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mcgillz

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Everything posted by mcgillz

  1. Well i've tried Google Earth and Google Maps but no joy. I am convinced that some enterprising member ( or Cachestore.com) could figure a way to convert the map from Google Earth to a Mercator Projection in high res and make some money. I'd be the first customer!
  2. One of my TB's is just approaching 40,000 miles and has had a really interesting trip so far. I looked at its trip on the Map option for TBs but the definition is poor. I think Geocaching should offer the possibility for getting a larger high definition map that could be printed so proud TB owners could hang the TB trip on the wall! I suppose anyone could do it using Google Earth, but there must be a simpler way?
  3. And now challenges are being retired as they were a lame replacement for virtuals. Funny, but I think that was the plan. I too love virtuals. Frankly, who cares whether somebody wants to sit at home and score a cache. Some people only want to find nanos in a coal mine but that's their business. Virtuals can be very challenging and many are valuable because no 'real' cache can be placed where they are. I wish GEOCACHING would bring back virtuals. Maybe add a requirement for a photo at the location. I know that would disadvantage those without cameras but climbing a mountain to find a cache above the snow line disadvantages a lot more cachers!
  4. I like to see better trackable maps. As some of my trackables start putting on miles and hops I find the existing 'View Map' is inadequate. One of my TBs has gone from the US to the tip of South America, back to the West Indies, to Europe and to Australia. I would love to be able to print out a clear map of all the stops.
  5. Add a waypoint averaging feature to the iPhone app. I always start to find caches, or to place caches using my iPhone4. When conditions cause lots of bounce while seeking or placing caches I also have a Garmin Oregon 400T that I use. The Oregon does waypoint averaging and gives me greater confidence in the coordinates in poor conditions. Quite often I will compare the readings of both devices just for fun and usually they are very close. Only in poor conditions does the Oregon excel. Otherwise, the iPhone has a much better interface and the ability to look up caches on the fly rather than having to plan the search before leaving home. I REALLY enjoy taking out my iPhone while waiting for my wife to finish shopping and look for nearby caches!
  6. Thanks Wolfiesden, I couldn't say it better. I live next to a National Wildlife Refuge. No caching is permitted there but I have been fortunate to be friends with one of the volunteers who know the area well and has studied the history of the area. He has taken me for walks on the trails in the bogs and shown me remarkable things that others will never have the opportunity to know about because there is no printed sign to inform them and no one to lead them to the spot. These features wouldn't qualify as EarthCaches in my mind but are interesting nonetheless. A virtual cache can provide both but instead we have guardrail caches and boxes of plastic soldiers. I have found several virtuals in Toronto, one at the old city hall and one in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery that were fun, very informative and impossible in any form other than virtual. It seems that somebody doesn't like virtuals and I have found no compelling reason for that in reading the forums. I have tried challenges and Waymarking as replacements for virtual caching and find them both poor substitutes. What I do whenever possible is place a nano cache where a virtual should be and give a decent description of the location that the cacher can enjoy. Would love to know what really possessed them to disallow virtuals. Maybe they will come to their senses
  7. I love and hate urban caches for that reason! I don't want to be so obvious that after I leave, a muggle will grab the cache and take it but the challenge in an urban area is often "How do I get it with all that people traffic?" I did some caches in Bangkok recently. I've never been in a city with more foot traffic and as a westerner or 'falang' I am assured to have locals looking at me. I noticed that several of the caches in the densest urban areas include descriptions of exactly where the cache is (even photos of the location). One even suggests that you bring a multimeter so it looks like you are checking a big bundle of wires on the back of a telephone pole rather than grabbing a cache! I guess the challenge changes depending on location.
  8. Just tell me how much I will have to pay for my 'share' of Google maps. I cache mostly in very rural areas and need the aerial map view to figure the way in. What I get now is useless. If Mapquest aerial worked it would fill the bill but it doesn't work at any functional level. Is there any hope for it? So Groundspeak, what would I have to pay?????
