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Dan_Edwards

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Everything posted by Dan_Edwards

  1. Well I just moved to a standalone unit after using my Handspring Visor as my GPS. I was thinking about doing this sooner or later, but I lost the GPS module the other day. Man let me tell you I went on a hike in the woods without a GPS and I had serious withdrawls! So I thought about several GPS units. I liked the idea at first of the Rino, but at the moment I have no one to go hiking with who would use one so whats the point most of the time. And that tiny click stick drove me nuts. I just did not like it as a GPS that much. Then I looked at the Sportrack map and it looked like you could only upload via the serial port. I have not used one of those in a couple of years and I was not wanting to go back. I mean USB is too slow for me these days. No way I am going back to the bad old days. So then I started to look at the Meridian series. The main thing that attracted me was the ability to skip the serial port for most operations. I am a data NUT and I really live for transfering tons of it. Because I was buying sooner then I had planned my buget was pretty tight so I got a Merigreen. I did not think I would be using the base map much and knew I would be spending most of my time with a downloaded map anyway. There are some things I miss from my Visor/GPS combo... Battery life rocked. Two AAA Ni-Mh batteries would easily last 12-14 hours of continious use. I think the Meridian is doing about 3/4 that with two AA's. I was used to uploading TopoUSA 4 maps to my Visor and using those. I thought the detail left a little to be desired till I started to read the reviews of the Garmin and Magellan software. Now I really wish I could upload TopoUSA 4 maps to it. Had I known that Garmins had a hack available to do your own that would have made me thing pretty heavy that way, but I don't think I would have the time to make my own. It was sooo much easier to input waypoints on the Visor using handwriting then trying to use keypad cursor. A = A
  2. Last July I had some friends visit me and we did a bunch of hiking and mountain biking. One of the main things it showed me was just how out of shape I was. Considering I was getting close to 300lbs (283) I actually was in pretty good shape thanks to Geocaching, but I was not losing weight. So over the winter I found a program for my Handspring Visor that counted calories and couple of really good databases and websites for calorie information for every food from just about every resurant chain in the U.S. After some "sticker shock" on a lot of foods I loved, I started to work on finding foods that I loved just as much that did not have such a high "cost" to my weight. After losing 35 lbs I started to work out. At first that put a stop to my weight for about 3 weeks but then I started to lose weight again (although during that time I did continue to lose inches around my waist). I have now lost 87 lbs and I am very close to my recommended BMI (Body Mass Index). If you look at my profile I have before and after picture. The before picture was taken July 2nd 2002 when Jeremy visited my Roaring Creek Cache. That is a picture of me holding up a card that Jeremy left in the cache. The lower picture was taken today when I went to try to climb Lookout Mountain (got turned around because of the snow). While Geocaching is not directly responsible for my weight loss, I know that I never would have started the program if I had not started to hike. The only reason I started to hike was Geocaching. I can't believe how much faster I can climb to Geocaches now. For some oddball reason it has not helped my find ratio though. Now that I get to the cache area faster, its like the cache knows I have more time to find it, so it hides itself better... Oh well, small price to pay A = A
  3. Even better the link is now broken. Not the posters fault, I went to the page above and clicked on the link there, and Delorme's link was broken too. Any info on what was there before it broke? A = A
  4. If you have a Sprint phone of any kind, Blazer is free. You can download it from the downloads section of you Sprint Login at SprintPCS. If you use Eudora as your email clint the Eudora web is free. A = A
  5. I got myself a pro a while ago and I like it for caching. The only thing that would make it perfect is if there were some way to import Geoniche waypoints directly. A = A
  6. It is possible to use GPSBabel to convert the data from the PocketQueries and I am sure the EasyGPS data into the Magellan software. The only problem is that it does not handle large numbers of waypoints well, and it does not sort them by closest and such. Geoniche handles thousands of waypoints without a hitch and will sort them by distance to you, but its format is not released to the public. Geoniche is by far the best GPS program for the PalmOS in my opinion. You can also load the waypoints into XMap from TopoUSA and GPSBabel. It does a good job of letting you zoom out and seeing where the caches are in relation to your current position, but its nearly useless to try and find a cache with it. Be sure to do a search in the web forums for this topic, many others and myself have written tons of info about using a Palm as your GPS. A = A
