as77

David said he would offer free upgrades for life. Recently somebody e-mailed him and reported that David was working on v1.2.

In the list of caches, you check the checkboxes for the caches you want to download, then go to the bottom of the page and press the "download waypoints" button.

quote:Originally posted by TyMan: This is good info. I was just about to purchase CacheDragon, but hesitated because it seems that it doesnt work with .loc files. I've downloaded a couple different .loc files, but myCacheDragon (Trial version) doesnt seem to pick up the coordinates, name, nor the creator. Is the only way this will work is if I pay for registration on geocaching.com so I can get .gpx files? I also have the trial version and it works perfectly with .loc files. There is only one glitch: if the .loc file only contains one cache then CacheDragon cannot interpret it and shows the cache as unnamed, with bogus coordinates. The reason for this is that the format of .loc files containing only one cache is different from those containing several caches: the whole file is a single line, without blank spaces between the tags. CacheDragon cannot interpret it for some reason. However, if you introduce some line breaks in the file using a text editor, everything will be OK. But it is easier to download a .loc file that contains several caches; CacheDragon does not have a problem with those. I have not yet purchased CacheDragon because it still has a major bug: you cannot select a cache on the map page. (With version 1.0, the selection worked fine, the bug was introduced with version 1.1). As soon as this bug will be fixed, I plan to buy the software. There are other small bugs but they are not that important. I think (and hope) v1.2 will be out soon.

I think the cache pages should be required to contain all this information. Let me mention the excellent Hungarian geocaching web site at www.geocaching.hu (do not go there if you don't know Hungarian). This website contains info about all the caches in Hungary and for each cache, there is a list of questions the hider of the cache must answer with yes or no. These questions are: - Is the location a historical monument/castle ruins/important building? - does it offer a nice view, opportunity for taking photos? - special location, sight? - special coordinates or elevation? - near a lake/river/creek/water? - within a city or village? - residential area within a few hundred meters? - winter accessible? - recommended in very hot weather? - is the cache on a mountain/hill/peak? - accessible by car within a few hundred meters? - accessible by public transportation within a few hundred meters? - can be reached in 30 minutes from the starting point? - accessible for a family with a stroller? - accessible with small children or grandparents/elderly people? - nettle/thistle/possible damage to clothes/shoes? - climbing rocks required? (don't carry a baby on your body) - recommended for night caching/darkness? - satellite reception possibly poor because of high rocks/dense woods? - special size or shape of cache box? (for size of trade items) - accessible by bicycle/bicycle can be left within sight? - can be found without a GPSr? And what's more, when you download cache data, you can filter by all the above listed properties.

So, who are these mysterious approvers anyway? Anybody knows anything about them? Separating the virtual caches from the traditional ones would be a perfect solution. Actually, if the sorting/filtering/searching options were more flexible, this would not even be necessary.

It has not been censored after all.

Heh, you're right. I just entered a site I know and I got a message that there was a trigger word in my post and it had to be approved by a moderator. This is so silly...

Yes, thanks. I also know one or two but I thought you people might have better tips. The censorship thing surprises me, however. OK, let's try if this would be censored: www.navicache.com

quote:Originally posted by BrianSnat:Geocaching.com is not the geocaching community. It's a listing service that the geocaching community goes to so they can get cache coordinates. As a listing service, they have their own rules and standards and choose what caches they will and won't list. I would expect no less. There are other listing services out there. If you don't like the rules of this one, try another. Could you list a few? quote: quote: The administrators are supposed to serve the geocaching community. No they are not. They are supposed to serve geocaching.com. And geocaching.com is supposed to serve the geocaching community. The fate of geocaching.com (and in the end the salary of its admins) depends on how well they serve the geocaching community. If they ignore the wishes of the community then they won't have a bright future. quote:They aren't. They are simply defining the rules for listing caches on _this_ website. This is what I said, too. However, if the geocaching community does not like these rules then the cachers are not going to use the website. This means that if the geocaching.com admins are wise enough then they should pay attention to what the community likes or dislikes and shape their policies accordingly. I personally don't like the idea of some unknown admin somewhere preapproving virtual caches. They should not do that. If they say that they won't support virtual caches at all, that's fine, there will be other websites listing them. But this subjective preapproval thing is too fishy.

Yes, I know that I am not supposed to exit CD via a menu bar. But since I use the menu bar exit function for most other programs, it's easy to forget. So I hope this can be fixed somehow.

GPXSonar may be wonderful for managing the cache data pages but I need an application that, together with a CF GPS unit, can replace a standalone GPSr. I'm afraid Mapopolis is not really suited for that purpose. Hopefully David can iron out these bugs. I could use GPXSonar for the cache pages and another software, e.g. Vito Navigator (which has a new version, by the way) for positioning and tracking but an integrated solution like CacheDragon seems more attractive to me.

