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Help my blind teen. I'm "mp3 illiterate",audio books,Rockbox, etc.

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sslawlor:
First I would like to say "thank you" to the creators of what appears to be a wonderful web site.
I  have a daughter who is blind, and from the treatments she recieved to her brain to fight eye cancer she is also now developmentally disabled.
She LOVES books! She gets the tapes from the Library of Congress through the Talking Books program. They are now going digital, and have made new players with easy to use "plug in like cassettes" that hold the data.. BUT she is now riding a bus for the disabled 3 hours a day to get to her programs..It was suggested I get her an MP3.
What I need to know is: Should I buy the Sandisk Fuse 4G- (its cheaper than the 8G, and since it says it takes SD cards..), and put RockBx on it. OR buy the set up from Accessible Electronics? www.talkingmp3players.com ?
I am NOT teck savy and money is a real issue for us. I need to do this as inexpensively as I can. I DONT UNDERSTAND what I am buying so any help would be appreciated. Id like to set this up for her for X-mas. Oh.How would I download Dbooks from the library onto this?
Thank you very much for your help.
Susan


SOAP EDIT:  Fixed broken link.

Chronon:
The cheapest would be to purchase a supported player and install Rockbox yourself.  I picked up a used Sansa C250 for my daughter on eBay for about $12.  The main page http://www.rockbox.org has a complete list of supported players.

The manual, which you can find by clicking the link at the left side of the screen, has instructions on how to install Rockbox. 

Players running Rockbox should just appear as an external storage device so you can simply "drag and drop" to get files onto them.

HankB:
I've been using Rockbox on Sandisk MP3 players including the e280, Fuze, Clip and most recently Clip+. One of the things I like about Rockbox is that It will go through a directory and then jump to the next directory. You can set it up with a sequence of directories that it will play in sequence for as long as the battery holds up. You can do things like naming directories 00-dir, 01-dir, ... 99-dir to manage the sequence. (With this numbering, the <dir> part of the name doesn't even matter.) Further, if you add or remove files, Rockbox will continue with the sequence if possible. My recollection for the Sansa firmware was that it would loose it's place any time you added or removed a file and it would only play through a single directory and then go silent.

One wrinkle with Rockbox is that it does not play files that include DRM to the best of my knowledge. If you get files that include DRM, you will need some way to convert them to a non-DRM format before Rockbox can play them. My listening is all podcasts or MP3/OGG rips from CDs that I own so DRM is not an issue.

There is also a setting that will cause the player to resume playing when it is powered on. If your daughter fiddles with it and manages to stop playing, she can get it going again by turning the player off and on again.

HTH,
hank

sslawlor:
Thank you both for your help. So I buy the Sansa, then come to this site and get rock box. Will someone help  me through how to connect  it and set it up for her, then help me learn how to get the books onto it too???

I feel so at a loss with this technology. Felt that way the first time I went on the web too...but caught on OK. New stuff ( to me)like this just  rattles me. I know its silly, but it does.
The more of this site I read, the more nervous I get. I flunked French twice in high school, so new languages are not my forte'! This IS SURELY a different language. ::).
Thanks, Susan 
PS. What is a DRM file? Do audio books use that? Feel like a pre schooler here. :-[

Chronon:
Susan,

We will do our best to answer any questions that you have.  However, if you really feel put-off by the prospect of installing Rockbox for yourself then perhaps the players offered by the website that you linked are worth it to you.  Money is not the only consideration when making a purchase.  Time (and effort) may also factor into the decision.  It may be that it is worth it for you to pay more for a player with Rockbox pre-installed, but only you can decide that.

You can read the installation chapter of the manual, which should give you a good idea of what is required for installation. 
http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-sansafuze/rockbox-buildch2.html#x4-60002

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management.  Commonly this takes the form of encryption applied to files to require playback only by approved methods.  Certain audiobooks seem to use some form of this, so be aware that these won't work in Rockbox.

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