  7. There are lots of info here in the forums but here are a few links to help you along. If your just looking for a cable, then SupplyNet has what your looking for. If you wondering about software to use then these forum topics can help. Using a PalmOS device as your GPS Neat GPS Software Geoniche Review of XMap That should give you some info to chew over. A = A
  8. A quick Google Search for Rollins and Larimer comes up with this cached page Sounds like he patrols this trail on some newly donated bikes. Dan A = A
  9. I was discussing this with my friends at work and I think I have a interesting plan. C.A.C.H.E. was already planing on having a cleanup this year in a park in Colorado, I say we do it in a Larimer county park. We could plan to hide and find some Virtual Caches that day as well. We could invite the media to our cleanup event. I see a couple of possible outcomes. Larimer county parks does nothing, in which case we make our point and get some good publicity. Larimer County attempts to block our event, in which case they look like idiots and make our point even stronger for us. Either way, we win and a park may get cleaned up. What do you think? Dan A = A
  10. quote:Originally posted by jerhirsch:For some reason T. Rollins is a little too close to "trolling" so I am a bit skeptical about this complaint. I think the best way to resolve this would be to call up Parks Department head Gary Buffington and ask him if a T. Rollins works for him. http://larimer.org/parks/ If he does, polietly explain what a virtual cache is, and then ask why they're trying to dissuade people from meerly hiking in the park. I think this would be the best way to start out. Find out if the boss supports this silly idea of trying to ban virtual caches. There is no way it could be legal, so I would imagine that it probably is not even known by the boss what is going on. If it is supported by the boss, then I think a nice responsible protest staged for the media would be part of our civic duty to remind of what free speach is, I think they might have forgotten and need a nudge to remind them. A = A
  11. Ok, Now I have a reason to want to work overtime again. I WANT this thing. It takes everything I don't like about my Handspring/GPS combo and fixes it. The main thing I like is that not only does the unit have 32mb ram, it also has a large base map rom, 32mb I think I heard on TechTV last night at CES. Even if you have to pay for access to some of the rom contents, at least it does not eat from the 32mb ram. I watched the GPS software in use, it is FAST! The screen is wonderful, even under TV lights, so it should be ok outside. It will access any type of address data stored in the Palm's databases and allow you to plot routes to it. How do I get to the meeting that just alarmed from where I am at? There is already a new SD memory slot device that was almost made with this in mind. $150 you get 128 MB ram and 802.11 wireless in one card. That card combined with this Garmin unit would be a PowerGeeks dream! I do have one concern... Will other PalmOS programs be givin access to the GPS? I am sure the included software is nice, but one of the things I love about my current Visor/GPS combo is if you don't like the GPS program your using, try one of the many others. A = A
  12. quote:Originally posted by Alphawolf: How about a headset? We didn't try that, but I thinking it wouldn't help, as the RINOs sounded o.k. when listening to the other brands of radios. "Never take a sunset for granted. Stop what you are doing and enjoy it. You never know when it may be your last" Why not since that would replace the microphone with a external one, I would think that would fix the problem completly. I am not talking about headphones, but a headset with mic. Dan A = A
  13. I know that my FRS radios have a headset plug in, do the Rino's? If so does this fix the poor sound? A = A
  14. Even if you have a GPS, you can have things that point north. A = A
  15. I guess mine is at least too, and I did not have to do any reasearch at all! Thanks Oregon A = A
  16. I just happened to stuble upon a fellow cacher on the playtest for "The Sims Online" and I was wondering if there were others. I have not bought a home or become a roomate yet, but you can look for "GeocacheDan" if I am online. Maybe we could start a group house? A = A
  17. The programs. Don't like one, keep trying different stuff. For Geocaching/Hiking I like Geoniche and for mapping I think the best so far is XMap from Delorme. That is not saying much though, because I agree with Warm Fuzzy that mapping has a ways to go. XMap is sooooo close, with just a couple of small items getting in its way. This is one company that needs to learn to "sweat the small stuff" :-) There are so many to try and download, its a hoot just to try them all. Actually one of the best things I got was the holder for my Visor/Magellan combo, but here is a link to one for the M500 series. Dan A = A
