Harry the furry squid

+1. Am I really going to whoop and emote once I've logged another six caches and have an extra vote to add to the existing 201? No, of course not . . . wander off in search of another cup of tea, more like!

It looks like the PM-only ones may be missing (either that, or I *really* need new glasses)? If so, then does that mean that there's going to be some sort of differentiation between PMO and everyone-welcome ones on the map? Would be really useful sometimes . . . eg when you're planning to be out with someone who's only just thinking about getting into the sport and want to make sure they have a nice time. In other words, you're looking for something that looks like the right sort of walk on the map, that you haven't found yet and that *isn't* PM-only so that your newbie will be able to log it too.

Happy Christmas, y'all! (And yes, will be out caching this afternoon . . . currently trying to build a list of stuff at this end of Northants that I haven't found yet and isn't PMO so I can introduce my brother to the joys of tub-hunting.)

+1 with the "grey on grey" thing . . . I'm sure it's supposed to look nice but what on earth happened to usability?

I think mine has to be finding what looked like it might be the cache but turns out to be a canine bowel movement, lovingly packaged in a tesco bag for all to enjoy. Closely followed by the sort of cache hidden in the middle of a wood with no gps coverage . . . and the stunningly helpful hint "near a tree". Yours?

I've found, photographed and moved said TB - made me laugh, nice to find something a bit different!

I tend to do a lot of my caching away from home. In a lot of areas, there's barely enough access for the sun, nevermind mobile broadband. A lot of the time, when I finally get off the hill, it's too late to go driving round the best part of a county looking for somewhere my dongle might, maybe, work. After the weekend, I get home late. Late as in, sometimes, 3 am. Bed is more of a priority than logging. Then I get into work where I have nothing to do and an internet connection to play with, but GC.com won't work with my (work, which I am not allowed to change) software build. Then, when I get home, I need to do other stuff. Like sleep. So: If I see a trackable I know I can't/won't log quickly, I just leave it. My found logs are sometimes late. Issues with my own caches go to my work mailbox, and I get the emails quickly and deal with them quickly, but sometimes the log so say I've dealt with the issue tend to lag the actual maintenance.

If you're based in Sheffield, you're very well positioned to have a good day's walking and caching up and over Kinder Scout . . . lots to go at up there. Have fun and enjoy the views! (Btw, if you invest in a proper gps, it'll make things much easier/more fun . . . can pick up an etrex for a little over a big tank of petrol these days.)

Got avalanched on the way to the virtual on top of Snowdon, rolled and bounced several hundred feet down the hill, imho very, very lucky to get away with a sore neck and some bruises. And no, I didn't do the cache.

Message is "Installation of PlayerInstall.CAB was unsuccessful". Hardware is Loox N560 running WM6.1, .net framework 2.0 already installed. Any ideas?

You're not the only one - I've had that happen as well. Several visits later, I *still* can't find the original cache . . .

If none of the above work, contact me and I'll pass it on to a mate who works in Warwick. (She's a cacher, but doesn't post on the forums.)

Had someone come and ask about mine in the works car park the other week . . . turns out one of my colleagues is another cacher.

The way it used to be (not *that* long ago): - Email notification of new cache arrives - Click on link in email - Cache page loads - Enter co-ords into gps - Decrypt and make note of hint - Go and find cache. May even have a chance at the FTF if lucky. The way it is now: - Email notification of new cache arrives - Click on link in email - Page tries to load, IE hangs, laptop fan goes nuts, kill IE via Task Manager - Make note of cache name (from email) - Pick up pocketPC and walk twenty minutes into town in search of public wifi - Find pub which allegedly has public wifi - Said public wifi doesn't work properly with mobile devices. Finish drink and go looking for different public wifi. - Connect to wifi, load gc.com. - Try to log in, shame the name and password boxes are only one character wide, take three tries to log in due to repeatedly mis-typing "squid" and not being able to see it - Do (slowly and with much scrolling) search on cache name - Discover that there are forty-seven caches with more-or-less the same name - Eventually find right cache listing. It's already been FTFed. Hmph. - Run out of lunch break, will have to come back to it tomorrow. Apparently, this is progress.

I would be happy to take on the two Sidetracked caches in the city centre as they are close enough to mine for maintenance and also Acocks Green if you wish. I would offer to take Paper Scissors Stone but I have not solved it yet!!! Hope that is helpful for you. It would be a shame to archive them so lets keep the going. Dave. I'll take on "Paper Scissors Stone" if no-one else wants to . . . I've already solved and found it!

Mine's a TB too - window cling from ukgeocachers, plus a conventional TB tag attached to the keys. There's also a "geo" sticker on the back to help make it a bit more obvious . . .

