BBQ Score Guru - Looking for Beta Testers

[71-South]

Hey All,

I posted about this last year, but I can't reply to that message since it's been too long.

I'm writing a Windows application called BBQ Score Guru to help keep track of a team's KCBS scores, find trends, etc. It's nearly done now (I took a sabbatical) and I'm looking for Brethren who'd like to beta test.

I've decided to charge for the program, but I'll happily give a free license to any Brethren who'd like to help out with the beta test.

I'm just days away from being ready to start the testing, so if you're interested, please shoot me an email at bretreece@gmail.com and let me know. You'll need a PC with Windows 7 or later (sorry, no Mac version.)

Following are some screenshots of where the program stands right now.

Thanks for looking, and Smoke On!

Main Dialog

Event Detail Dialog

Score Detail Report
Here's where you can start to see where you're doing well and not doing well over time.

Score Average Report
Like the Score Detail Report, but shows averages instead of all scores.

Event Summary Report
I run this report after each competition and email it to my partner. If you have saved turn-in pics in the Event Detail Dialog, you have the option of including them in the report.

Edit Links Dialog
Here, you can edit/change/choose the links that you want to show up on the right side of the Main Dialog under "Web Resources." I'm still figuring out which 12 links will be there by default. The top two will be "The BBQ Brethren" and "KCBS".

Competition Timeline
You can keep your comp timeline in BBQ Score Guru. It comes with an example timeline that you can edit to make your own.

Master Recipes
Likewise, there's a place to keep your master recipes - one for each of the big four categories. Here's the default rib recipe in the editor.

Setup
There's not much to the setup yet. The "Score Report Color Coding" section is pretty cool as it allows you to define what scores you want to show up as green and red in the score reports.

 

[PatAttack]

This is gonna be a great tool!

You've put a ton of work into this and it shows.

Nice work and can't wait to use it. I like it!

 

[rolfejr]

Would love to use this tool!
Email on the way

 

[sdbbq1234]

Very nice!

 

[SOB]

Looks good man, great job.

 

[Ron_L]

Hey All,

I posted about this last year, but I can't reply to that message since it's been too long.

Yes you can. All you have to do is check the little box acknowledging that you know that you are posting in an old thread.

Let me know via PM if you want this thread merged into the other one.

 

[PigTamer]

I would love to test this....should I send you an email?

 

[Wicked Smoke BBQ]

I'm on board to test We have back to back contests in a couple weeks that would be good to use at. If I need to email let me know and I'll be glad to do it. (Also I'm in IT so I'm use to testing software)

 

[71-South]

Yes you can. All you have to do is check the little box acknowledging that you know that you are posting in an old thread.

Let me know via PM if you want this thread merged into the other one.

Hey Ron,
Thank you for that information. Much appreciated. If it's OK, I'll just use this thread.
-Bret

 

[71-South]

Hey Everyone,

Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for getting on board to beta test. Yes, please send me an email if you'd like to participate as sometimes names and usernames on here get confusing to me.

One thing to keep in mind for a beta test. There are going to be bugs, so be sure and back up your data, and please be patient as I work out any kinks that y'all uncover.

Also, I'm all ears as to suggestions for new reports, features, etc.

I'm going to get the installer going in the next 2-3 days (hopefully), and we'll be ready to begin.

Thanks,
Bret

 

[Willy's Q Shack]

Very impressive! Nice work!

 

[J&B'sBBQ]

Awesome job! Email sent .

 

[71-South]

Thanks for the great response! Looks like we'll have around 15 beta testers.

Tonight I got in most of a fix in that resizes EVERYTHING if the user has larger fonts chosen on his/her system. One more form to go on that one.

I picked up the web site (www.bbqguru.com) yesterday, and I'm waiting for it to be active (for the geeky, the DNS changes have to trickle down to the world. Ughhh.)

After the last form gets "font size fixed", I'll get an installer together and we can get started. Hopefully I can get that done within the next two days. My band had a charity event gig today, or I'd have had all that done by now.

I'll reply to all the emails soon. If you emailed me, you're in.

Thanks again. Much appreciated.
-Bret

 

[Sauced!]

Email sent!

 

[CBQ]

Can you upload pictures of boxes and compare pictures based on appearance score? That would be useful.

I think the name is potentially confusing with the draft control of the same name.

 

[wjwheeler]

Great job!
I'll send a email.

 

[71-South]

Can you upload pictures of boxes and compare pictures based on appearance score? That would be useful.

That does sound useful. I'll try to figure out how to incorporate that some way. Thx.

 

[71-South]

OK. We're up to 24 testers. That's all I can handle for now, so I'm closing the beta tester list at this point. Thanks very much for the terrific response!

 

[71-South]

I sent out the first instructional email. It's got basic instructions, the download link, etc. Please email me if you have any questions.

 

[71-South]

The beta test is done. Thanks very much to everyone who participated. I'll put up the final production build of BBQ Score Guru soon and send license information to everyone who filled out the survey. Thanks!