JeremyR

Point is they shouldn't have to. It's Groundspeak's job to provide the data in valid XML (which they do) and the software/firmware developer's job to provide a XML parser rather than a lazy parser that assumes a given structure. If vendors don't understand how XML works and how it should be parsed or just don't make the effort to do it properly, release a product anyway and end up with egg on their face, that's not Groundspeak's problem. I would appeal to Groundspeak to stand firm on this one and not be tempted to rollback for compatibility. If the companies in question care for their users, they'll push updates fairly quickly, I'd expect.

A casual look over a GPX generated before and after the changes suggests that the content of the nodes has not been modified, only the attributes node (and children) has been added. Honestly, it looks like several companies who should know better have coded lazy XML parsers that rely on the structure of the file to interpret correctly. The software apps are easily fixed by their vendors, of course, but it's rather embarrassing for them...

GPX files are built on the foundation of XML, which by design and purpose is meant to be extensible (that's what the X in XML stands for). If adding cache attribute data to the content of the GPX file causes certain software applications to fail to load the GPX file properly, that's the fault of whoever coded the application, not Groundspeak. Your complaint would be better aimed at the developers of software that implemented lazy XML parsers which fail to properly take changes to the GPX file format in their stride (as *any* properly coded program would).

Excellent! Thanks a lot for this one, it's something I've been wishing for . I trust the developers of GPX handling software will update their applications to take advantage of this new feature. I notice they're included in direct GPX downloads from cache pages, too

And since the OP specifically asked about fonts, you do them like this: Andale Mono Arial (the default) Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS (Worst. Font. Ever!) Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Take your pick... Note that unlike most BBCode, you don't 'end' the font with [/font], you just change it to something else (Arial is the default). Oh, and some other fonts work too (Verdana at least). Restraint with the styles makes for easier-to-read logs though The above code comes out in logs like this: [edit] because the forum ate a bit of my code

I've noticed a couple of times lately, some logs are coming through completely blank. Not just whitespace or something like that, they're of zero length. Most have subsequently been edited by their owners to put text in but at least three remain. I don't think the logger intentionally made them blank and I thought the system was supposed to force you to say at least something so is this some kind of glitch in the Matrix? I'm talking about these three logs: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...f3-398286fbfbd8 http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...86-89545268a32e http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...1a-63b265992849 All written by the same person on the same day Also, many of the 'Oldham Way' finds by tagandy on October 12th were blank initially (although they went either back and edited their logs or posted new logs, I'm not certain which).

Parkinson's Law at work

They're a navigational tool - a little rows of links [normally] separated by > near the top of the page. The left-most is generally to the homepage and they get more and more specific as they move to the right, like these from the top of this page: Groundspeak Forums > General Geocaching Discussions > Geocaching.com Web Site

I believe that in the case of Cacherstats, it obtains its data from a selection of caches in each country and once you have a log on some of those, you'll be 'picked up' by it's database. Presumably it parses the selected cache pages every once in a while and refreshes it's database. I know that there's at least one cache on my watchlist that gets a note posted to it every once in a while which reads along the lines of "I'm posting this to activate my profile on Cacherstats" AFAIK, Cacherstats only holds your find count and perceived location and according to the FAQ, the latter is derived from the locations of the first two monitored caches that you post a log to. [edited for clarity]

Even if it has, the RoW officer will probably at least speak to the landowner or write to them to let them know that a complaint was made and to 'remind' them of their responsibility to keep the RoW clear. That way, the landowner knows that such activities will be noticed and may get them in hot water, which will hopefully stop them doing such a thing again.

This is a bit of a tangent risk but it's relevant to the point that not so many people will use GC vote because of the Firefox requirement. I also run a site that pulls in geocachers and the stats are clear - far more geocachers do use Firefox than the amongst general population. Current stats for my site are as follows: MS Internet Explorer: 44.2% Mozilla Firefox: 41% Safari: 7.4% Whereas the browser breakdown amonst the general population is: MS Internet Explorer: 65.2% Mozilla Firefox: 25.7% Safari: 3.74% So according to my data, just under twice as many (likely UK-based) geocachers use a non-IE browser as compared against the general population. Myself, I have a number of GM scripts that I wouldn't live without but I don't use GCVote. I had a look at the source and didn't like the fact that the voting doesn't seem to be anonymous (your gc.com username appears to be submitted to a server in Germany). [edit] That and as Amberel said, it attempts to auto-update which seems a little OTT for a GM script...

