ExTechOp
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Posts posted by ExTechOp
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I had another cacher point out to me that URLs can now also include the tracking code, so that a URL like
http://www.geocaching.com/track/log.aspx?wid=4051b248-dc81-41e4-a48e-a5ceab8697f6&c=TRACKING_CODE
will take you directly to writing a log with the given tracking code. This seems like a good application for a QR code tag (using a URL shortener) eg. on a vehicle.
It'd be also nice if one could also include a default log type into the URL, ie. "discovered it".
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I'd agree that more information on the souvenirs would be helpful, but the team behind them felt that the mystery would help spur desire for them.
I assume this means that a comprehensive listing will not at least immediately become available.
Can I make a suggestion, if this hasn't already been done: leap day souvenir. You'll get by logging a cache on February 29th, so one will have a chance to get one every four years, the next time in 2012.
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(Sorry about the initially incorrect forum selection)
So, nobody's ever re-flashed them?
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It is interesting to contrast this attitude to the situation here in Finland, where the traditional everyman's rights mean it is quite hard to limit access. In some national parks there are limitations on hiking, but these are special cases. Of course there is no automatic permission to leave geocaches, but the general attitude seems to make things easier.
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I tend to wear a leather jacket even in the summer, just for the protection — we do a lot of forest caching. Wear a fleece under it if it's cold.What would be a good jacket for caching? A fleece, hoodie or what. It would be for spring,summer and fall. In the $50 range. -
Once upon a time, I brought the Holux GPSlim 326 bluetooth puck which worked excellently for us with mobile phones and an iPaq. Until the day the teeny tiny micro-size power switch on the circuit board broke. So now we have a mechanically dead bluetooth puck. By carefully shorting the power switch it became possible to use it by removing the battery when not in use, but it is a bit of a pain.
Looking in the store, it turns out that the same product is still sold under the Sigmatel brand name, except that it has static navigation on by default. This of course means that using it for geocaching is almost impossible, and I'm not going to be fiddling around with it every single time I power it up.
However, since this is only a firmware issue, it should be possible to re-flash the unit with software that does not have static navigation. Has anyone here actually done this? There are some websites where this is mentioned in a rather cavalier way, but hands up, did you do this? Where did you find the software, could I download it from the old unit?
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Jokaisen kätköntekijän tulisi miettiä aina kätköä tehdessään myös kätköilijöitä ja heidän tarpeita.
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Olen ihmetellyt, miksi kätköjen ohjeistus ei määrää, että jokaisen kätkön kuvaus pitäisi olla myös englanniksi. Kyseessä on kuitenkin globaali harrastus, joten olisi mukavaa että paikallisen kielen lisäksi kaikkien kätköjen kuvaukset olisivat myös yhdellä "yhteisellä" kielellä.
Onkohan tämän määräyksen poisjättäminen harkittu teko vai olisiko tässä ohjeistuksen täsmennyksen paikka?
Henkilökohtaisesti epäilen että kyse on yksinkertaisesti siitä että amerikkalaiset eivät ole tulleet ajatelleeksi asiaa, eivätkä koe muun maailman asioita kovin kiinnostaviksi. Ihan sama kuin että geokätköjen tiedot kyllä talletetaan UTF-merkistöllä joka mahdollistaisi kaikki erikoisemmat merkistötkin, mutta ilmeisesti heidän html santizerinsa rikkoo esimerkiksi kyrilliset ja kiinalaiset merkit joka on johtanut sitten näiden osalta maakohtaisiin geocaching-sivustoihin.
Itse ylläpidän i18n needed bookmark-listaa, jonne olen koittanut lisäillä pääkaupunkiseudun kätköjä jotka mielestäni tarvitsisivat myös englanninkieliset selosteet — ja olen myös tuottanut parit käännökset kätköihin joissa omistaja ei luota omaan kielitaitoonsa. Saa olla yhteydessä.
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Toisella kätköllä sitten taas purnukka on kyllä paikallaan mutta sen sijaan silikat ja kynät oli pitkin maata. Että pientä huolellisuutta kiitos!
Täysin sama kokemus, etenkin urbaanikätköt ovat varsin ongelmallisia mikäli ne eivät pysy kunnolla paikallaan/piilossaan.
Let's be careful out there!
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Can we agree that there is really no feasible way to write every possible 'rule'?
Can we also agree that the volunteers do their best to interpret the 'rules' as they see them and enforce them as such?
Lastly, can we then agree that if the submitter feels the reviewer (unpaid volunteer) did not enforce the 'rules' correctly, that there is an appeal process that can be submitted for final review?
