Jc Wren has been experimenting with score printing solution for PractiScore, and he describes where hes at over on the Area 6 page. I applaud his efforts and I hope they come to fruition. We will certain support anything that comes of it. Im not on the A6 page, and Im pretty sure I dont want to be. So Ill comment here. Early on, til maybe a year ago, I put a fair amount of effort into trying to get an inexpensive printing solution that could be at every stage. That including getting rejected by Apple 3 times for a cable that would hook to a $20 dollar triple A battery powered label printer. I even ordered cheap wifi thermals directly from China to try. Then I had an epiphany.... paper is just a means to an end. The goal is score security - both from device loss and possibly tampering. And score logging was born. Any edit is logged, it cant not be. Logs go to scorelog.practiscore when Internet is available, they are emailed to shooters instantly, and they also synch to the Master. So, with internet, all scores are safe from device loss or tampering. The question, then is, what if Internet isnt available? To me, the PractiScore Match Manager (also from JC), with its automatic synching and local webserver is the answer. With it, I can send scorelogs, and even a devices entire match record to it (what we call a PSC file). All I need is WiFi (not Internet). I think it far more practical to wifi a range, and far cheaper than to get printers to each stage. At Nationals our Internet tower took a bullet. The north side of the range went dark. That sucked, but after the range went cold I put up 3 $60 dollar MikroTik relays, and we were covered again. Took about 15 minutes and they worked so well we ended up serving all 28 stages with them. At some point, cheap wifi or bluetooth printers will be available, and we will support them. But for now I prefer to island hop around a problem with unaffordable solutions and just solve the core problem - score integrity and score safety. My druthers are in descending preference: - range wide wifi w/ internet, log to cloud, instant e-receipt to shooter - range wide wifi w/ logging to local server, shooters can synch to a non-editing version of Practiscore called Competitor for receipts. - lacking range wide wifi, stage wifi, with synch to Competitor. I can wifi a stage for about $30 bucks, including battery. It never runs out of paper, never jams. Competitor can receive receipts for a shooter, shooters, or an entire squad. I dont claim to have all wisdom here, but Ive definitely thought about this a LOT. Printed receipts have problems. They blow away. They require filing and a process to flow them to the stat shack. And people to do that. And I have no way of knowing if the paper being shown is the final score, and with certain types of paper, they are manipulatable. Finally, if disaster strikes, Im faced with typing them in. Which is sort of what I was hoping to avoid when PractiScore started... (-: But I dont know why Im really thinking about it this hard... is anybody going to even be able to go to matches in this new Ebola era?? I just keep thinking of all the hands I shook at Nationals. Yikes! )-:
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 04:07:03 +0000
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