[gui-talk] the BARD shuffle- Maybe I'm not so dumb, after all

Mon Aug 17 02:30:21 UTC 2009

Dave,

I understand that part about the cartridge being the central idea in the 
design. But I've heard that the firmware is intended to be updated in the 
future, also, although I lack more specific information about just when and 
how that's going to be done. But I know they know about the download issue 
and are keeping it in mind. Frustrated about this as I may be for the 
moment, I think the changes are going to come around in the not too distant 
future. If they didn't, and left the digital player so awkward to use with 
their own download system, that would just be silly. I am certain they're 
not satisfied with this situation. They may have expected most of the users 
to be content with their prerecorded cartridges, the idea being that they 
expect patrons to be mostly technophobic and be happy to have something that 
they can pretend is sort of like the old audiocassette idea, complete with 
mailers and everything. But I think in their hearts they also realize that 
in fact there's a sizable body of more tech-savvy people who'd rather 
download files to begin with, and would have done this for years if it had 
been possible. I'm among them, and you know I'm no super-tecchie or 
something.

So I think it'll be improved. Just don't know quite when.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2009 5:25 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] the BARD shuffle- Maybe I'm not so dumb, after all

No, the player firmware was frozen some time ago.  It is possible
that multiple books could be made possible some time in the future,
but not soon.  You should remember that the player was designed to
play books from the NLS cartridges, and it is one book per cartridge.

Dave

At 05:36 PM 8/16/2009, you wrote:
>No, this is the straight skinny. You think I could make up something like
>that? It's not very cool, but it's reality. Believe it or not. As I say,
>they made noises a few months ago about maybe geting some programmers to 
>fix
>that and recall the players to have them upgraded, but I ain't heard 
>nothing
>about that and I'm sure it just ain't happening. they're gonna start
>distributing a new wave of players soon, and maybe this will be fixed on
>them. As I should have said, they consider the player thing to be in its
>beta stage, and so I'm one of the lucky few who gets to play with the 
>device
>and answer telephone interrogations about my opinion of it. Blah blah.
>teelphone th th
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "albert griffith" <albertgriffith at sbcglobal.net>
>To: "'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
>Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2009 2:54 PM
>Subject: Re: [gui-talk] the BARD shufffle- Maybe I'm not so dumb, after all
>
>
>I can't imagine only being able to store one book on a drive or they won't
>play.  I'd aask on the list about that or contact  your local NLS 
>librarian.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>Behalf Of Joel Deutsch
>Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2009 4:49 PM
>To: GUI-Talk
>Subject: [gui-talk] the BARD shufffle- Maybe I'm not so dumb, after all
>
>I figured out a method (refer to my earlier post):
>
>I of course downloaded Smart computing to a folder where I wanted it and
>unzipped it. But then of course I had to put it onto that thumb drive I
>stick into the NLS digital Player, and I had to clear that thumb drive of a
>BARD-downloaded novel I'm in the middle of reading. Because the software of
>the player can't deal with anything more complicated. Like having two books
>in two folders on that thumb drive.
>
>So herein created a second folder for the novel I'm listening to and moved
>the files from my thumb drive into that folder. I kept the original
>downloaded stuff, too, just in case, but in another subfolder under the
>author's name. My hope is that when the time comes, if I copy the new stuff
>onto the thumb drive again, the player will be able to remember where I 
>left
>
>off, rather than my having to navigate to that point.
>
>And then of course I unzipped and copied the Smart Computing  files  onto
>the thumb drive, and of course it's playing fine on the player.
>
>Now I won't find out until later whether my updated cluster of files for
>that novel, if I copy them to the thumb drive, will clue in the player's
>firmware as to where I left off listening, but everything is backed up, as
>we say, so it's a worthy experiment.
>
>Ah, the gymnastics. They really should have made that download/player deal 
>a
>
>little more sophisticated and flexible, in terms of programming. Even just 
>a
>
>little. Oh, well.
>
>
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