Folks, I hope it doesn't come to the point where we are forced to purchase, sign and have notarized a 1500 page hardcover book of 'rules'. (Not that it would ever happen, just saying.)
I can appreciate hard work put into a cache, but at some point common sense meets responsibility and accountability.
I think this is a good summary of the matter. I will admit that I did not consider navicache.com to be a commercial site, in part because the domain is registered directly to an individual instead of a corporate entity. However, there of course is a "donate" button on the main page. All things considered, I can see why the listing was refused, however I (nor the volunteer reviewer who had to relay the stone tablets from the mountain to me) never quite got this message, just a rather blunt "referrals to navicache.com will not be approved".
In the end, I ended up rewriting my geocaching.com cache description to provide the coordinates and difficulty ratings of "a cache with the final coordinates", and not mentioning anything about what other sites this cache might be registered with. The approval did finally go through, after around three days of extra delay.
I'll admit that most of my upset was caused by the rather blunt and offhand dismissal without elaboration. I guess I'll just have to be happy the geocaching.com contact system and these forums no longer censor the word "navicache" the way they used to, or we could not be having this discussion
The reaction in these forums to my original text was somewhat… interesting, as I've never before been accused of so many different wrongs based on one message. Yes, I had repeatedly read the guidelines, I just stumbled on the exact definition of "commercial" used. Sorry about the possible (hopefully minor) misspellings, English is not my native language — let's see you write something in Finnish. I feel the McDownalls/BurglarKing analogy is rather forced, as always on the internet, we're not talking about a tangible product but information. A more apt analogy would be two competing phone books, where one would disallow cross-listing or even mention of the other's existence.
Signing off, once a decent man, but now the Infamous Perjurer, the Montana Thief, the Body-Snatcher, incarnate Delirium Tremens, Filthy Corruptionist and Loathsome Embracer (with thanks to Mark Twain)
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It most certainly is. Read the section in the guidelines about commercial/agenda caches.I repeat: I'm not objecting to the fact that linking to alternate caching sites may be disallowed, what I am objecting to the fact that this policy is not written down.You'll need to spell it out to me, as I have read this section several times without being able to see the relevance as currently phrased.
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Do you really need a guidelines to specify that a private, for-profit, company is not going to give free advertising to its competitors? Groundspeak is based in a Republic, not a socialist state.
Actually, from the end user's point of view it's based on a dictatorship (I don't remember voting in a Groundspeak Inc. board election, do you?), but this is totally beside the point.
I repeat: I'm not objecting to the fact that linking to alternate caching sites may be disallowed, what I am objecting to the fact that this policy is not written down.
Where are you from anyways?Look left, it says it right under my handle. One of those strange little European countries which had the unenviable choice in Word War II of either siding with Nazi Germany or becoming a Soviet Socialist State…
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Perhaps you could also explain why the 'commercial' and 'agenda' guidelines wouldn't come into play.
I assume this was directed to me?
I fail to see why having (let's say) the final coordinates of a multicache being available in a cache registered at another caching site like Navicache would fall within either of these cases. No customers are solicited (no registration is required for viewing cache listings at Navicache, and in any case basic registration is free), nor any religious, political, charitable or social agendas are being pushed (well, at least beyond the "international cooperation" one that geocaching.com also implicitly pushes).
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Why in the world would someone imagine that a cache like that should be listed on GC.com?The latest thing I personally found out was that it won't be possible to get approval for a geocache that uses a Navicache as part of a mystery, or even mentions the existence of this independent caching site. ...Why in the world would someone imagine that a cache like that could not be listed on geocaching.com, unless this were not stated in the guidelines? Everything that is not explicitly allowed is forbidden?
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Are you serious? That's like asking Coca-Cola to put the name "Pepsi" on their website. That's just plain stupid.So, you feel there are no problems in having hidden agendas, and everything that can be said about the subject has already been said?I have nothing against a written rule like this (for example, this is what TerraCaching does), however, as I indicated in the original subject, what I don't like is having "unwritten rules" you just have to know to get things done.
If you don't like the way Groundspeak does business, you are welcome to find somewhere else to play
Thank you, I would prefer trying to change the processes and procedures to ones I like better. In a community-based effort (which geocaching most certainly still is, in spite of the corporate core providing the infrastructure) this is known as democracy, I'm sure you are familiar with the word?
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I would think that this would fall under the "rule" about usage and downloads at external websites not being permitted.
From the guidelines:
>Caches that require a geocacher to visit another website will not be published if the finder must create an account with, or provide personal information to, the other website.
It'd be nice if you'd actually read my original posting before writing.
