[Dtb-talk] The Physical Cartridges themselves?

[Greg Kearney]

We approach the problem a bit differently here in Western Australia, the only other talking book library to use the NLS drive system. Here we assign the drive to the user and then reload the drive each time it comes back to us with a new selection of book for that user. The user gets the same drive over and over again. The dives have both embedded serial numbers, which our software reads to know who the drive belongs to and barcode which are unique to the drive which we used to print the mailing labels from.

We put up to 8 books onto a drive at a time depending on the size of the book. We use 2 gig drives custom imprinted with out name on the back.


Gregory Kearney | Manager Accessible Media
Association for the Blind of WA - Guide Dogs WA
PO Box 101, Victoria Park WA 6979 | 61 Kitchener Ave, Victoria Park WA 6100
Tel: 08 9311 8246 | Fax: 08 9361 8696 | www.guidedogswa.com.au
Tel: 307-224-4022 (North America)
Email: greg.kearney at guidedogswa.com.au
Email: gkearney at gmail.com

On 30/07/2011, at 2:05 AM, Rose Combs wrote:

> Probably because NLS believes no one should ever read more than one book and
> never two or three different ones in any given time period.  
> 
> I probably have at least five different books in progress depending on mood,
> where I am, time of day, you get the message.  My Stream only has 100 books
> on it, my thumb drive in the NLS player has about 18 on it currently.  My
> iPhone has about 4, maybe 5 books on it.  That was a godsend when my husband
> spent so much time in the hospital, before I either had to carry the Braille
> note, or the stream with me, having the iPhone and Audible, when I would
> have had a phone with me under any circumstances was great.  I have spent
> literally hours waiting for one thing or another in the past three months
> and being able to use only one device helps.  If NLS would use the phone
> then I really would have a cornucopia of books to read absolutely anywhere.
> 
> 
> 
> Rose Combs
> rosecombs at Q.com
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of James McCarthy
> Sent: Friday, July 29, 2011 10:46 AM
> To: 'Discussion of Digital Talking Books'
> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] The Physical Cartridges themselves?
> 
> I believe that the cartridges are simply a USB drive encased in a plastic
> case. I imagine they are custom made by someone who contracts with NLS to do
> so. NLS states that few single books are larger than 1 gb so they have no
> need to use larger USB devices in their cartridges. Conversely, those of us
> who use BARD or find other ways to download books on cartridges we purchase
> want more storage space. I think that the biggest driver is cost and I know
> that NLS expects 1 and 2 gb USB devices to become hard to find in the
> future. This would mean that if the price for larger USB drives goes down
> and it is practical to include larger ones in the cartridges, that is
> probably what we will be offered in the future. As for SD cards, they will
> not fit in the cartridges or connect in any way to the player, though there
> are SD to USB adapters that will plug in the USB connection on the side of
> the DTB player and they work for playing NLS materials on an SD card. There
> is some increased risk that these devices could be broken though if hit when
> carrying the player with one connected.
> Jim McCarthy
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Eric SS
> Sent: Friday, July 29, 2011 1:31 PM
> To: 'Discussion of Digital Talking Books'
> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] The Physical Cartridges themselves?
> 
> Paul, good question. It would be interesting.
> 
> I was just wondering why the blank cartridges we can buy are limited to 1 or
> 2GB. Also, why couldn't there be an empty cartridge so that we could insert
> an SD card of whatever capacity.
> 
> Curious minds keep us from getting work done...
> 
> Eric SS
> 
> 
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