adam_w

There really is no point in making any suggestions on here about how gc.com could improve it's services. All you will get is the suggestions back on how the current system works fine, and what you are suggesting is ridiculous. Oh and the always helpful, live with what you get, cuz it works just fine for me. Just a bunch of gc.com loyalists on here who have nothing better to do than to tell others that what they are requesting is useless.

The state is my area. I hike and choose locations to hike in and use the database to research those locations off line. I suppose I can see that. I prefer to do my research online. Every time I do use my GSAK database, I find myself running across something I need to see online. I can see Geode Hunters Point about being sent across the state unexpectedly better than I could envision myself needing all of Kentucky and all of Indiana loaded all the time just so I could have them in a database to look at while offline. Of course, I run a fast computer on a fast connection--The online maps load as fast as my offline maps do. Tell me this, though. If you were planning a trip across 10 states, would you use "caches along a route" or would you load all ten "whole state" PQs (if they were available)? (I'll ask Geode Hunters the same thing --or anyone else who wants to chime in). I would use the caches along a route for a road trip, and have mine all set up for my road trip to GeoWoodstock next week. I think PQs are a sufficient solution for something like that. I don't know if I am unique in my situation or not, but I work and cache 30 miles away from where I live and cache. Generally speaking I mainly cache in those two areas, and I understand everyone's point about just running PQs for those areas, but I end up extending outside of those areas quite often as I have family and friends who live outside of the range of 500 caches within those two areas. I also enjoy analyzing the data about caches in my state, as it is a frequent subject of conversation at get togethers with other geocachers. I also like to have the puzzle caches in my offline database so I can work on solving the puzzles when I am not out caching. Although everyone has given their opinions on what I should do with my suggestion, or how to work around the system. I have yet to hear a good reason why gc.com would not consider accomodating such a thing, as I know I am not the only person who wants this, as it has been mentioned several times that this has been brought up many times over the years and rejected by gc.com. So without jumping down my throat, I would like to hear from people not only the reasons why gc.com won't/can't do this, but also ideas on how gc.com could provide more data and fresh to those of us who want it. The majority of people are using offline databases, so why wouldn't gc.com embrace that and figure out a way to make more money from it. It's like the music industry pretending that people didnt want affordable digital music. Once they finally embraced it they figured out a way to sell songs at $0.99 a song and people started to buy them instead of being forced to buy a whole crappy album. Here are some random ideas/possibilities of how gc.com could turn this issue into a money maker. 1. Build their own offline database software and charge for it. If they built it in such a way that it was propietary they could even protect the data from being shared if they wanted to. I don't know if their concerns with providing more data are around protecting their asset (someone taking the data and starting a new site), or losing money from those people who might not register for premium memberships because they share the data with friends. It would seem that they are already at risk for both of these, as anyone could register enough accounts to get enough PQs to get their entire database if they so desired, and so it seems that they have already accepted either of these two possibilities. 2. Create files that can be picked up from their server on a nightly basis. These files can't be that big, can they? They could charge for each file. How many PQs would stop being run each day? 3. Allow for larger PQs,? Anyways, I have other thoughts, but I can start with these. Please don't respond if all you have to say is, suck it up, it is what it is, live with it. All companies must evolve to meet the demands of their customers, or else someone else will, so there is no harm in letting gc.com know that we would like more and we are willing to pay for it.

You badly misunderstand...... The bulk of folks in this thread are actually trying to help. We KNOW that your suggestion has been made before (many times) and that folks from HQ (gc.com) have consistently responded that they will not be building any such wide access to the data. So we have given you suggestions on how to compensate. The owner of the website once said that he would be persuing a model by which you can have real time access to the data via cell phone internet access. (Geocache Trimble Navigator). That solution sounds perfect for you. They never intended that PQs be used for creating an off line database (well documented). They have valid reasons to want you to visit the website (often). I myself would like to have wide access to the data but I fully unnderstand why I do not have it. I accept that. Fair enough. I have already implemented the suggested work arounds, and will continue to use them. Thanks to those with positive suggestions. It is a poor business model to continue to ignore the requests of your customers though, and eventually gc.com will have to come up with a solution or lose their customer to someone who comes along and does it better.

I dropped off this thread because it was going nowhere. I made a simple suggestion for what I thought would make my geocaching experience more enjoyable and less time consuming to manage, and saw a win win solution where gc.com could even profit from a service like what I suggested. However others feel like they need to flex their geocaching expertise to tell me where I can stick my suggestion. I do not feel the need to respond to people who want to attack me personally or tell me how I should geocache. I simply suggested something that I would find useful, and would be willing to pay for. Obviously people see that they should be loyal to gc.com for some reason and defend them. I like having my entire state in an offline database and I like having the data as fresh as possible. I like to analyze the data, and play with it. So sue me....well scratch that, it seems some of you take this suggestion so personally that you may just sue me, so I retract that statement. I will pursue my suggestion directly with gc.com instead of through a bunch of gc.com loyalists who seem to have nothing better to do than sit at their computer and squash any idea of improving the user experience.