  18. I have a love hate relationship with my Visor/GPS combo. Because of the large number of custom programs available it is much more powerful then all but the most expensive stand alone units. But no one program does what I want, so I end up with a hodgepodge of stuff. For instance XMap can generate a route to a waypoint in its file in the field, but there is no way to input a new waypoint in the field. I love Geoniche for trail navigation, and its powerful data collection rocks... except there is no easy way to get that to a computer. *IF* this unit were to include a killer GPS software suite with it, be sturdy, somewhat small, (about the same size or smaller then my Visor Pro/Magellan GPS combo) and with a nice color screen that worked outdoors, then this would be the handheld I would be willing to pay big bucks ($500-750) for. If they were to include some kind of wireless internet access I think I would sell my soul to get one the day it was released. Now here are my fears. The software will be written by programers familer with personal computer interface design. Geoniche is one of the few examples of handheld interface design that is really good. Takes advantage of a touch and follows main rules of Palm programming where appropriate. Find out what your users do most of the time and make it quick and easy to get to. Geoniche does this by letting you customize the interface to what you like to get to quickly and save them as profiles. I have one for hiking, which has quick access to pedometer info and settings. Dunkin Bee profile for when I get near the cache which has access to distance to ground zero in feet and a timer so that I don't forget how long I have been looking, anyway you get the idea. Another fear would be custom data import/export. Not that big a deal if it is compatible with other Garmin GPSr units. But I fear they are going to want you to buy mapping software only from them. My nightmare is that they would make the GPS data only available to them. My dream would be that they would allow other programs to edit the tracklog and waypoint data. Don't like how the Garmin program works, use anouther, but still have a central database for all programs to work from. I also fear they will forget about outdoor use, and design it only for street use, not that big a deal if they let other programs edit the Garmin info databases. It needs to at least have the option to be made sturdy, like a snap on case that form fits it (now there is a way to get more money out of me). Maybe I should start saving my pennies now so that if it is like I dream I can have it shipped overnight and take a week off from work the day it's release... dadgum I am a geek! :-) A = A
  19. I can't confirm this since I don't have a WindowsCE device anymore, but I am willing to bet that the PocketPC utility uses the same files from TopoUSA. It would make sense since that way they would only have to create one utility for TopoUSA for Export/Import to a handheld. A = A
  20. One thing that me and dboggny found out is that now that we can easily get hundreds of waypoints into XMap, there is no easy way to get rid of them. First dboggny tried to delete the XMapWptsDB from the Hotsync directory thinking that would cause the database to delete on the handheld. Uh, no it just crashed the Palm on Sync. So then he deleted the database on the handheld. That worked. The only trick is that you need a program that will list all databases on the Palm. TealMover and PiMover can see the database and delete it, but I am sure there are others that will work. A = A
  21. While the maps don't cover anyware I want to go yet, Pocket PC Maps looks interesting, and at least mentions that the program would be good for Geocaching. There is also XMap from Delorme and TOPO! from National Geographic. This page has a lot of info on GPS and PocketPC's. Some well done reviews of the software available available as well. I know your quest was for software, but here is a Compact Flash GPS with software. Dan A = A
  22. After you finish entering your search parameters, be sure you check the little box at the bottom that says Pocketbook format. Also results are in the Mobipocket reader format. It will not work with any other reader, even though the files will show up as standard palm docs. If you look at them in any other program they will look like garbage characters. A = A
  23. If you interested in a color unit of any kind test it before you buy. Years ago I was going to get a Color Visor till I took one outside in the Colorado sun. After a few seconds of squinting trying to read the screen I went back and got a Black & White model. From the reviews I have read though color screens have improved a lot since the Summer of 2000. A = A
  24. From someone with very little artistic skills... Thanks. Or First Finders to my future caches thank you. Dan A = A
  25. While I don't think the idea is that hot, and there should be some mention of it in the FAQ, I don't think there should be a rule saying absolutly NO. Someone might come up with a interesting twist and the best way to vote against a cache is to simply not do it. If someone wants to say, "In order to claim this cache you must get a picture of yourself standing on one foot while waving the flag of Mexico." Well that is in that persons right, just don't expect me to applauld your cache. A = A
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