EZWS Tutorial Video

[Dave Gundry]

In an effort to help train more people on how to use EZWS properly, I have made a short, quick & dirty how-to video.

Any gross errors, additional input or things that need to be changed?

[wgnoyes]

Hi. Good job. I've done this before myself, but my videos are out of date.

It's generally not a good practice to create a new match file and/or save output to the same directory where ezwinscore is installed. I recommend that stats officers instead create a "My Matches" folder under "My Documents" and then create subfolders within that for individual clubs. You'll find additional information on that at http://uspsa.org/ezwinscore/faq.html#matchdb.

You may want to adjust the "zoom" slide control to make the score entry form bigger so viewers can see it better. (Also easier for you to see what you're doing when you're scoring a match! )

Many clubs are using generic "multiple stages on a sheet of paper" scoresheets, so selecting the "all stages" radio button is appropriate there. If you have a whole pile of scoresheets for a single stage, however as you would for a major match, you'll want to clear that radio button so you can key in one competitor after the other in a stream.

You made no mention of doing verifies. That's under pulldown Reports>Verification for Stats. This is an essential process in scoring any size of match to ensure accuracy of the data entered. For a regular monthly match, I pull this up on the screen and check off the entries from the batch I've just entered. For a major match, I print this listing for each batch of scoresheets and hand the package off to one of the folks helping us in stats.

Under version 4, its a good idea to run the classification update against masternames.db first to have the latest updates available when you begin registering people. This is because version 4 now also updates USPSA numbers when, for example, a member's number prefix changes from "A" to "TY". Also as a reminder, we all have to be on version 4.x by August 1st, as the uspsa website will no longer accept uploads from 3.x as of that date.

What did you use to create this? I've used Techsmith Camtasia before, and there's also Adobe Captivate.

Again, very good job, and thanks.

[Dave Gundry]

Thanks Bill!

I used CamStudio - http://camstudio.org/ - this was my first attempt at a video tutorial, and first time using screen capture software. The software works pretty well for open source stuff, but the AVI was about 1 gig for this short video. Also, it does not let you do takes, so it had be an all in one deal. You could do multiple movies and splice them together with other editing software later, but I haven't found any free software I like.

Good call on the match db location. That folder is getting a little messy.

Verification - Do you do that for every shooter? I can see the benefit, but I like to only score a match once! I am a spreadsheet nazi though, so probably more thorough, anal and accurate than most when entering data. Had to do and redo far too many over my college career, so the 'do it right or do it twice' mantra really kicks in when I do any data entry now.

Again, thank for the input. Once I upgrade to v4 I'll probably make another video. Feel free to pass this one or any of them around as needed.

[LChico]

I have to agree that you need to verify every score. You are not "scoring" it again, you are LOOKING at it again. No data entry involved & a quick 'right mouse click' to move through the list for local matches.

My personal preference is to do data entry as quickly as possible (and I always disable the pop up score verification box on the score entry screen. I am going to go back and verify it all anyway, and it is a redundant keystroke to clear it (plus, it used to pop up over the "additional penalties box" which was used with multi-gun scoring).

My personal rule is that no one ever verifies their own data entry. I find it harder to see my own errors & a second set of eyes always does the verification process.

Linda Chico (L-2035)

Columbia SC

Edited June 22, 2010 by LChico

[wgnoyes]

Yes, I verify for EVERY competitor, that's just part of the job. At a local match where I'm driving stats alone, well..., yes I verify my own work. At a major match where I've got help, of course the computer operators hand it off to our verifiers while we continue to keypunch scoresheets.

Take a look at camtasia studio at http://techsmith.com. You can download a full function 30-day trial version to play with.

I did some ezws videos myself; the one that's still reasonably current is available at http://uspsa.org/ezwinscore/flash/ezws30squadding (I apologize in advance for my halting voice) and discusses using self service squadding with ezws for a major match. I created it as a flash video and the filesize was 44mg. (A 1g avi is way too large to host anywhere except apparently youtube.) Camtasia creates most all output formats including those ready to use on a iPhone/iPod/iPad, and as you see in my example, you can add all kinds of captions, call-outs, and whatnot. It costs $299, but its worth it!

Oh, and I recognize the "I get someone else to verify my data entry" philosophy and it's valid. In banking, tellers are told to never cash their own checks; hand it off to the teller next to you. In data processing when we were dealing with cards, the verifier was always a different keypunch operator from the one who created the deck.

Edited June 23, 2010 by wgnoyes