff should be aware of work-arounds like the .xml transfer someone mentioned earlier, and the conversion of .brf to .txt I described. Ratteling off an old bookshare website we can't find doesn't help, either, and I suspect that if we could get to the old site, we could not download new books. The Humanware staff should have known these things.Ok, APH time to get busy on the new Book Port.No. I'm not suggesting we should have to go out and buy a new device, but competition makes for better products. There are several note takers available and, most of the companies anyway, keep improving to match the others.----- Original Message ----- From: "Bonnie Blose" <bookmaven@xxxxxxxxxx> To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Wednesday, Jan 14, 2009 9:16:38 Subject: [bookshare-discuss] can't play books on victor streamLet me say first that I have always loved bookshare. It occurs to me though that in not being able to play books on the stream that Humanware should not be blamed. When taking in to consideration the varied technology used in downloading or scanning, it may be difficult to accommodate every product no matter how hard a company tries. In all honesty, Humanware is producing equipment such as the stream as they have always done. It is Bookshare that has changed the way in which books are downloaded and the form they take. This seems instead to be a situation in which someone somewhere dropped the ball and either this way of doing things was not tested enough before being put in to play and becoming the reality we must all deal with or there was a lapse in communication somewhere. It would not be the first time such a thing has happened!The question becomes how much a company is under any obligation to do upgrades to a product when they are only doing what they have always done. It seems that if bookshare or any company is making changes to files, it is their place to make sure that Humanware or any other company knows what and how they are changing their format so that customers will be able to download books and play them. I have thought about writing this all night before deciding to do so, because I know that in expressing this opinion I may hurt the feelings of those who feel a fierce loyalty to Bookshare and prefer not to have to think about all this another way.In the future, when upgrades are necessary, Humanware has a responsibility to all users in making products that work as they should with Bookshare or any other company they have supported thus far.Bookshare made this change, Humanware did not. Who should accommodate who? The answer seems obvious.Let me say that I use Bookshare a great deal, enjoy what it has to offer, appreciate all who volunteer and scan and those at Bookshare who make possible all the books I have enjoyed and hope to continue to enjoy in the future. Humanware is only making a product as they have always made it. I believe this to be Bookshare's problem, but I imagine with time and communication between these two companies the difficulties being experienced by those of us with Victor streams will be solved. That is my hope.To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank Email to bookshare-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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