[gui-talk] the new and improved bookshare.org

Thu Jan 22 00:06:55 UTC 2009

No Joel (oh my name is Laura), the bookshare system is set up as follows:

You go download a book in one of 2 formats: DAISY or BRF -- BRF is braille 
format for those who read the book on a braille display.  DAISY which stands 
for something like Digital Accessible Information SYstem, is just a 
specialized markup that requires special software to read it.  Bookshare.org 
provides a free download of VictorReaderSoft to read the DAISY books, but 
there are other readers out there that you pay money for.  FSReader was only 
$45 when I bought it -- it does a very nice job of reading DAISY.

Now as for encryption, this refers to the password required to extract or 
unpack the DAISY files so they can be read. It is just your bookshare.org 
password that you type when you go to the bookshare site and log in. 
Bookshare zips the files and locks them with your password when you download 
the book.

But before this month, bookshare used a different unpacking tool that 
unpacked an archive with a .bks extension. You had to download the unpacking 
tool from bookshare to use the service. So that makes 3 things downloadable 
from bookshare: the old unpacking software (now obsolete), the 
VictorReaderSoft program, and your books. The software only needs to be 
downloaded once, or periodically as software evolves.

Phew! Hope that is clear.
To make matters worse, RFBD also adds another level of encryption to keep 
control of its books. You have to type a pin every time you read the book. 
FSReader will read RFBD books, but RFBD also sells an expensive but useful 
DAISY player that you can carry around with you and listen to books burned 
to CD.

All you ever wanted to know about accessible books but were too busy to 
research.
Take care.
--le

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joel Deutsch" <jdeutsch at dslextreme.com>
To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 3:19 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] the new and improved bookshare.org

Hi L.,

I forgot what the L. stands for, again. Which is pretty bad when it means I
can't remember if you're a man, like Larry, or a woman, say something like
Laura. Or who knows what else it could be? Sorry. I sure wish you wouldn't
just use the letter l, because all I remember is the handle Tribble, which
of course is familiar.

Oh, well. Anyway, thanks for the very clear explanation. So I guess some of
Bookshare's scans can be read with just the right Bookshare software, but
others are Daisy format, and so they require that you have both the
Bookshare software plus a Daisy Reader? Sorry if this sort of question
sounds stupid, but I don't do Daisy, at least not yet, either. I'm just not
into dealing with another learning curve right now, considering all I've had
to learn about concerning the serious medical  issues that confront me. I'm
a little lazy about learning a new blind tech skill right now, if you can
understand.

But do I have it pretty much  right? Also, thanks for your testimonial about
the FS Reader. I suppose its price is competitive, and it would perform sort
of like the couple  of times I used the demo to read some FS help files. I'd
have to figure it out all over again if I really got into Daisy or even
needed to read more of those instructions, but from what everyone says about
the Daisy advantages of navigation, I'm sure it will be worth the
effortt.ould iasy's

thanks.

Joel
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "tribble" <lauraeaves at yahoo.com>
To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 11:40 AM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] the new and improved bookshare.org

Hi Joel --
the .bks extensions that was used for the old packages of daisy books was a
proprietary format for which you downloaded a free tool from bookshare.org
to unpack. It both compacted and encrypted the contents, and the books would
each unpack into 5 or 6 files, including a .css file that was the same for
all the books.  The .zip extension is similarly used now for both encryption
and compaction.  You open the zip file and see the component files
comprizing the book, but you can't extract any of them until you enter your
bookshare password. The book then has a digital watermark embedded in it
somewhere that makes it harder to share the book with someone else without
being traced -- assuming anyone shares a book that gets back to someone at
bookshare.
Anyway, not only is the packing mechanism different, but the component files
for a DAISY book are also a little different.
You need a DAISY reader to read the file. You can download the latest
VictorReaderSoft from bookshare for that purpose, or get another alternative
reader. I personally use Freedom Scientific's FSReader and am quite happy
with it, more so than with VRSoft.  But there are maybe a half dozen other
readers.
Hope that answers your question.
--le

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joel Deutsch" <jdeutsch at dslextreme.com>
To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 10:14 AM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] the new and improved bookshare.org

L.

I'm not a Bookshare person now, although I might jhoin in future. Two things
you said confused me. I hope you'll explain.

You say that the book files used to be "encrypted" as .bks files, and now
they're encrypted as .zip files. Well, I'm unfamiliar with the first file
extension, so I can't guess if that means how a single book or group of
books is downloaded, or whether what's downloaded has to be extracted then.

But I know that .zip files are generally not an encryption method but rather
file compression to make a package smaller, and that you have to simply
unzip (unpack) that in order to have all the compressed files extract
themselves and be ready to use.

So is the first extension you minion actually a proprirateary file type, as
.obx is for Open Book, for instance, and you need a special reader to make
use of them? Same way you need a copy of Open Book to access an .obx file?
Or is it a compression type I just haven't heard of?

And is the .zip extension used by Booshare for encryption  in some way that
I never heard about regarding the uses of the .zip method?

Thanks a lot. you might guess, correctly, that I'm so ignorant about how
Bookshare works that I thought its inventory consisted simply of scanned
text files that you downloaded as they were or maybe as .zip files and then
extracted to use them. i guess it's more complicated, what with these
additional file types, such as  .css, that you mention being involved, too.

thanks,
Joel
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "tribble" <lauraeaves at yahoo.com>
To: "Multiple recipients of NFBnet GUI-TALK Mailing List"
<gui-talk at NFBnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 10:43 PM
Subject: [gui-talk] the new and improved bookshare.org

Hi all --
I just downloaded and copied a bunch of books from the new bookshare.org
which uses zip files rather than .bks to encrypt its books.
I noticed that there is now a different set of .css files than there used to
be -- previously there was 1 file (I forget the name) that was the same for
all the books, so if you unpacked a bunch of books in the same directory,
that one file was shared.
Now there are 3 or more css files common to all the books, and I sent mail
to support at bookshare.org asking if they could be shared -- i.e.., can I
still extract all the files to one directory. Their reply was that all the
books should be in their own directory.
Anyway, this seems like a waste, but apparently it's from the horse's mouth
so I'm passing it along.
I wonder what to do with all the books I have previously downloaded --
perhaps I should create a new folder for the new bookshare.org.
Anyway, happy reading.
--le

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