Palm Handheld Scoring

[Rob Boudrie]

This Palm scoring program has been used as the Area 7 championship for several years; was introducted to the AWARE Invitational this year; and is used by Harvard Sportsmens in MA for their local matches. The major matches uses a "hit total and time" summary sheet to provide a handwritten, signed score record. Harvard's local matches are "paperless" - and we haven't had to toss a stage for Palm issues yet (hint: if you use a III Xe, use a bit of tape to secure the battery cover).

Match directors at all of these events were happyu with the results. It not only made the "back room" work easier, but resulted in better customer service.

The software appears to be pretty solid, however, I have seen a Palm crash once in a while (maybe once in an area match size event). The good news is that I have *NEVER* seen this cause a loss of data - not even once. Reset the Palm, and all the scores are there.

These matches have been using ASS for score collection and transferring data to EzWinScore for processing, so I am not qualified to comment on other program features such as squad management, results calculation, etc.

Rob

[Jim Norman]

Costs? I got a reply from Peter, and I am a bit confused as to the actual costs. He is looking for a mision count of 3-5 per shooter per match for what appears to be two copies of the program. We need at lteast 9-10 copies and the 9-10 Palms to go alnog. I have a hard time justifying $4000 for a scoring program!

Jim

[Rob Boudrie]

Ask Peter for clarification as to :

(1) Is there a total payment which brings you to "fully owned" with no more mission count owed?

(2) I don't think he's talking about just "two copies". There are versions of the program for USPSA matches - the "full version" which can run an entire match (irrelevant for US matches, since we need various data management features provided by EzWinScore) and the "score collector version." The "score collector" version allows you to collect scores at a stage for transfer to other Palms or EzWinScore. I believe his current offering for clubs is a couple of copies of the full program and up to 20 of the "score collection" version.

Don't worry about the distinction if you are going to use it to run matches. Peter is doing this so that he can offer the "full version" to individuals and not destroy that market by selling it in quantity to matches at a lower price.

[Jim Norman]

I will ask as you have indicated later tonight. You are correct, we only need the "cata Collection" as we will continue ot utilize EzWinScore for the actual final results.

Having witnessed the AWARE match running smoothly and having one of their people moving to our area and joining our club, I feel it is now time to move. Early on, not being a computer guru, I felt that the program needed a time to mature before spending. If we can do this for the club for $1000- 1500 or so, several of us are willing to foot the bill.

Jim

[Rob Boudrie]

One caveat - at this time you need MS/Access on your PC with EzWinScore to import that data. I am working with USPSA to have the import integrated directly into EzWinScore so that this will not be necessary.

Also, the integration process does not at present support 3 Gun or Multi Gun.

But, once you have the Palm<=>MS/Access interface configured for a match, data import is trivial.

One more hint: The III xe is a decent, battery operated, cheap and fully suitable system for score collection. The battery life indicator is non-linear - if your indicator shows 50% battery life, you've got less than 50% remaining. If you're running a multi-day match, start with all new batteries and you won't have to worry about mid-match replacement.