Re: Accessing the internal disk of Digital Book Players
Oh wow, I didn't think this thing would come back. Well, here goes...
If you're going to be modifying the Stream software, I'd suggest either not tampering with the original card or making sure you've made a good working backup. I'm honestly not interested enough to do this because I'm not a developer, and I don't have enough Linux knowledge yet to go cloning partitions and the like.
I can think of plenty of cool things to add to the Stream. Humanware seems to have abandoned the project which pisses me off! There's so much they could do. Let's see, what do I want?
1. The ability to browse, stream, and download files from local SMB network shares. My super awesome idea was to get a Raspberry Pi, connect a hard drive with a ton of audio, and wirelessly access all that content from the intuitive controls of the Stream.
2. A network transfer mode to transfer files to the SD card and/or internal SD card from a computer. This may or may not be worth it, especially when you consider how awful the Book Port's network folder feature is. The fastest speeds I ever achieved were just shy of 500 kbps which is ridiculous!
3. The ability to send audio to Chromecast and AirPlay receivers. The device has Wi-Fi, so why not? I want to play books and music on all my Google Homes and Chromecast Audios scattered around the house in sync.
4. Access to the Broadcastify database. We have ooTunes, so why not access to police, fire, etc radio streams as well?
5. Access to the dictionary.com and thesaurus.com websites. There are times when I want simple lists of definitions, and Wiktionary is crap!
6. Support for drives formatted as NTFS and ExFAT.
7. The ability to Stream podcasts in addition to downloading them.
8. USB keyboard support. I hate the classic telephone keypad typing crap!
9. YouTube? I don't know if this one is feasible. What kind of hardware are we looking at with the Stream? What are the specifications for the processor and RAM? Does anyone know? I'm really curious, but Humanware probably wouldn't tell me.
10. Download speed notifications. I'd like to know how quickly items are downloading and why the Wi-Fi is so damn slow. Is it because there's a really crummy processor inside the unit?
11. The ability to record to the internal memory and save podcasts and other web content to the SD card.
I really hope the Stream isn't abandoned. They come out with this cool unit with Wi-Fi capabilities, and all they do is add support for book services, web radio, NFB Newsline, references via Wikipedia/Wiktionary, time synchronization, and podcasts? Come on! There's so much more we can do! I want this to be a really awesome product!
Now, I'm turning my attention to the Book Port Plus. APH abandoning the product pisses me off! I'm especially pissed because I paid for their online books update which never worked as advertised! I reported the issues, but no patches were released, and I think they've all broken except for Bookshare. That product had a lot of potential as well, but it looks like nothing will be happening with that now. I tried to get someone from APH to tell me the hardware specifications, but I was told they weren't giving up that info because people might try to hack it. Well, if you people want to abandon the product, why not?
So I'm curious. Does anyone know the specifications of the device? All I know is it uses an 802.11 B/G radio. How about the CPU, RAM, and internal storage capacity? Is it running Windows CE Embedded? What does it use for Network Folder? Is it a really old version of SMB? Does it have a Telnet server?
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