Hello everyone, Here is something I got from bookshare. It gives a list of the notetakers that will be upgraded. ----- Original Message ----- From: Rob Turner To: Greg Cc: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 9:06 AM Subject: RE: Concerns about the new bookshare General Information Request
Hello Greg, 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 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 Regards, Rob Turner email: [email protected] phone: (650) 644-3424 Bookshare Support -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Greg [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 5:06 AM To: Info Bookshare.org Subject: Concerns about the new bookshare General Information Request Hello, I have been a member of bookshare for around five years now. I use my Braillenote made by humanware to read the books. From reading the emails sent out I am not going to be able to use it anymore. This really concerns me. Could someone tell me if anything is going to be done about this. Sincerely, Greg Wocher ___ Replies to this message will go directly to the sender. If your reply would be useful to the list, please send a copy to the list as well. To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to [email protected] To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit http://list.humanware.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote
