Atti
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Posts
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Posts posted by Atti
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Something fishy is going on here, I see a lot of mails that replies were posted in this thread but when reading the new posts I see some missing here. It seems the censor is having lot of work these days.
yep, a lot of posts have been deleted! Think what you want about that - if that's still allowed...
No, no, that's the famous American way of Freedom of speech.
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@Moun10bike
Ok, then let's do a small calculation.
Provided that you have to impose VAT on us Europeans: VAT in Europe is about 20% (unless reduced rates apply). But let's take 20%.
So the Europeans should pay 36$ instead of 30$ the Americans pay because of VAT. I'm fine with that. You are not responsible for the European VAT system.
But how much is that in Euros? Currently the exchange rate is from $ to € about 0.75, meaning you get 3€ when you pay 4$. So if you wanted to charge us 36$ so you will get the 30$ net from us that's 27 €.
What you announced to charge us is 30€. Did you actually calculate how much that is in $? Well, let me do that for you: for 30€ you'll get 40$.
That makes 4$ the Europeans have to pay more for PM than the rest of the world.
This is just not ok. So, no wonder we're not amused. I'd suggest you redo your calculations.
Atti
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The new pricing eliminates bank fees for geocachers outside the of the US, as you now are able to pay in your local currency and do not have to pay a transaction fee. More importantly, as Lil Devil mentioned, VAT is now included in the price.
Why do you think you have to include VAT to sales to Europe? VAT has to be only included for sales inside the European union. Last time I checked the US didn't belong to the European union.
I think everyone would over here have welcomed the idea of being able to pay in Euros if you had either decided to apply the current exchange rate to each sale or if you had used a calculator and had calculated a fair price which is on the same level as the US price. 25 € vs. 30 $ would seem quite fair.
Atti
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- Performance enhancements We changed the way our search by geocache name function works to provide a huge relief to our database load. Now keyword searches only search the first term in a geocache's name, but is much fasterwe're talking milliseconds.
This has got to be a bad joke!
That's really great: taking an almost useless feature and turning it into a completely useless feature and then talking about improvements.
I'm really wondering what happened to all those database specialists in Seattle - either none of them works for Groundspeak or no one asks them how to create a keyword search that actually returns a list of caches that you really want to go searching for.
I'll give you an example: I really love doing challenge caches and I'd really like to know which active challenge caches exist in the area I normally cache in. That's Northrhine-Westfalia in Germany and the Netherlands. Currently it's simply not possible to get this information out of the database in an easy way.
If I use the (old) keyword search I'd enter "challenge" because every challenge cache is supposed to have the word challenge in its name. What do I get: a really long list of challenge caches from all over world of which about 90% for me are absolutely not relevant because I won't go searching in California, Ontario or New Zealand any time soon.
What I would like to see is only the 10% caches from my area. So what would help me find stuff would be a combination of filters (like the ones you can define for the pocket queries) plus the possibility to add a keyword (maybe with wildcards).
For the database search that means instead of doing a text search on over 2 million recordsets (I assume you filter out the archived caches beforehand) you'd filter first for search criteria (e.g. Germany) and then perform the text search only on the filtered number of caches. For this example this means text search on about 250.000 instead of 2 million recordsets.
So you'd actually have a win-win-situation: you provide us with a useful feature and have less search load on the database.
Just my 2 cents
Atti
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Hi,
problem occurs with either one. It started with the update.
Please fix soon or revert to previous map version.
Thank you
Atti
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Hi,
seit gestern habe ich auf GC.com ein Problem mit einem ziemlich hartnäckigen und nervigen Werbepopup von BMW.
Ich bin PM und würde daher erwarten, sowas gar nicht erst zu bekommen. Aber jedes Mal, wenn auf der Seite diese dusselige BMW-Werbung kommt, dann ploppt mir auch ein neuer Tab vor der ganzen GC-Seite auf. Hat das noch wer von Euch?
Wenn ja, wäre es schön, wenn ihr euch auch in folgendem Thread melden könntet.
http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=309119&st=0
Ich fürchte nämlich, daß das ein spezifisches deutsches Problem sein könnte, da das BMW-Ad auf deutsch ist und über Google Ads zugesteuert wird.
Aber wenn's in Deutschland nicht nur ein Einzelfall ist, sondern viele betrifft, machen sie vielleicht was.
LG
Atti
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Hi,
maybe this ad is something that happens unintentionally because of the use of the google ads.
The ad is a German ad - so this might only happen to German customers. (BMW)
I don't think it's malware. They typically send you porn ads.
Nevertheless it's a problem over here.
Regards
Atti
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Hi,
I'm Premium Member and today was the first time that I got an automatic advertising popup (BMW).
I understand that you have to make money to keep the servers running and the people paid. That's why I'm a premium member. I'm also willing to accept the banners on the side, but this automatic popup really is getting on my nerves.
I open my manage lists site and this BMW-Ad launches a popup window that puts itself in front of my Groundspeak content.
Please make the popups at least for PMs go - you already got paid for the use of the site.
Thank you
Atti
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In German I would say: ich finde die neuen Icons echt gräulich. (meaning: I really think these new icons are "gräulich").
