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

[Joel Deutsch]

Dave,

I see. Okay. Now I think I've got it. No more questions. If and when I join 
Bookshare, I'll learn the operating instructions, so to speak.

thanks,
joel
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 6:40 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] the new and improved Bookshare.org


Joel:

She said encrypted, but I don't think that is what she meant.

Bookshare is a collection of scanned texts, but they are distributed
in one of two ways, either as a DAISY 3.0 book or as contracted
Braille files.  This is to conform to the provisions of the Chafee
amendment which says the books must be in a "specialized format" to
avoid copyright problems.

Secondly, the .bks files that bookshare previously used were actually
renamed zip files, although it wasn't necessarily widely known.  They
are now using standard password-protected zip files, with the
standard extension.

Dave

At 10:14 AM 1/21/2009, you wrote:
>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
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>gui-talk mailing list
>gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>gui-talk:
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/jdeutsch%40dslextreme.com
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>gui-talk mailing list
>gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info
>for gui-talk:
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/dandrews%40visi.com
>
>
>No virus found in this incoming message.
>Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com
>Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.10/1906 - Release Date:
>1/21/2009 7:07 AM


_______________________________________________
gui-talk mailing list
gui-talk at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
gui-talk:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/jdeutsch%40dslextreme.com