[nabs-l] learning ally and download frustrations

Tue May 27 23:25:31 UTC 2014

Joshua,
wow, interesting information.
I wasn't aware you could download a zip file like you do via bard.

There site continues to be troublesome, there is no link, for instance, to 
go to your next page of search results when searching for a book.
I gave them feedback and they made no promises but the lady said she passed 
the info to her supervisor.

I hate to give my membership to a organization who pays lip service to our 
needs.
But, on the other hand, I do benefit from human readers. I struggle with 
learning via electronic texts.
I just get lost probably cause jaws is so monotone.
so, I got through college with RFB and for the last few years, learning 
ally.

There's no other organization who has such a vast variety of human read 
books, so I take good with the bad.

They did help me with the download manager btw. it was a long process though 
and I find the manager weird and miss the straightforward one of the old 
RFB.

Ashley

-----Original Message----- 
From: Joshua Hendrickson
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 11:27 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] learning ally and download frustrations

Hi Ashley.  I have downloaded books with the download manager before.
There is an option to download the books as regular .zip files like
you wood from bard, and not even use the download manager at all.  I
don't know.  They make the download process way more complicated than
it already is.  Why don't they like any other reasonable website once
you find your search result after doing a search have one simple
download link, to a plain ordinary zip file, you just download the zip
file, extract it, and there you have the book you need.  I have a
membership with learning ally at the moment, because I needed it for
one last book for my online science class, but I have gotten my
associates now.  One very interesting thing about learning ally books
that they don't tell you, is, there books aren't in any special format
needing a special user key at all.  If you take a look at a learning
ally book after it has been downloaded, you find a bunch of regular
mp3 files which would play on your computer.  The trick is getting
those files organized in a playable mannor as far as order goes.

On 4/14/14, Ashley Bramlett <bookwormahb at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Chris,
> Couldn't have said it better. I attempted to do the online downloads to no
> avail.
> I was able to browse the catalog, select the books I wanted, and add to
> bookshelf, and that's as far as I got.
> I have attempted to download the darn manager twice with the same results.
>
> I'm serously contemplating bookshare now.
> How does bookshare compare with learning ally? Is the site and download
> process simple? I know its daisy text. Is the text marked simliar to
> learning ally where its by part, chapter, and subsection of the chapter?
> Does bookshare  have the same textbooks and variety as learning ally?
> What are the formats now? I hear they are adding new formats all the time.
> Can the daisy software they give you have human like sounding speech?
> I heard they were adding mp3 files.
>
> Bookshare started as a source for more leisure type reading, but I know 
> now
> they have changed and gotten more and more texts from publishers.
>
> There isn't much choice for accessible texts. Learning ally and bookshare
> are the two main sources.
> Even if I used bookshare, not all my books would be there, so I'd need
> learning ally too.
>
> So, perhaps, I'm therefore stuck with learning ally even though I feel 
> they
> are leaving the blind segment behind, a segment that they were founded 
> upon.
> Chris, you are more tech savvy than me, so to hear you have trouble too
> makes me feel better.
>
> Ashley
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Nusbaum
> Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 10:32 PM
> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] learning ally and download frustrations
>
> I agree and have had many similar frustrations. Since their rebranding as
> Learning Ally, I believe, they have shifted their focus from the blind to
> those with learning disabilities, leaving us all but forgotten. Sad but
> true.
>
> Chris Nusbaum
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Apr 14, 2014, at 4:22 PM, "Ashley Bramlett" 
>> <bookwormahb at earthlink.net>
>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Do you all think learning ally makes changes not in our favor for
>> nonvisual access? Well, I do. Since they changed their name, I knew this
>> was trouble.
>> Well, to start, no longer is the book catalog searching easy. Sure you 
>> can
>>
>> do it, but your results do not show you all you need; before it showed it
>> all in a good way; like your publisher and copy right year. Now its
>> barried among links which is harder as you have to listen to the whole
>> line to hear it all, one of which is the year. Oh, and did you notice the
>> links to get to the next and previous pages are no longer links? Jaws 
>> does
>>
>> not recognize them as links. I clicked on it with enter and it worked, 
>> but
>>
>> it should read as a link with screen readers.
>>
>> Now, if that is not bad enough, I  have tried unsuccessfully to use the
>> darn download manager. Thankfully, I usually use the old fashion cds, but
>> sometimes I’m in a pinch, like now, and need to download asap so I have
>> instant access, not wait for the mailed books.
>>
>> I’ll call them again. I searched for the books and clicked on add to
>> bookshelf; they were added.
>> Then, I attempted to install their download manager.
>>
>> The learning ally is no ally to us.
>> The old download manager was screen reader friendly and I successfully
>> downloaded a lot of books!
>>
>> The download manager does not give a lot of screen prompts, and there was
>> no way to ensure it finished installing. I did click on the next buttons,
>> so I thought it was installed. Well, when I called them last week, we
>> determined it was not installed since no icon was on desktop, nor did I
>> see it in my computer as I searched.
>>
>> I don’t know how to get from the bookshelf step to dowloading them with
>> the download manager, and then  using my victor reader stratus.
>>
>> This is rediculous not to be user friendly. I cannot express my
>> disappointment enough that for years I used them with no issues, ever
>> since high school, and then in college got my own account. I had issues
>> with some readers, but not obtaining books. The readers are not always 
>> the
>>
>> greatest quality. But, the book service was fine. I even asked the DC
>> recording studio to record a few books, and they were happy to do so! 
>> They
>>
>> sent me my books in installments either on cassette, or later via cd. It
>> worked well. I also picked up my books after recording them in good
>> condition.
>>
>> But, now, as learning ally, the website is terrible. They have cut
>> critically needed staff in my opinion from regional offices. Get this,
>> they cut staff, but then increase your membership fee! Where is my
>> increased 25 dollars going? Where are the costs there in that nonprofit?
>> Oh, maybe to increase outreach to the dislexic population, which does not
>> want the name dislexia in the title of the nonprofit.
>>
>>
>> I’ll call again. I need help with this stupid download manager. they said
>> there is a specialist who can better help me who knows about screen
>> readers.
>>
>> I’m curious about your experiences with downloads.
>>
>> Thanks.
>> Ashley
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