klossner

I have really enjoyed the summer challenges from previous years. But the second and third challenges this year are anti-patterns. To get a cache on each of several days in a row in my area, I have to go get one cache, then stop for the day. This discourages cache finds. You can yammer that "you can just ignore the souvenir", but that misses the point that these souvenirs are meant to encourage caching. I wish they had picked some other activity to measure, one where progress could be reflected on the leader board.

I have twenty pocket queries that each run once a week to cover everything within 100 miles of my home. This week, downloading the results of one of those queries (number 8734991) returned last week's file, not this week's. The header includes <time>2022-02-17T09:30:08.4966376Z</time> -- that's last week's time. I checked that recent logs to a cache included in this query do not appear in this file. I figured it was a one-time failure and resubmitted it to run the next day. Again, I got the same stale results. I created a new query with the same parameters. It operated properly, so I'll deactivate the old one and switch to the new. It's disquieting that a PQ can go bad like this. I only noticed the problem because I reviewed the results in GSAK.

At the old search page, https://www.geocaching.com/seek/, enter a value in "Hidden by Username:" and click Go. This takes you to e.g. https://www.geocaching.com/play/search?u=irish&submit4=Go which displays, not search results, but the new search page.

In proper UX design, users are not expected to exit the app, open an app store, and find and read release notes. UX elements should have designs that are either universally obvious or for which there is an in-app explanation. In Android, for example, the standard is to touch and hold an active element to get a pop-up explaining its function.

I'm holding one in my hand right now. I ordered it from REI a week ago and picked it up at the store on Wednesday. My five-year-old 64s had finally worn out. I tried a 66s and returned it (because you can't display 2 small data fields on the map). The 64sx works (almost completely) just like the 64s, which I've loved for years. I'm still figuring out the built-in maps. I was quite surprised to find complete street maps for the United States that are routable. The software license page mentions openstreetmaps, so I guess Garmin has incorporated them somehow. I shall investigate further.

My five-year-old 64s died and I bought a 66s. I used it for an hour, then returned it and ordered a 64sx. The deal-breaker for me was the 66s' inability to display two small data fields on the map page. With four small data fields, the displayed map area is substantially smaller than the displayed map on a 64 with two, negating the advantage of the larger screen. That's the page I live on, and I could not abide losing map space.

For the love of god, make the text in the log entry box big enough for me to read what I'm typing. Tiny gray-on-white is fine for millenials, but we senior citizens CANNOT READ IT. This field was great a few years ago -- black-on-white at a decent size -- but some young whipper-snapper of a UX designer messed with it.

In the message center, I have "forward messages to e-mail" set. Today I got one such email. I looked at the message center and was horrified to see that I have received six other messages in the last three months, none of which caused an email. This failure caused me to miss out on some opportunities. I would very much appreciate a way to opt out of the message center so that the "Send message" link on my profile is grayed out and users fall back to "Send e-mail".

Sigh. The blog announcement said "Premium members will receive an email including the encoded message one week prior to each souvenir release." It isn't until you miss the email and go look at the help center that you learn that you must enable “Tips & Tricks” in the Email Preferences. And doing so today doesn't get you the email that went out on July 22. I'm sad.

Will there be further releases of this excellent map set? I have quite a few raw GPX files of hiking trails in northwest Oregon that I could clean up if the project is still accepting contributions.

The "send email" page is an accessibility nightmare. The box in which to compose text uses dark tiny gray letters on a light gray background. Those of us with old eyes cannot read this. Please give us an accessibility option to use black letters on white background at a visible font size.

I have sixty-year-old eyes. What used to be honest black-on-white text is now #594A42 gray-on-white. That's probably fine for millenials, but it's quite hard for us old fogies to read.

The snowpack in northwest Oregon is at 7% of normal for this time of year. There's no snow below 5000 feet elevation. GC12 and GC17 are clear.

It's just not log notifications. There's no outgoing email at all, even from using the "send a message" page.

I had that problem when "lock on road" was turned on.

Version 3.00 doesn't fix the initially bogus geocacher filter problem. To recap: if a geocache has type "other" or "not chosen", it doesn't appear on the map after power-up. If you then go to the geocache filter screen, don't make any changes (since my filter is already set to show everything) and hit the "apply filter" button, those caches now appear on the map. Sigh. Before I realized this bug existed, I biked right past two geocaches that existed but didn't appear on my map. :-(

And the WAP interface is gone too, so those of us who don't want to pay a big monthly bill for a smart phone and data plan can no longer access the site from the field. I used to get a lot of value from WAP on my "feature phone" with $30/month cell service.

Please bring back the WAP server at wap.geocaching.com. It's the only way I can access the site from the field using my not-very-smart phone.

Google Docs is blocked by a variety of net filters, including the one that my employer uses. I'm not attending this CM so it's not a problem for me, but it could put a damper on other folks.

Whitman Mission Revisited is a stable, full-size cache four miles west of Walla Walla. Easy access parking is just to the east at the end of W Whitman Drive.

My "High on a Windy Hill" story: Lobotomy and I were coming back from the Vancouver Island mega-event last summer and realized we had found several different types of cache in a single day. If we could find a puzzle, a multi, and a virtual before midnight, we would set personal records. When we got off the ferry at Port Angeles, the intertubes told us that the nearest virtual was GC9C5F. I had a National Park pass and a full tank of gas, so off we went, with no idea what was in store. Wow! We arrived at Hurricane Ridge on a beautiful crisp summer day with endless visibility -- snow-capped mountains to the south, the strait and Vancouver Island to the north. When Lobotomy realized where we'd arrived, he was stunned -- he'd been meaning to visit this place since he was a kid. We just stood there and drank it in for a while. But oh yeah, we needed to take care of the virtual. We did the necessaries, and as we took our final notes, a ranger announced that the space would close in ten minutes. We nearly missed the smiley, but the experience was still fabulous. "Thanks for bringing us here."

Individual National Parks offer one-week passes, but the only NW Forest passes are single-day ($5) and annual ($30).

Until this latest change, I could select the "topo" overlay in geocaching.com maps and see geocache icons on a real topo map. Now that's gone. The google.com terrain map doesn't show hiking trails. The Leaflet OpenCycleMap makes a half-hearted attempt but it's nowhere near as good.

You can find the Clackamas County geocaching club at http://www.georegon.com. Their next monthly meeting is Friday evening: GEOregon May Meet & Greet.

The 60CSx will hold at most 1k of caches. (I've heard that the 62 will hold more.)