BridgePal Forum

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.

If you have 2 or more PC’s / Laptops running at the same time and they have BridgePal installed on them then the Phones / Tablets will not operate correctly, as they will be constantly switching between the two PCs.

This is because BridgePal launches “bridgepalBroadcast” at the time the machine is switched on. There are 2 options to deal with this.

Option 1.
Only leave running the PC / Laptop required i.e. turn off all others.

Option 2
Type in “Services” in the command box at the bottom left of the taskbar, and Enter.

In the windows that appears, double-click on  “bridgepalBroadcast” and then click on “Stop”. This will stop the service until you click on "Start" or reboot the PC.


General Note.
If you want to prevent  “bridgepalBroadcast “ being launched at PC / Laptop
boot time, you need to set the start-up type for the bridgepalBroadcast
to "Manual" or "Disabled" in Services via the “Start up Type” options

You can then launch it manually when you need it by double clicking on
bridgepalBroadcast.exe in the C:/nginx folder

You may find it easier to have a shortcut on your desktop for the bridgepalBroadcast.exe so that you can launch it from there rather than go into services.

Attached are some pictures of the Oxted Bridge Club kit
1)The charging unit we use to save extension leads
2) An old spanner/cable bag I found in the shed that holds and transports our phones
3) The Dobbers/Stylus pens we sourced from Amazon for peanuts

Method 1
1)   Download player database as.csv file.
2)   Open Names file, normally saved in Clubdata as “Names.txt to see file layout.Line up columns in same sequence as Names.txt file. You only need the first 9 columns as follows First, Name, Last Name Nickname EBU, 2 blank columns and Club ID if you have/are assigning these numbers for BridgePal input. Missing columns are imported with no data by BridgeScore.
3)   Sequence player database file as in step2
4)   Save file as a ‘csv. New name is recommended in case of errors
5)   Rename .csv extension to .txt
6)   Import new file to BridgeScore Names by using “Get” option in Names menu

Method 2
1)   Using Excel or similar Open Names file, normally saved in Clubdata as “Names.txt. You will need to change Excel to look for all file types
2)   Excel will recognise it as a delimited file and take you through several steps. Select options as follows
a.   Delimited and Headers
b.   Comma, deselect Tab
c.   General format
3)   Paste in required data from player database.
4)   Save as a .csv. New name is recommended in case of errors
5)   Rename .csv extension to .txt
6)   Import new file to BridgeScore Names by using “Get” option in Names menu

Anyone got any thoughts on using a projector to display the scrolling results etc.
I know of 1 club that debated this with its members, i.e. As to whether they wanted the ongoing results displaying as they were playing or just at the end.
They decided to display them at 1/2 way and then at the end.
You can pick up a cheap mini/small projector for c£35 from the likes of Amazon so would not be a prohibitive cost.

Regards
Reg

Today I got both of these up and running in conjunction with my Pixi 4's and a Samsung 5".
The iPhones and IPad performed well with no real problems.
Some of my members are wedded to their Apple devices so my intention is to let them use them if they want.

I am getting a Blackberry Android in the new year and will try it out so that should be fun.

Reg