  9. I understand your need to escape Google's greedy clutches but as a satellite or aerial view user I find the MapQuest aerial view, while often sharper and more clear than Google's loads badly. Often the area I want to see may include 4 or 6 tiles and it is not unusual that only some of the tiles will load, even if I leave it for a few minutes. If you can get this fixed, I can live happily without Google satellite view! Another concern, and it isn't just from the Valentine update, is that in aerial view, the icon for a traditional cache gets lost easily in the greenery. Maybe an icon color change? Everything else seems great. Thanks for the continued effort to bring us the best!
  10. I'm using an iPhone 4 and iOS 4.3.3 I like lots about the 4.5 version of your app but I do most of my caching in the 3% that AT&T doesn't cover (amazing how big that 3% can be). I use PQs saved for various areas and really rely on being able to check recent logs to see if the cache is still available and whether it is recently found. Unfortunately, Recent Logs for a cache in a saved PQ don't show dates or status of logs. The same logs show correctly in a live search. Is a fix for this in the works? BTW, I have no problem getting my PQs with the 4.5 version. I have over a dozen both new and old loaded now, from the US, Canada and Thailand. Only problem I have are the incomplete logs mentioned above. Thanks for all the great work!
  11. I guess there are people who lie about their score in every sport/game. I play golf and it is incredible how much of it goes on. Mostly, we laugh about the people who do, and they are never going to win a big prize for their bogus score but it can tick me off too. Still it's not just Virtuals that people lie about. A few months ago some cacher was logging several thousand caches a day. Needless to say, they were bogus but who were they kidding but themselves? I love virtuals, and having done a bunch, I know I could have faked a few but I prefer the challenge of finding and solving them. That is where I get my pleasure, and if someone else wants to sit at home and try to con us that they have found it, so what? Maybe some unfortunate shut-in uses Virtuals because they are bored with crosswords or Sudoku. We already ask in attributes whether the cache is handicapped accessible, maybe there should be a shut-in accessible category too? Maybe in twenty years when I can barely get as far as my post box, I'll want to solve them that way too..............
  12. I know what the Africa thing is. The program is going to a default coordinate N 00 00.000 and W 00 00.000 when in Settings you choose My Home Location. I guess there is a programming bug. Guess we'll have to wait for 4.3.................
  13. I'm using a Colorado 400T and I guess I missed class the day they explained how to SIMPLY remove all found caches from this unit. It keeps telling me that 'maximum number of GPX files exceeded and I know a lot of them are ones I have found (and marked as such) or ones I have placed. I don't want to overlay another GPX file that will wipe out all the caches I have manually added as the ones I want to look for in various areas. It took a lot of time to put them in after looking at the details of each cache to see if I wanted to do it. After I log all my finds I do a 'My Finds' PQ and can load that into GSAK or MacCaching but there has to be a simple way to tell the Colorado to erase them! Isn't that one of the most basic things you would want to do? Maybe I'm stupid or as a Mac user I am expecting that there should be a common-sensical approach to doing it. The half dozen apps that come from Garmin with the 400T are ill defined and overlap each other and are lame beyond belief. Help! Oops...Guess I was ranting!
  14. Thanks Blue Deuce, Well the TB finally got put in a cache so I could make the changes you suggest and it still doesn't register the travelling right. It shows 1056 miles which are the legs from FL to LA and back and although the map shows the TB going from VT to FL it doesn't register those miles. I think it's because the person who 'grabbed' here in VT now shows as having grabbed it in FL even though he is the guy who left it there!. Maybe he would have to modify his log too? Any advice?
  15. Thanks for the detailed explanation. I am anxiously waiting until it's in a cache to make the change. It's ironic that the one TB I screwed up is the one with the most mileage on it! Jim
  16. I really should know better. I placed a new TB in my cache here in Vermont, went home and activated it but didn't 'place' it in the cache. Before I realized my error the TB was grabbed and has quickly travelled to Florida and Louisiana in two hops. In a couple of weeks it has more mileage than any of my other trackables! But the TB doesn't register the VT to FL part of its trip. Any way I can log it in it's original cache (to get the mileage) without screwing up everything?
