I agree, but I never said it would be easy. I just said that the
internet wasn't required. Given that, I don't think I did anyone a
disservice. IMHO, letting the misconception continue that this would
require the internet and a cloud based solution would have been a
disservice. I did offer up some alternatives to the internet by way of
example, but I didn't mean to imply that it would be easy, but rather
just possible. My terseness may have come across as simplicity, but this
was just because I was giving some counter examples and not trying to
design a solution on this mailing list.
I understand what you're saying though. As a software engineer, I always
get a twinge when I hear someone ask why Apple or any other company
didn't implement something or do something one way instead of another or
fix an outstanding bug since it can't be that hard. Similarly, I'll get
that twinge when people say the bug must be in IOS, since I didn't see
this bug before I upgraded, not realizing how interrelated the hardware,
firmware, software, standards definitions and so on are.
On 05/20/2013 07:15 PM, David Chittenden wrote:
I use to write information on whichever device I had handy at the time. I then
synced everything together using my computer as the hub. Oh, I also had a
PacMate which was a Pocket PC device. One day, I forgot to close the file on
the Windows Mobile smartphone before editing it on the Pocket PC device. A
couple hours later, I finished my edit and synced all the devices to update
everything. Unfortunately, the last file to close was the smartphone version
(which closed automatically for syncing), and I lost a few hours worth of work.
The problem is, when we express how easy something should be, many people
automatically assume that it will be that easy, and then start expecting it.
Any developer, programmer, system designer, high-end alpha and beta tester, or
competent manager knows that, once you start getting into the details, easy
almost always goes out the window. As far as I am concerned, those of us who
understand this are doing everyone a disservice when we give the impression
that something is easy to do when we know, just by looking at the disparate
elements, that there are going to be hidden complexities. I changed from a
systems engineering degree when I realised that I did not want to spend all my
time combing through code to locate that hidden variable which flipped its
state inappropriately causing seemingly unrelated system bugs elsewhere in the
system. I much prefer doing that with people instead as a therapist.
David Chittenden, MSc, MRCAA
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +64 21 2288 288
Sent from my iPhone
On 21/05/2013, at 10:51, Christopher Chaltain <[email protected]> wrote:
Well, first, that wasn't even close to the question I was answering. I was only
saying that you don't need to use the internet or the cloud if you want to save
your place between books. I didn't say it would be easy, and I wasn't talking
about supporting all of the existing devices that are currently out there. No
one could come up with a system for all of the existing devices using the
internet or the cloud either.
BTW, I didn't have trouble syncing my data, music, contacts and so on between
my computers, Nokia smart phone and MP3 players. True, now I do all of that
through the cloud, but there was a time I did that without the internet or the
cloud.
I should learn never to disagree with you David. Whenever I do, the question
I'm answering keeps changing until I look like an idiot. That doesn't mean I'm
not actually an idiot though.
On 05/20/2013 05:34 PM, David Chittenden wrote:
It is interesting how simple something can sound in the abstract. Note that
Amazon does it only with Amazon controlled equipment. Back when I had both a
Windows Mobile smartphone and a Nokia smartphone, each device syncing with my
computer was basic as long as I was not trying to sync things more complicated
than updates to files, and I made sure the file was closed last on the device
which had the most recent iteration of the file. However, trying to do this
with both the Windows Mobile and the Nokia became very complicated very
quickly. When you add different OSs and different sync protocols managed by
different sync programs on the computer, it becomes messy.
So, we have the Victor Stream by HumanWare on a proprietary OS, the iPhone app
on the iOS platform, the BookSense on a modified version of Windows CE (which
has been discontinued a few years ago by the way), the Icon and Braille Plus on
a Linux variant, The BrailleNote on a different variant of modified Windows CE
(which has been discontinued a few years ago), the forthcoming APH and NBP
systems both running Android.
I would love to see you design and roll out a local syncing system that will
run locally on whichever equipment the person happens to have, and will manage
transferring file location markers effectively between these disparate devices,
with anything near 100% accuracy. After all, anything less than 100% accuracy
will rapidly earn you a large volume of complaints from this community.
Like I said, it would be a very complex project, and one I would not care to
manage.
David Chittenden, MSc, MRCAA
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +64 21 2288 288
Sent from my iPhone
On 21/05/2013, at 10:14, Christopher Chaltain <[email protected]> wrote:
There are lots of ways this could be done without an internet connection. You
could pass some media between the devices, like an SD card, you could use your
PC as a sync point between your devices or the devices could sync with one
another through NFC, bluetooth or wifi.
On 05/20/2013 04:57 PM, David Chittenden wrote:
Excuse me, unless you connect your devices to some sort of central managing
database, there is no way to synchronise one's reading location mark across
devices. Amazon does it by having all devices connect to their servers and
update reading location marks, highlight marks, comments, and so forth, with
the database that also keeps track of which books one has purchased. It isn't
complicated so long as the infrastructure is set-up for it. Setting up the
infrastructure from scratch, on the other hand, is a real nightmare.
David Chittenden, MSc, MRCAA
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +64 21 2288 288
Sent from my iPhone
On 21/05/2013, at 9:20, Christopher Chaltain <[email protected]> wrote:
This could be done without an internet connection. Many of these devices
support SD cards, USB connections and bluetooth. They're also now starting to
come out with wifi connections.
On 05/20/2013 03:56 PM, Ricardo Walker wrote:
Hi,
This would require whatever device you use at home have an internet connection.
I don't own a stream or, any other type of blind centric reader except the
actual NLS player so, do these devices often have the ability to connect to the
internet?
Ricardo Walker
[email protected]
Twitter:@apple2thecore
www.appletothecore.info
On May 20, 2013, at 3:08 PM, "Alan Paganelli" <[email protected]>
wrote:
I think it's a fair question though. Not everybody who gets NLS Talking Books
has a smart phone and they would like to have some sense of how popular it
would be. Personally, I'd just like to have the option. Now if there were a
way in which you could start reading an NLS book on your iPhone, get home and
pickup where you left off on your reading device. They keep saying more
features will be added to the Victor Reader Stream 2. Be cool if they could
manage that.
----- Original Message -----
From: Brad Hodges
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 11:44 AM
Subject: Re: NLS Update on Talking Book App
Similarly, I just signed on to NLS BARD and encountered the same two
questions.
On 5/20/2013 2:37 PM, Arnold Schmidt wrote:
When I logged onto my library's bard site today, there was a survey question
about whether I would use the app, if it were available, and which version, IOS
or Android, I would use. I post this, in hopes that it is a national survey,
not just from my library. If you tend not to log onto bard often, log onto it
and, if the question is there, hopefully answer it yes.
Arnold Schmidt
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