Being here in Canada, I'll say that a lot of the adaptive tech
distributers are still pushing the blindness related products for
notetakers, but it would be nice to see the air take their place.
Have never had any kind of notetaker, never , ever, and I have to
agree with Jacob that a laptop serves that purpose very well.
On Sep 25, 2008, at 9:35 PM, UCLA Bruins Fan wrote:
great minds think alike! :)
And, yes, I didn't think about the blindness organizations (I don't
follow either of them personally) but you are correct that they
might be slower than the rest of us to give up using blindness
products and primarily use things like the air in the mainstream
market.
Olivia
On Sep 25, 2008, at 1:53 PM, Jacob Schmude wrote:
We'll just have to see what happens, I guess. I think that the air
has the potential to replace the blindness products such as
notetakers but whether it will depends completely on the blind
community and whether they're willing to consider other options. At
the moment there are many who blindly follow the two organizations,
at least here in the U.S, so it will be a slow thing if it happens.
As for me, it's been over 11 years since I've even had a notetaker
and I haven't missed it. A laptop does the trick for me just fine.
I'm as against the blindness-specific products as it is possible to
be.
As far as the NLS goes, I really don't understand some of their
decisions. What's the point in disallowing us to play the books on
a computer? They could still protect their content with DRM, seeing
as how if someone really wants to get around DRM there is always a
way to do it. There's always the re-recording approach if nothing
else and you can do that with any player with an audio patch cord.
I can't help but wonder exactly what NLS gets out of each player
sale? Let's hope that Apple makes their iPod read daisy books at
some point and then goes to NLS wanting to be able to play their
books. That'd shake them up a bit. I don't want to carry around two
devices either. I have my classic and that's all I need, though I
may get a 4th gen nano soon for the speaking menus.
On Sep 25, 2008, at 09:19, Dan Eickmeier wrote:
Yeah, I have to agree totally. I think if the Macbook Air is
going to serve any purpose in the blind community, it's going to
take the place of all these expensive notetakers.
On Sep 23, 2008, at 4:18 PM, UCLA Bruins Fan wrote:
Yes, NLS really needs to get with the program!
I didn't even think of burning books to CDS. I thought that the
only way you could get NLS books was either on tape, or through a
victor stream or Icon, niether of which I own. I don't see the
need to have a stream and an Ipod, and pretty much just use my
macbook for a portable note taking device. I know it can be a
bit of a pain, but my braillenote bit the dust recently, and I'm
thinking I'll just buy a macbook air to replace it once I've
saved up the money. I see no point in purchasing expensive
blindness products if something like the air is available on the
mainstream market, though of course this is just my opinion and
personal preference.
I can't help but wonder if apple will eventually give suppliers
of portable devices like the braillenote and Icon a run for their
money.
Thoughts?
Olivia
Olivia
On Sep 22, 2008, at 9:53 PM, Maxwell Ivey Jr. wrote:
Hello; I agree with you completely on nls needing to get on the
bandwagon as well. I hate it that the only way I can currently
download books from the texas state library system is to
download them to my windows computer and then burn them onto a
cd. The problem is that they are committed to the overdrive
media console which so far doesn't have a mac version. We also
need to work on yahoo. they have a lot of good webmaster's
tools, but they are only available to windows and linnex. Take
care, and good luck, Max
On Sep 22, 2008, at 6:16 PM, Scott Howell wrote:
And I also have an Icon or more accurately the Braille Plus. I
very much appreciate the Braille Plus, but truly the iPod
offers some distinct advantages such as no physical hard drive,
quite speedy to move from track to track with no choppy
buffering, and yes, a small size. I do wish Apple and the
National Library Service could work together on making it
possible to load NLS books on the iPod. Now that would be
mighty cool for sure.
Max Ivey Jr.
The Midway Marketplace
Office 936-273-6960
Cell 281-989-0448
www.midwaymarketplace.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