  17. I am using my Colorado 400T for geocaching. Normally I preload all the caches I want to try before going out but in some locations and cases I want to get to a cache that isn't in the GPSr. If I know the coordinates of the cache how can I enter them as a waypoint and get GPSr to treat it as a geocache. When I enter a waypoint I don't get the option of treating it as a cache location. It is treated just as part of a route. If I tell it to 'Go' it will tell me there is no road instead of counting down to the cache location. I feel that I should be able to enter the coordinates (waypoint) and tell the GPSr to GO and have it treat the waypoint like a geocache Any ideas? thanks
  18. Wow, I didn't mean to stir up a hornet's nest, but thank you all for educating me on the history of virtuals. I am new to caching with about 125 finds in the last three months. I have found several virtuals that were lots of fun and I have found quite a few traditional caches that were as exciting as doing a newspaper route. I have also found several traditional caches and been awed by the beauty of the locations. In one case, a small waterfall close to my home with beautiful swimming holes. I have asked friends if they knew it was there and most didn't. So this cache was valuable for me for its beauty which I had not seen or heard of in my 30 years in the area. I didn't need the stuffed toy in the cache to make it worthwhile to me. I have gone to the Waymarking site to see what it was all about and looked through the unfiltered 100 closest waymarks and found that of the 100, 94 had never been logged and many of them had been around for a year or so. I was surprised because even though we are in a rural area no cache goes more than a day or two before the FTF and usually it's less than 12 hours so I was wondering why is no one logging the Waymarks? Anyway, thanks again.
  19. I have been trying to find out why virtual caches are no longer allowed and only grandfather virtuals still exist. I read the reason in the tutorial and I have gone to the Waymark site and most of the 1400+ waymarks within 100 miles of my location have never been logged even once. So why were virtuals disallowed as geocaches? Weren't they successful as geocaches? The ones I have found certainly had more than a few finds unlike the Waymarks I looked at. What gives?
  20. I have an iPhone 3G and a Garmin Colorado 400T. The Garmin is faster and more accurate but the iPhone downloads caches on the fly and has satellite maps.
  21. If you download the gmapi files, you first need to install them on your Mac. Double-clicking the file should be enough to start the process (this should start Garmin's Map Manager program, which will install the map for you). The map will then show up in Garmin's Roadtrip program, if you have installed the map correctly. And finally, to copy the maps to your GPS unit, start Garmin's Map Install program, select the maps you want and transfer them to your GPS unit. I don't know why Garmin decided to create three different programs for managing maps. I suppose it makes sense in some way. If you don't want to go through all that (it's actually not as difficult as it seems), you may be better off downloading the img files which you can copy directly to your GPS unit. Hope this helps. Thanks, It worked fine. Silly me I did map install first then Map Manager. It is strange that they have three overlapping programs to handle maps. Sounds like governments. Anyway, now I know what to do!
  22. I have downloaded several maps from GPSFileDepot one of them is New England Topo Map. I chose the MAC version of the download. Once downloaded I have copied the .gmapi file to both the native memory on the 400T and to the SD card in the 400T. When I go to MAPS I still only find the 100k topo US map that came with the 400T. WHat am I supposed to do to be able to use these files from GPSFileDepot? Thanks. Oh, I also tried doing it via Windoze with no success.
  23. I buy mine at the party store too. Packs of 12 for $2.50 or so. If you don't have a party store in your area this site sells them cheap. Yes they have Christmas theme 2" x 2" 25 page notebooks for $4.99 and............$6.99+ for shipping!
  24. I am still having the following problem as of 11/05/09 18:30 EST..... Send to GPX is broken? Is "1728: GPX files: need attributes" to blame? I get: 500 - Internal server error. There is a problem with the resource you are looking for, and it cannot be displayed.
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