UT Explore

When I go to MY PROFILE and click on YOUR FRIENDS I see a page full of boxes with each box containing summary data for each of my friends. The HIDDEN cache count in the box does not agree with the number of caches shown when I click through to thier actual full blown profile. This error exists on many (maybe all) of my friends. Not a big deal but I think it is a BUG.

Recently, after logging caches I get an error message in a pink box across the top of My Profile page that says I have remaining field notes to be processed when, in fact, I have completed and entered all my field notes. I go to the Field Notes page and confirm that there are none there. I confirm that all my logs have been accepeted by GC.com as they appear on my profile page as found. The only way I can clear this message is to log out and then back in to GC.com. Seems like a bug. I use a Colorado 400t and log them using the GSAK macro FieldNotesImportandLog. I am also checking the GSAK side of this problem. Any ideas on this?

Add me to the list of those waiting. Got 2 of 5 on Sunday. Only got 2 (of 5) this morning. Usually get them all at the same time.

Fabulous job on the new KML! I think you have improved on the old KML. I love the "On Request" feature. It only burdens the system (yours and mine) when I need it...not every time I randomly pan around not realizing I am hooked to GC.com live. Well done! Reach around and pat yourself on the back on my behalf

Wonderful news! Thank you.

I understand how to load a PQ into GE and view it. It works really well. It is fast and it is stable. I have loaded thousands of caches into GE at one time and it still works great. But it still is not anything like having GE and the famous KML. There are several issues that prevent me from using PQs in GE as the solution to the KML issue. 1. First, it takes something like 17 PQs to capture just the state of Utah (where I live). I am already at my max of 5 PQs a day to get the areas I most frequently cover. 2. I can't do a PQ along a county border or any other custom GE overlay boundary. 3. I have to wait for some PQs (sometimes several days...as I have only a few gaps in my max 5 PQs per day) 4. I don't always cache in my home area covered by my existing PQs. 5. As soon as I run one PQ I discover it doesn't cover the other side of the county. Opps, gotta run another PQ. All this for one cache on each side of the boundary? 6. My wife and I travel. In visiting a new area, we are not sure where we want to go. Requesting a new PQ for each possible area seems like overkill. I just want to peek at some area initially. I may only want 3 or 4 caches in each city. It seems as though your solution would require us all to request huge numbers of PQs and keep huge private databases......sorta counter productive if massive PQ requests was the problem in the first place. I repeat my suggestion from some time ago. Set up the KML so the user can click on a center point and the KML will deliver x number of caches (user defined up to a max of say... 100) surrounding this center point. Once those caches are delivered to the user, sever the link to the GC server during pans and zooms. In essense, just like dropping a PQ in GE only make the cache data bare bones to make the download simpler (so we can't substitute it for a real PQ). This will reduce the constant calls on the server from pans and zooms. It will make GE operate more quickly. Make it a PM feature. Limit the number of requests per day (say 100). We can save these individual requests in "My PLaces" to reduce the need to request further downloads in the same area on the same day (something that would happen alot under the old KML design).

One of the things that made GE soooo nice was the ability to see caches relative to GE overlays like county lines, zip code boundaries, national park boundaries, tribal land boundaries, wilderness area boundaries and, particularly CUSTOM-made overlay boundaries like DGP (see www.dgpstats.com). The beauty of GE was that it was an open environment. Anyone could create and save any kind of overlay to suit thier needs. I am planning a trip to AZ and want to get as many DGP regions as possible for a challenge cache. Obviously, I want to pick the caches right on the boundary of each region to minimize the amount of driving I need to do. Without the KML, this work is very cumbersome and awkward. I am now required to have GE open in one window with the DGP overlays visible and GC.com open in another and then get them to scroll to approximately the same zoom to see where the boundaries are relative to each cache. Has anyone found a SINGLE solution to these issues using GC.com or other resources? NOTE TO the DEVELOPERS at Groundspeak: Any solution needs to be able to accomodate custom overlays (like DGP) in addition to all the standard political boundary info. We need to be able to add, create and save overlays in a place like GE's "My Places".

I have only seen the $30 per year Premium memberhip offered. Maybe others would be interested in the other arrangements that are available. Please describe your arrangement and what you pay for it.