Known issue? Posting this from my laptop via wifi/the cloud in local Wetherspoons pub (aided by a rather nice pint). Also have pocket PC along (fujitsu loox n560), can browse as far as the cloud's login page (which appears to switch to a ppc version) but can't get the big orange "get online" button to actually do owt. PPC was playing nicely with public wifi in works cafe at lunchtime (downloaded gpx viewer and a pocketquery), nowt changed since. Any ideas?

One of my own caches. Saw someone DNF it, went to check it out, couldn't find it either so assumed it had gone missing, temp disabled and provided a replacement. So far, so good. Except that the next people to find it found both the original *and* the replacement. So I went to look for the original . . . and couldn't find it. I've now made five or six attempts and *still* can't find it!

Yes, they do do free wifi (or at least the ones in Solihull and Telford do), but can't agree with you on the tea I'm afraid, it mings like a minging thing! They do have some interesting beers sometimes, though. . . (It's been one of my backup options since the January downgrade rendered GC.com unusable on my work PC . . . take my own laptop out for a quick drink after work if I want to generate a list of caches to do on the way home. Waste of daylight I could be caching in but at least I can get *something* done.)

Yep. And having finally got hold of the PQ in question, it appears to be approx 500 caches short and not showing anything after last August! Hmph.

Somewhat irritated to find that the "my finds" PQ I requested last night didn't arrive as an email attachment as usual . . . I'm on IE6* here and hence can't get the relevent page on GC.com to load so I can do the download. (*Work PC. I don't control the software build and can potentially get the sack for trying to install anything different. Would otherwise be using something more up-to-date, but don't currently have a choice in the matter.)

It's more that (a) various bits of internal gubbins are set up for IE6 and will crash in flames if faced with a more modern browser, and more crucially (b ) if you're a huge company with an estate of tens of thousands of PCs across multiple countries, a change of standard software build (such as browser version) is a major project in itself. Fiddling with things such as firewalls centrally, however, is easier to do and doesn't rely on those tens of thousands of users all following the same set of instructions at the same time. I work for a (theoretically*) japanese IT company with thousands of users in the UK alone. Our standard software build is XP and IE6. The only major security issue I'm aware of that actually happened round here is someone leaving his laptop on a train, and even then it's a (relatively) minor issue since, like all our kit, said laptop was encrypted and even if it wasn't shouldn't have been able to access anything interesting without being plugged into the right network** anyway. Said encryption software also encrypts anything you plug into it. Memory sticks, camera memory cards (but we're not allowed to have cameras in the building anyway) etc etc. Which means they won't work afterwards *except* with company-encrypted PCs. Don't plug your ipod into one, it gets expensive. Trying to interfere with the software build is a sacking offence. This also goes some way towards explaining why I'm still online at 2am. I'm trying to do a cache list for the weekend - something I always used to do in the Friday lunch break. I can't do this from work any more, and having tried repeatedly throughout the evening I still can't get the maps to load on my home PC (running Firefox 3.5.9, not exactly ancient as browsers go) which makes finding caches along a walking route rather hard to do. What I suspect I'll end up doing is sitting up past 4am (again) generating a list of everything within a 20 mile radius of the campsite I'm aiming for, then plotting all of them by hand on the paper map of the area to work out which are where and hence generate a feasible walking route. As a premium member, I pay to use this site. It's the only site I pay to use. It's the only site I visit regularly that seems to go out of its way to be a pain in the bum to use. FFS. (Aaaand . . . breathe.) (*We still have a Japanese name and HQ, everything else is global.) (** Files go on your network share, not your hard drive. That way, in the event of death of hard drive, upgrade or theft of PC, said files are still there.)

I'm in the same situation as you at work: IE6, no changes allowed. Since the updates, if I try to access a cache page, IE stops responding. However, on my home PC, I have a choice between IE6 and Firefox (default browser and the one I much prefer, which is probably why I've never got round to upgrading IE). I've just had a quick play, and GC.com works Ok in Firefox but exhibits exactly the same problem with IE6 as it did at work - IE simply stops responding. Same hardware, same web connection, only thing that's changed is the browser.

Another vote for Dartmoor here - lots to go at, great scenery. The Alphabet Challenge series remains a personal favourite of mine, and there's a series along the old railway line from Princetown which is all fairly low-level and hence a good option in bad weather. As regards camper van, it's worth pointing out that the signposts are colour-coded, so you can tell in advance what the road's going to be like before you get stuck down it!

Worse than that here . . . can't get cache listings to display at all, so can't see co-ordinates and can't even log maintenance on my own caches to keep them running for others. Had a brief go in local library, no joy, library also runs XP/IE6.