And "gräulich" you know has a double meaning: it means grayisch and horrible. And I think these icons fit both translations.
Sorry if that was rude but that's what we Germans are (in)famous for - we prefer to call it honest and direct.
These icons make it definitely harder to navigate the site. More distinguishable icons would be better. You might wanna add some color.
Regards
Atti
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Hi,
I'd like to share some thoughts on the reordering of the menu bar:
normally, when you look at software menus are ordered in a way that the most important and used features are put to the left and the less used features are put subsequently to the right. Help usually is totally on the right.
The mostly used feature for members in my point of view is play so it should be first on the left (where it was before), then it's the profile and then maybe the sort order is not that important anymore.
But you might consider to put learn (which is only needed by people completely new to Geocaching) to the right. It might be a good idea calling it something like help area or so and add links to the knowledge books and other FAQs that already exist and which are in my opinion currently hidden a little too well.
In regard of software ergonomy and to increase the intuitive use of the website you might want to stick a little more to standards.
Best regards
Atti
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Hi,
Proper dates would be really helpful. I think the avatars in the logs will take users much longer to download the last logs when being actually outdoors and use a mobile phone!! Btw this will also generate additional costs for mobile users without flatrate.
I'd really appreciate if you people at Groundspeak would not only learn the German language but also adopt a little bit of the German ways of doing things.
Maybe you should nominate 50 or so power cachers worldwide to test your updates before you release them. If you do that make sure that these users come from all important Geocaching countries.
Best regards
Astrid aka Atti
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We asked you to bring back virtuals. For me the essence of a virtual is showing a location where you can't put an actual container. Taking the photo was just a log proof to show your right to claim it not the goal of the virtual.
What I will never understand is that you banned ALRs because they're just not about Geocaching at all and now you come up with challenges which feel like ALRs just without actual container, call it Challenge and tell us that this is the future of Geocaching.
If this is the future maybe I should go looking for another hobby.
Atti (Premium Member)
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Hi,
I was wondering if Groupdspeak revokes the Megacache icon if there are lots of Geocachers deleting their "will attend"-logs?
In Germany we currently have this GPS Festival (GC1Q2XM) in September and due to bad marketing and information policy regarding the caching community many cachers who announced to participate earlier have deleted their will attend logs. The number of participants has already dropped significantly from over 500 to currently 432 just over night.
So I'm a bit curious: what's the magic number so a mega isn't mega anymore or is it once Mega always Mega even if all cachers decide to stay away?
Regards
Atti
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Hi!
Do you use the AVG virus scanner?
I had the same problem and turning off the AVG toolbar fixed the problem. (The add in for clicking malicious links can stay turned on.
Regards
Atti
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maybe an addon thats blocking javascript like noscript
I didn't install any new addons recently and it used to work last week. *hmmm*
But I think I got it.
It was the AVG (Virus Scanner) Toolbar. They did an add-in update. At least it seemed like it.
I've switched it off and now the geocaching site works again.
Thanks.
Atti
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Hi,
I have the following problem.
When I search for caches or open bookmark lists I can only get to page 1 on Firefox. If I click on 2, 3,... Next I can see that the page tries to start a Java Script but nothing happens. If I try the same thing on IE it works just fine.
I have checked, that JavaScript is turned on in Firefox.
OS: Win XP
Browser: Firefox 3.0.10, IE 7.0.5730.13
The steps I did:
Hide & seek a cache > by Address Dortmund > go
Get this list. Here I can't get to another page exept for Page 1 in Firefox!
Is it just me or is it something inside of the script?
Regards
Atti
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Hi,
I don't think this link is useful for the users. I'm not feeling insulted but I don't like it. I think the placement on the page is a little 'unergonomic' so to say. It's placed directly above the send a message link and you may hit the extend link by accident. Maybe it's better to put it in a smaller font in brackets behind the Premium Member if you really must have it on each and every profile.
What I would have found more useful would have been the following feature:
Order a premium membership for someone and have it delivered at a special time and date. So you can order the birthday or christmas gift before the actual date and can be sure it's delivered at the right time even if you do not have any time on that specific date. So I can have a membership delivered at 20:00 on Dec.24th to a friend while I'm at the same time am unwrapping my own parcels.
Other sites like livejournal have had such an option for years.Just my 2cents.
Atti
Other sites like livejournal have had such an option for years.
Access to all Lab locations
in Playing Adventures
Posted
In our area there are Adventure Labs where you have to travel more than 20 km from Lab Stage to Lab Stage. These are Adventure Labs where you are allowed to visit stages in any order you want. So if the Start is about 100 km away - how will I ever notice this lab with my current abilities? Don't you think it's frustrating for owners if their Labs are not found? It's at least as frustrating not to be able to plan a tour including the Labs. So what we need exposed via the API is: Starting Location, Stage Locations and if the order of stages is free or not. I don't think it's necessary to have the questions up front because they are normally made to be answered on location.
Not even the GC.coms own Adventure Lab App shows me I'm nearing a free stage I could answer and that app at least should be able to do this, because it knows who I am and which Labs and stages I have already done. Right?