It would have been a nice touch to also put the announcement in the weekly emails we get from GC.com. You seem to annouce new features there, but not this "new feature". You can see from the number of posts indicated on many of the posters here that we are not regular visitors in the Forums. I am a daily user of GC.com but had made only one post to the Forums prior to this issue.

So GC should just ignore everyone because they only pay $30 per year? Under that theory Groundspeak just does what they want, regardless. Groundspeak has no customer that pays more than $30 per year so we should all just shut up and go home. I don't know how many paying members there are but if there are 100,000 premium members paying $30 each that's $3 million in revenue. The actual number is probably considerably larger. I think they are beyond the mom and pop store phase of GC.com. I think what we are doing is called "customer feedback". Hopefully, Groundspeak has not forgotten their legacy as a innovative, user-focused, talented group of passionate individuals. Some of thier recent actions and some of their responses to this issue feel very defensive and something I would expect to see from a large lethargic, insensitive corporation. I am fuly sympathetic to the stresses of receiving all the heated comments. It is no fun being on the receiving end of this stuff. It comes with the territory of being a seller or supplier in the marketplace. Groundspeak may have made a mistake here. They are not infallible. IT IS NOT PERSONAL.....IT IS JUST BUSINESS! Raine's explanation of the 200 made no sense to me. It was not clear. (I dont' think we need a detailed explanation of the 200 anyway). It is clear from the posts on this forum that the 200 was way off. BUT....The 200 is NOT the point. The point is this was working well for lots of people...alot more than 200. The point is there was no attempt to communicate. The point is we need to make our feelings known. The point is Groundspeak needs to understand how its customers use the system. I can't believe you would want to deny us, as customers, communicating with Groundspeak, would you? Yes, some of us need to go to charm school and be more constructive, but when you peel away the noise there are real concerns for what Groundspeak is doing and how they are doing it. This is about making Groundspeak better so we all benefit.

How is this different from the iPhone demands on the GC system every time an iPhone user moves around? It seems the iPhone screens are constantly updated with live info in a very similar fashion. If the iPhone is handled differently maybe there is something to learn from that. I doubt there is a real need to see 500 caches at a time on GE. Could you throttle back the max number of caches displayed? How about if the user clicked on or marked a center point on a GE map and the system brought back a view of the X closest caches? Make it a premium member feature. Make it a pay extra feature. Just make it available soon. There is a GSAK macro that will display all the caches in a GSAK database or filter on GE. Once it is downloaded to GE that is it. There are no calls back to the GSAK database for updates as we pan around on GE. The GE screen response times are much better than when using the KML. The user could draw a polygon on GE where they wanted to see caches and GC could fill that request and then sever the electronic tie to GE. It would improve our screen response times and eliminate the constant update requests as we pan around on GE. Why wouldn't something like this work? How do the reviewers live without this feature? It seemed like the primary tool to evaluate a proposed cache relative to National Park, Tribal Lands and Wilderness areas. Or did you leave it switched on for them? I think there is a customer service lesson to be learned here also. If this was a new feature being added, we would have received notice in the weekly notification emails. If it was a new feature, it would have been highlighted on the screens with a little "NEW" banner next to it. Lots of hoopola. The termination of this was done in relative silence. Things would have probably gone smoother with the customer base with a little effort at communication up front similar to what you do to announce a new feature. (The forums don't count as communication in my mind since we have to come looking for it).

Actually I think the GC server slowdown comes from all the iPhone geocaching apps that make constant calls on the GC website to update the iPhone screens and cache info on a realtime basis. Hmmmm......Must be more than 200 iPhone users [sarcasm].

Raine - I read your response before I posted so no reason to repeat it. I just wanted my voice added to the dialog. How many downloads of the KML occured before it was pulled from the website? The 200 user figure just seems rediculously low. Maybe 200 users online at one time...that seems more likely. I am encouraging all those who used this feature to comment here so Groundspeak gets a better view of the level of actual usage. Feature request: GE had a ruler that would allow us to measure from one point to the next. I really miss that feature. Could you add to the GC.com maps?

VERY UNHAPPY with the removal of the GE linkage! PLEASE bring it back. I think your estimate of 200 users is way, way off.