For those of you who like to listen to audiobooks, starting today, for the12 week period from May 30, 2013 - August 22, 2013, the SYNC audiobooks site at: http://www.audiobooksync.com/ will be offering two free audiobook titles for download each week. This is a combined effort between AudioFile magazine and audiobook publishers to encourage reading among young adults, but anyone can register for these downloads. You will need to have OverDrive Media Console installed on your computer or the OverDrive Media Console app installed on your iOS device in order to download the audiobooks. This is the same free software that is used by many public libraries worldwide to support electronic downloads of audiobook content, and is very accessible in the Mac version and Windows versions. I've also used the iOS app for direct library downloads of audiobooks and eBooks, and have transferred OverDrive Media Console audiobooks from my Mac to iPods. At the time of each download, you enter your name and email address, and then retrieve the download files (which is a small token file when you use your computer -- the actual download in OverDrive Media Console is triggered when you open this file.)
One annoying feature of downloading to the iOS app is that the app does not have a "delete" button that is accessible to VoiceOver. For library borrowing, where there is a natural expiration period and option to delete expired borrowed items, this is not such an issue. But these audio files are generally large, and a summer's listening can quickly fill up your device. So, while I have tested that it is possible to download these offerings directly to the OverDrive app, I don't advise getting the audiobooks this way unless you have sighted assistance to help with deleting the books, or are prepared to manage these titles by connecting to your computer and using iTunes file sharing or third party apps to retrieve/delete the content. The audiobook files that are downloaded to your computer are regular mp3 files that you can separately manage, run through Audiobook Builder or other apps for merging them into a few audiobook files that you can add to your iTunes library, or pla y in the OverDrive Media Console application on your computer. I know that you can hold onto the audio files downloaded this way, while I haven't tried to sync and manage OverDrive files that were only downloaded through the iOS app. There are also links to sign up for email or text message reminder alerts on the SYNC home page. You can find the schedule of downloads listed at: http://www.audiobooksync.com/free-sync-downloads/sync-schedule-13/ Most of the titles (19 of 24) are offered with no international restrictions, while 5 of the 24 titles, including one of the first titles, "Poseidon" by Anna Banks, are restricted to downloads by users in the U.S. and Canada, only. The other title for this week, a BBC Audio production of "The Tempest", is available to everyone. Information on the availability of titles is given both on the download pages for individual titles, and in advance for the entire program on the summary page for "The Non-U.S. Listener" at: http://www.audiobooksync.com/free-sync-downloads/non-u-s-listener/ There are full instructions about the audiobook download program and how to access the software at the main SYNC website URL. I'll also separately list the link to the OverDrive Media Console software URL both for your computer and as a free app for mobile device listening: http://www.overdrive.com/Software/omc/ There are also sound samples for the audiobooks, if you interact with the frames after each of the title listings on the main SYNC page. (Navigate by headings to "SYNC Summer '13 Opens with a Splash!" on today's page for the description of titles and the download link.) When you download to your computer the downloaded file will be a small token file with ".odm" extension. You have to open this file (e.g., with Command-Down arrow, Command-O, or VO-Space), which will launch OverDrive Media Console and move you to the "Get Media" window to start the audiobook downloads. For borrowed library audiobooks, these tokens contain the expiration date, but all the SYNC program audiobooks come with no expiration dates. If you download from a web browser on your iOS device with the OverDrive Media Console app, the downloads will start automatically, but I had to flick left to find the download link in step 3 of the process on my iOS device. Focus for the final step had actually jumped past the link. Another annoyance of the iOS app is that once downloading begins and you are moved to the OverDrive Media Console app, you don't really have a good way to get an update of the progress. If you flick around you'll hear a counter for the number of files re maining to download, but it's just a number, and doesn't change for quite a while, so unless you are familiar with the file formats you won't realize what is happening. If you've never used the OverDrive Media Console iOS app before, you also won't know how to reach the "Settings" for the app (double tap the "Get Books +" button in the top right corner of the screen, then double tap the "Settings" tab at the bottom of the screen), and you won't know that the default settings have "Automatic Downloads" and "Cellular Download" both set to "On" -- which can also be a shock if your download of large files automatically starts while you're on a cellular connection.) I don't mean to dissuade people from trying to play these titles in the OverDrive Media Console iOS app, which has some neat features, especially if you double tap the "Audio Title Info" button in the top right corner after you start to play an audiobook. For example, in "The Tempest", by navigating to the "Conten ts" tab on bottom of the screen, you can navigate to indvidual scenes. You can also set and access multiple bookmarks. It's just that it's easy to get into problems if you're using the iOS app for the first time, and don't realize that you can't delete the files, might have started a large number of downloads on cellular data with no simple way to stop, etc. Remember, you must actually download the mp3 audiobook files, and not just the non-expiring personal use token files for the books, within the week that the books are offered. At any time after that you can transfer the files to another device for listening. If you want email or text reminders of when new offerings will be available each week (on each Thursday in the U.S.), you can sign up for this on the SYNC web page. HTH. Cheers, Esther <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to [email protected] You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> As the Mac Access Dot Net administrators, we do our very best to ensure that the Mac-Access E-Mal list remains malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free. However, this should in no way replace your own security strategy. We assume neither liability nor responsibility should something unpredictable happen. Please remember to update your membership preferences periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>