You have a very narrow understanding of the bandwidth required to do that for everybody that would want it. Plus the size of the file that gets created would be horrendous and easily rejected by most if not all current ISP postoffices. The current practice works because the files stay under the ceiling for size limitations. They dont have to email it, they could place it on their site for people to download

Again, if GC.com would simply publish zip files for each state, How many people would stop hammering their site with pocket queries? How much bandwidth do they use to send out thousands of emails each night with attachements?

You just don't know how to use the Pocket Queries correctly. Pick a "centerpoint" that will give you a wide radius to Search and set up PQs by "Date Placed." Around here, I need seven to get a 50-mile Search radius. That gives me lots more PQs to create based on "location" in case I am going outside that normal Search Radius, or if I want to create a PQ/PQs based on "Caches Along a Route." As I stated in the other thread, if you use GSAK's "Last .gpx Update" filter, you can get rid of all the caches that did not update. There's an easier way for getting the entire state with the current PQ strategy and I do this for Washington. In your PQ setup, can select the entire state, then you do it by date. Starting with May 1, 2000, increase your ending date until you reach near 500. For instance mine is 20000501-20020922. You'll get a shot gun collection of the caches hidden in your state by this method, but you'll be able to build a nice PQ spread that you can easily maintain and update as needed to condense when caches are archived. For WA this means 25 PQs plus 2 to handle updates and inactive caches. Every week I have a realtively up to date database to plan from. That leaves me 13 PQs I can do with whatever I want. I have done this for Utah, but we are adding over 500 caches a month now, and I will run out of queries by this year. Also this means my caches or always up to 10 days out of date, which means I am hitting disabeld, archived caches on occasion.

Yes I load them as Custom Points of Interest, and you can load millions of Custom POIs because they are loaded to your SD memory card and not to the local RAM on the GPS. I understand POIs. I tried that but found it not worth the effort. Not the whole description and unable to delete after I found them (don't need them to clutter the data file). I use POIs for static databases, like State Parks, Rest Areas, Starbucks, etc. But once I've found a cache, I don't need it in my database any more. Besides, if you load them as Favorites, the Treasure Chest shows on the screen. I don't think POI's do that. If you update your GSAK database daily with your finds, then they are filtered out each time you run the POILoader. Also you get custom icons with POIs so you get to see the same icons used at gc.com for caches on your map (Ghost for virtuals, Question mark for Mystery, Two yellow boxes for Multis, etc...) You can save a POI as a geocache so it saves it in your calendar too.

Yes I load them as Custom Points of Interest, and you can load millions of Custom POIs because they are loaded to your SD memory card and not to the local RAM on the GPS. Even though you use the POI loader to put all the caches in your State into your GPSr, you still need to update those POIs frequently to keep from looking for a missing, Disabled, or Archived cache. I have no interest in getting all the caches in Southern California, much less all the caches in this entire State . . . Exactly my point, so a nightly zip file for my state would give me just that, then all I have to do is run the POILoader once a day after I update my GSAK database. Not to mention they could include all the logs for a cache in a zip file instead of just the last 5.

No need to get personal, I live in Utah, and I frequently drive to various parts of the state. If you want to have to go through the pain of running a query every time you decide to go somewhere that is your business. A nd I hope you havent already run your 5 queries for the day when you decide to go somewhere, cuz you out of luck.

Yes I load them as Custom Points of Interest, and you can load millions of Custom POIs because they are loaded to your SD memory card and not to the local RAM on the GPS.

Most of us make use of the Geocaching mode and are limited to between 500 and 2000 points on our units. You sound like a great candidate for using the wap site and/or internet connections via cell phone services. Might look into the "caching with your cell phone" options. Spend your money there. Even if you use your GPS that way, you still should be able to have the most current information in it. Nothing worse than hitting a cache only to find out later it was disabled or archived. While I appreciate what everyone is saying, it is ridiculous that I as a geoacher cant have as many caches as I want in my offline database. Again, gc.com can charge for this service so there is no reason for them to ignore the fact that everyone uses an offline database cache from

Why should I have to waste time figuring out where the heck I am going to be all time for geocaching. I can keep the whole state in my GPS, and I never have to worry about whether I have loaded up the caches for the area I may or may not be caching in.

It will happen if we ask for it loud enough. They could even charge a monthly fee for a service like this, why would they turn down a revenue option?

I am so frustrated with pocket queries. I have maxed out my pocket queries, and so now I can no longer have all of the caches in my state up to date. This is ridiculous. I am tired of going to caches only to find they are archived or out of date. There is no reason why gc.com could not create a zip file for each state and small countries each night and let members download the zip file from their site. They could even charge for this service. running 30+ pocket queries to have all of your caches up to date is ridiculous. Pocket queries should be used for those rare occasions like a road trip to GeoWoodstock or something like that, not for keeping your regular caching areas up to date.

If gc.com would get their act together they would stop this nonsense of forcing people to use pocket queries to get data, and start generating a nightly/weekly file for each state or country. Pocket queries are a joke. I have to run 40 pocket queries over the course of 10 days just to get the caches updated in GSAK. Im always running into caches that are archived because my GSAK database it out of date. Not to mention if they did this approach, they would free up bandwidth and server space to produce these single files. I personally would only need to run a pocket query on a rare occasion if I had a way to download a file of my state regularly.