And before someone chimes in with "websites requiring personal information", no, you do not need to register with navicache.com to see full cache details, as opposed to geocaching.com -
Really? Another "agenda" and "Groundspeak is killing caching thread"?
So, you feel there are no problems in having hidden agendas, and everything that can be said about the subject has already been said?
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Me and some of my geocaching buddies have occasionally found "unwritten rules", ie. things not mentioned in the official guidelines that still will make it impossible to get a cache approved.
The latest thing I personally found out was that it won't be possible to get approval for a geocache that uses a Navicache as part of a mystery, or even mentions the existence of this independent caching site. The simple solution of course is to not mention the cache in question is registered in Navicache, but this kind of political hair-splitting just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And before someone chimes in with "websites requiring personal information", no, you do not need to register with navicache.com to see full cache details, as opposed to geocaching.com
Unfortunately, as lacking properly written rules the approvers are pretty much free to do what they want, the current situation is somewhat reminiscent of a pyramid marketing scheme. The lower echelon approvers are free to make hyperbolic claims about what is allowed and what is not, which the upper echelons can easily distance themselves from, or vice versa.
I believe initially the approval mechanism was simply intended as a quality control measure, these days the balance seems to be moving towards secondary goals, such as securing the commercial interests of Groudspeak, Inc. Unfortunately this means that there will be more mediocre "tupperware hidden under the rock" caches which have nothing even slightly controversial about them, and less highly innovative and exciting caches which push the envelope.
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The cartridge player won't start on our Hewlett-Packard iPaq rx3700, it installs just fine but when you try to run it, it immediately exists without any error message. Any ideas?
Windows Mobile 2003 second edition
Version 4.21.1088 (Build 14235.2.0.0)
Processor: Samsung S3C2440
Memory: 56.66 MB
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Currently geocaching.com does not export cache attributes into gpx files created in pocket queries and data other exports. Please do add this feature, the xml schema already specifies them, and tools like GSAK would probably also do once they got exported...
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I know that it has some miles on it but it should not be a problem.
Sorry, can't help you with your updating problem. I'd just like to point out that for some obscure reason travel bug and geocoin distances are always shown in miles, instead of the unit you've chosen in your preferences (miles or kilometers).
At least for me, miles might as well be furlongs or cable lengths, I have to use a calculator if I want to get an idea how far the bug has traveled. Would it be possible to change the distance to also be shown in the user's preferred units, that way everyone can be happy?
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Yes, I use Firefox, and this seems like a excellent tool, but it does feel a bit silly to have to install a separate tool just to fix this one website's problems...I am not sure if you use Firefox, but you can get a solution if you do.http://gmscripts.locusprime.net/Cache_Edit_Box_Resizer.html
While I dislike having the boxes automatically check regarding reading the guidelines, the resizing of the boxes is a great tool.
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When you enter your cache description as html code, it gets run through a sanitizer. I can well see why it is done, but why does this have to mess up line breaks in the description? More specifically, why does the sanitizer insist on rewrapping the text to something around 80 columns, when the window in which the code ends up being displayed is just 60 columns? This makes html formatted cache descriptions quite hard to read, for no good reason! Either drop the line rewrapping in the sanitizer code, change the rewrapper to operate on 60 colums, or widen the cache description windows!
This is the html snippet for the cache long description:
<textarea name="tbLongDesc" rows="10" cols="60" id="tbLongDesc">
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I've been pondering buying a new GPS unit, probably a Magellan Triton. I'll be on a business trip in Miami, FL in mid-October, can anyone recommend a good place to go shopping there, if they become available by then?
This thread is about shopping in Miami, please don't start arguing the disadvantages or merits of hand-held units
Flame: Putting it back where you found it
in General geocaching topics
Posted
How hard is it to put a cache back where you found it? I've had to now repeatedly relocate some of my caches from inappropriate locations back to where I originally set them.
In one case, a magnetic microcache in a very muggle-prone area hidden nicely behind a billboard has repeatedly been moved to the side so that it is completely visible. What, did you feel the quite unmistakable original location was somehow too difficult, and wanted to make things easier for the next cachers?
In another case, a magnetic microcache which has a perfectly nice location hidden behind a vehicle guard rail has twice been moved into a narrow metal pipe where it is very easy to push in too deep. I've now stuffed the pipe with a foam rubber wad to prevent anyone from sticking the cache in there, I'll bet the next time someone complains the cache was hard to get into the pipe because of the wad...
Also, I've lost count of the times pencils and log holding tubes inside the actual cache container have been swiped.
Has geocaching become too much of a "popular" thing, and people no longer have the very basic skills and understanding required to make things work? Or do people have their unsupervised kids do the searching and hiding?