I echo fegan's comment - please don't take away the ability to link to a trackable by it's tracking number - it's a useful feature. For example, it allows me to have a Firefox search provider that accepts the tracking number of a bug I've just picked up and goes straight to it's page without any intermediate visit to gc.com/track

I did exactly the same early this year and I have zero regrets, it's an excellent unit. A little finicky to get used to compared with the stripped-down simplicity of the yellow eTrex but once you're used to it, it's almost perfect. I've yet to find serious fault, only minor gripe is that data entry in the field can be a bit of a pain - but it's lots easier than the Lil Yellow. I also use the free OSM maps, although I get mine from here. Certainly they're fit for geocaching. If I was in the countryside in Britain, I'd take the relevant [paper] OS Explorer with me as a compliment to the OSM map, though.

www.geocaching.com/notify is what you need.

But be aware that following a link from Google to these forums will probably set your view mode to 'Outline' and you'll need to set it back to 'Standard' to resume browsing the forum as you normally do by clicking the Options button near the top-right of the page. Don't ask me why this happens, I don't know. And I personally think the 5-character search limit is silly too. I appreciate that lowering the setting to 3 (the standard, I think) has implications for server load but 5 is too high - it can make searching an intellectual challenge sometimes

I sure hope the day doesn't come where there are ashes hidden under a lamp post skirt. I said "great spot for a cache"...

Except that decimal seconds and minutes are almost always rounded to 2 or 3 dp's...

Technically DegDec (decimal degrees) is the most accurate because you can extend the precision as far as you can accurately measure. For example: 53.667133453462, -2.493874353463 are perfectly legitimate coordinates that refer to an area that is considerably less than 1 millimetre 'square'. In fact, the area referred to by those coords is probably microscopic (I haven't worked it out). That is obviously way beyond the possible accuracy of even military-grade GPS, though. Still, though, six-figure DegDec is probably the most accurate measurement your GPSr can take and that is what the GPSr works with internally. All other coordinate systems are simply conversions from decimal degrees.

It actually happens in the English Lake District quite often - it's a particularly beautiful part of the world and therefore a rather popular place to have one's remains left . I've heard two first-hand reports about people finding ashes up there while looking for two separate caches... I guess in a way, the checklists for 'great spot for a cache' and 'great spot for leaving ashes' are kinda similar

Phrase that springs to mind is "Look before you leap"

I've heard some negative things here about VistaPrint in the past. Check your order details very carefully and be sure that you didn't unwittingly set up a monthly subscription payment agreement with them...

Now that would be good I can think of all sorts of useful and creative things to do with a feed of recent finds/logs.

Bug (n). A fault or defect in a computer program, system, or machine. Neither of the two things you mentioned are bugs. One's a broken link and is hardly the end of the world (incidentally, the profile it's meant to link to is presumably this one). The other is a purely aesthetic detail. Honestly, I'm sure the vast majority of us would rather that the techies at Groundspeak put their efforts into fixing things that matter over things that really, really don't...

That's the rarely seen "Retract" log, isn't it? Although I was under the impression that retracting a listing made it unviewable to us mortals (as though it had never been published)?

According to this site there are currently thirty-six operational GPS satellites spinning around up there. According to this page on gps.gov (the horses mouth if ever there was one), only 24 are required to keep the service running. I really can't see 12 satellites suddenly failing within the next few months, can you? IIRC when this story came out, the media got hold of the report and then carefully warped it into the story that got written to make a drama out of it (ambulances will be misdirected, planes will get lost/fall from the sky, lorry drivers will make big holes in your house, etc, etc).