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Messages - Reg Hull

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1
Club Tips / Re: Running a session at Slams Bridge Club - Feb 2023
« on: February 03, 2023, 16:44:17 »
Very similar at Oxted.
We usually turn the router on first so that the laptop connects to it straight away.
We have Wi-Fi in the hall and if we turn the laptop on first it connects to the club Wi-Fi
Whilst the laptop is booting we turn the phones on.
We set up best guess of a movement to make sure al is well then get on with setting up.
We work on the basis that if technical things need sorting we do that first. Early arrivals can always help to set up.
We use the hall Wi-Fi to post the results and very occasionally a hot spot when the hall wi-Fi is playing up.
Good news on the router in another room and very good news on table numbers

2
Oxted have a mix of phones and tablets.
During an evening there is a mix of android phones and tablets in use. These comprise.
 
Phones
Samsung Galaxy 6"
Blackberry Priv 6"
Alcatel pixi 4"
 
Tablets 7"
Alcatel
Acer
Alba
 
Occasionally we also use a 10" tablet a kindle and in the past a couple of iphones
 
We have never had a problem setting any of these up or using them and in the main are second hand.
Members use anything happily as they are consistent in presentation and use.
 
There is a question about the quality of tablets at the lower end.
Argos recently cleared out their ALBA tablets for ?30 (half price) and I suspect it was the unreliability that caused them to stop selling them. I support a local club with technical advice, and we share some equipment including scoring units.
We purchased 4 ALBA units and returned 2 after a few months. The others to date have been brilliant. I think this is luck of the draw. You can get them from a seller on ebay for around ?30 if you want to take the chance.
I have put BridgePal on a couple of their members phones and they use them quite happily.
My personal favourite is my old Blackberry Privs. Really bright screen and only uses about 50% of power with a bright display. I have a soft spot for the Pixi 4". We started with 10 Alcatel Pixi 4" which are still going strong and have never let us down during a session. After 7 years+ we are down to 8. A battery failed on one and we had a cracked screen on another.
 
In summary.
Any android unit works well.
A kindle or Amazon fire seem to be the current 7? favourites.
Ask members if they have tablets / phones they do not want.
Refubs may be worth a look e.g., Amazon warehouse 02 refurb or Currys refurb.

3
General Discussion / Re: Public WiFi systems
« on: November 07, 2022, 10:48:04 »
Hi Steve
Our hall lets us use its router via "guest access" so we get round this problem.
Having said that we use our own router in the same way you do to have our own local network.
It's much better as it does not rely on the hall router, and everything is under out control. The hall router is our back up or using a hot spot on a phone.
At the end of the evening, we connect to the hall router to post the results.

4
General Discussion / Re: Swapping tablets during play
« on: October 11, 2022, 16:27:12 »
Hi
Sounds like a "dodgy" tablet. I have been using this great system successfully for many years with a combination of tablets and phones.
I have one rogue tablet that sometimes does not connect to the wi-fi when you turn it on and sometimes during a session loses connection to the router. Usually, re-connecting to the router works, if not a re-boot does the trick but every now and then I replace it in the manner John has described.
Given that all the other units work seamlessly, I deduce it's a problem with my "dodgy" tablet. I usually have one or two phones turned on ready to be used if a unit fails. This means if you need to swap a unit, there is no need to wait for a new unit to start up. It's handy if the battery runs out on another unit as well as other failures.
Swapping is very quick but when I swap a unit. I tell the table to carry on playing and if necessary, make a note of any contracts etc. This keeps them playing and you can resolve any issues without the pressure of keeping them going.
It's worth setting up a dummy session and practice swapping out a unit at various stages of input to get used to it.

5
Support / Re: Individual Movements
« on: May 15, 2022, 21:14:27 »
Thanks for the clarification John. I meant BridgeScore not BridgePal

6
Support / Re: Individual Movements
« on: May 15, 2022, 17:38:30 »
I did not think Swiss Teams was available on BridgePal.
Do you mean Teams with travellers?

7
Support / Re: Individual Movements
« on: May 15, 2022, 17:34:09 »
Brilliant news.
I would use this functionality

 :)

8
Support / Re: Problem with Howell movements and half-tables
« on: January 12, 2022, 13:13:27 »
Hi

The answer on the night would have been to reset Tables 2 and 6 via director functions on each tablet/phone and then ask a pair to move to Table 2 and then Tables 2 and 6 enter player numbers. Table 6 would then show a sit out for round 1. You could also have done this via "release table via the bridge pal server icon in the taskbar.

There are many variations of Howell so the best thing is to print the ones you nee as Mirna has suggested.
This way you will be able to seat players as you wish and use this to select the missing pair when setting the movement up.

Alternatively when you set the movement up, but before selecting the missing pair use the "view movement " at the bottom of the screen then "table cards" and you will see the pair numbers sat at each table. You can then easily see which pair to select as the missing pair.
Hope this makes sense. If not we can try ringing each other




9
General Discussion / Re: Tablet flicks to "Session not yet started"
« on: August 16, 2021, 22:29:24 »
Hi David.
I did this once.
Had 2 computers running at the club at the same time. Fortunately I had a lightbulb moment and turned one of them off. Another problem you may come across is when any security is running. e.g. Windows, defender., Norton, Kaspersky etc. I disabled all the auto running of any security on my club laptop and run it manually when I want to. Unfortunately last week I took another laptop and the results were taking a while to get to the PC. Moved the router-no joy. Then all started working ok again and I suddenly thought. Kaspersky had done a scan.
Just when you think you've got everything sorted out!!

10
Support / Re: Handicaps - DNQ
« on: January 29, 2020, 13:04:42 »
I had this problem once and realised I had not assigned a handicap to say Fred
We use the scrolling screen from round 2 so I saw that there was a DNQ
In flight I think went into names, added a new name Fred 2 with a handicap and hey presto all working well.


11
General Discussion / Re: Flag Suspicious contract
« on: December 28, 2019, 15:41:44 »
Hi Ranjitr
We use the BridgePal validation at our club.
It is very useful and is great for preventing errors and in particular mis-boarding at a previous table.
Members can override the warning but I often look at the error logs after an event and have found that members take the time to find out why the error has occurred and correct it.
When we first started with BridgePal there were maybe 6 or 7 errors overridden each session. Now there are rarely any as they know there is good reason to check and correct.

12
General Discussion / Re: EBU endorsement?
« on: December 19, 2019, 17:43:19 »
Great News.
The World needs to know this is the best there is................... :)

13
General Discussion / Re: EBU endorsement?
« on: September 24, 2019, 19:23:30 »
Hi John
They do not have a technology section but always welcome articles to add variety.

14
General Discussion / Re: EBU endorsement?
« on: September 18, 2019, 15:28:50 »
All publicity helps.
Any club looking to change or get a new system has to do some research. Extolling the virtues is a good thing and helps in the decision making process.

John I would also send the same article goes to Mr Bridge.  They are always looking to keep the Bridge community updated and engaged.

As we all know as users of this system that we have the best there is and at minimal cost.

LONG LIVE BRIDGEPAL


15
Support / Re: Display issue
« on: August 01, 2019, 13:27:04 »
We use Bridgewebs and this appears ok when I had a look at a similar scenario.
Does this error relate to non Bridgewebs outputs?

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