There is a Hungarian caching site, www.gecaching.hu, where they have this cache rating system and it works quite well. The site has been running for a couple of years and it is the main site of the Hungarian geocaching community. Each cacher rates each cache he or she finds, assigning three scores: the environment, the hide (except for virtual caches) and the info given on the web page. No complaints so far about the system, as far as I know. Instead of speculating about possible abuses, I think we should just go for it. (By the way, the Hungarian site is in all respects far superior to the geocaching.com site. A lot more search options, sorting options, download options, configurable maps, etc. etc. And it is completely free (no paid memberships at all). But of course, the site is in Hungarian and is restricted to caches in Hungary.)

Huh, a long thread... I don't like the idea of geocaching.com administrators "preapproving" caches, virtual or otherwise. Especially if the requirements are not clearly defined. But even if they are clearly defined, I don't like them if the requirements are purely determined by these admin guys themselves, instead of the geocaching community. The administrators are supposed to serve the geocaching community. They are not supposed to define the rules to geocaching. They are just admins, that's all, nobody gave power to them to define the rules of the sport. If they don't have the resources to handle virtual caches, that's fine, then the geocaching community will find another way to handle them, e.g. another website, managed by other people. However, let me come up with a suggestion, I don't know if anyone else has come up with this idea but here it is: geocaching.com should make it possible for the loggers of caches (especially virtuals) to rate each cache, say, with a simple score from 1 to 5. Then when you are requesting lists of caches, the average rating would be shown for each cache (the average rating would make sense after, say, 10 loggings of the cache). This method would make it simple to find the real good (virtual) caches and few people would care for the low-rated ones. And that's it, no subjective preapproval by admins, just cacher ratings. I would trust the ratings of fellow cachers a lot more than the opinion of some unknown guy who happens to be an admin for the website.

continuing my previous bug report: after I closed CD from Icbar's menu, I was unable to restart it. It did not restart until after soft resetting the PPC.

I just noticed a bug. I was able to close CacheDragon with the red X in Icbar. But it did not close properly because it remained in Icbar's task list. However, I could not switch back to it. Luckily, Icbar has an option to close programs in the task list, and that worked.

HansN, From the main menu, select Options, then tap the Database tab. The Import button is there.

robert, I have not yet tried GPXsonar. It is in beta stage and I could not even find a description or a feature list for it and I'm too lazy to download and install a program just to find out what it does. But I guess it is just another GPX viewer without GPSr support. I need software that makes my Axim plus CF GPS unit equivalent to a handheld GPSr (which I don't have at all). CacheDragon, being a full-fledged solution, does that and it also shows the cache info from GPX files; what else could I wish for?

Well, it might not be the ideal solution for outdoors usage but it can be done. I do it You just need a good case that protects the Axim well. I'm using the DSI holster which is strong plastic and has a flip-up cover and a belt clip. For wet conditions, just put the Axim (GPS attached) in a ziplock bag and slide it in the case that way. I don't think the Axim is in a great danger then. There are several programs for navigation and viewing cache info; my recent favorite is CacheDragon (still a little buggy but quickly improving). One advantage of using the Axim for caching is that you can have all the cache info (description, hints, logs, etc.), downloaded from www.geocaching.com, on the Axim. Mapopolis is only one of the several solutions for navigation in the car. There are several other good programs, like Routis, Pocketmap Navigator, etc. Browse to www.gpspassion.com for more info.

I have the $20 non-talking version of this unit. As I mentioned, it only works for interstate highways. You have to enter on which interstate you are at which mile or exit and which direction you are traveling. Then you can select from several categories (motels, food, gas station, etc.) and it will tell you where the next motel, etc. is along the interstate, including the exit number and the distance of the point of interest from the exit. So, it is essentially an interstate exit guide. It also can recommend routes between cities using interstates (you select two cities and then it outputs a list of interstates along a route connecting the two cities; it doesn't give exit numbers or anything). In addition, it has lists of cities along state highways, but only the city names, no points of interest or anything. It also has the phone numbers of motel chains and emergency phone numbers. If you want a handy, lightweight, portable electronic interstate exit guide, I think this may be a good buy (I mean the non-talking unit for $20). Definitely easier to use than a printed exit guide, it might come in handy for longer road trips.

Other links for the Talking Road Whiz: www.ultradatasystems.com www.talkingroadwhiz.com This must be it, because Ultradata sells it for $39.90 However, since there is no GPS in it, I don't see the point in it talking The functionality is the same as the $20 non-talking units that you can grab at some Wal-Marts (not in every state, though).

Is that something like the Talking Road Whiz ( http://www.ccireps.com/talking_road_whiz.htm ) ? It has no GPS and its data are limited to interstate highways. [This message was edited by as77 on September 23, 2003 at 10:41 PM.]

quote:I have a Dell TrueMobile 1180 WLAN CompactFlash Card (2.4 GHz), will that do the trick? That depends on what trick you mean That card is for wireless networking, it doesn't have anything to do with GPS.

When do you need waypoint projecting when geocaching? For some multi-caches or what?

Another good FAQ is here: Geocaching with a Pocket PC FAQ. New software such as CacheDragon is mentioned in this FAQ.

I noticed an oddity: when using the map, sometimes the GPS longitude became zero (00.0000000) but the latitude was OK. The map followed the change and showed some location thousands of miles from the actual location. But after a second or two, the latitude was restored and everything was OK again.