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Iowa Tom

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Everything posted by Iowa Tom

  1. Iowa Tom
    I agree!! I find that making (containers and puzzles) is a lot more satisfying that finding. When I used to play hide-and-seek I would always want to be the one to hide, on rooftops and in trees and so on. Around here in NE Iowa there's a not a lot of great back country so I have to make up for the lack of scenery with special containers and puzzles to find them. -it
  2. Iowa Tom
    This is in the text: "...there's no purchase necessary!" I thought that was enough. I'll gladly add something more. Should I say that I was granted an exception? The store owners were a bit skeptical at first but because I have known them for over 20 years they ok'd it. Jim said he was excited about meeting "interesting people". I told them that they might get visitors from all over. They are amazed that we can know where the gator head is now - in California. -it
  3. Iowa Tom
    Once a guy left a large TB with me but I didn’t have a cache large enough to put it in. So I made a treasure box cache, named it Gilligan's Island and hid it in a spectacular pet store nearby. The store is privately owned and is a treasure trove of animals and all manner of supplies. It’s a real maze. Once the geocacher finds the store, using their GPSr, they have to locate the treasure box within the store. It’s in plain site, on top of the candy machine by the cache register, but many people have a hard time finding it. One of the first visitors told a cashier - that didn't yet know about the box - that he was there for the cache. One of these days I might change the coord to be what I think it actually is. Then when a person is standing at the front door they will see that it’s 30 feet, or whatever it is, inside the store and they will know in what direction to go as well. -it
  4. Iowa Tom
    On the backside of a "No Trespassing" sign you could say "Geocachers Welcome". Then tell the geocachers on the web page to look at the back of the sign, if that would make them feel more at ease. I myself would feel uneasy unless I actually saw something at the site that I knew was meant for me to read. It'd be my luck, I would have accidentally entered the coord wrong and would actually be in a place where I was not welcome. If somebody has only the coordinate and no other info, too bad.
  5. Iowa Tom
    Color edit mine. That is exactly what I hope if NOT going on. -it
  6. Iowa Tom
    Good for you.
  7. Iowa Tom
    I would like to know the average amount of time that most geocachers take preparing a container, the web page, and the overall hide? I've found caches by people that have a ton of them and have gotten the impression that they took a maximum of 10 seconds to get an average reading for their coordinate. To me it's not a matter of how many you have, it's what you have taken the time to create.
  8. Iowa Tom
    This website may be of interest to some. -it
  9. Iowa Tom
    I hold up my GPS unit and watch for a response. If I don't get one I take the opportunity to tell them why I'm holding up my GPS unit.
  10. Iowa Tom
    This was not a murder scene but my son and I placed his only geocache in a woodpile that, we found out later, was a cache for stolen purses. We called the sheriff, showed them the location and explained our own purpose for being there. They told us that, what they presumed was a guy, liked to hide purses in woodpiles. They called him "The Beaver"; weird thing is, I think I may have met him. There was a real strange dude in the area once. I had seen him elsewhere too and the other place was right along the trail that passed the pile. When I e-mailed the sheriff to tell the that I might have a suspect and even knew where he worked, they never got back to me. -it
  11. Iowa Tom
    One of my student's TBs was sent via a wormhole from Massachusetts to Australia. At least that is what the guy said happened after asking permission. See this article for more info.
  12. Iowa Tom
    This one is a 5 in difficulty. Read the logs. Not too many terrains in Iowa are going to be a 5.
  13. Iowa Tom
    I have find code like that before and did get it to work. Thanks.
  14. Iowa Tom
    Thanks a lot! I'll look it over later. -it
  15. Iowa Tom
    The background feature explained at that website, namely, Background: <BODY BACKGROUND="http://nozen.com/geo/hpbackground.jpg" BGPROPERTIES="fixed"> creates the background seen on http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=1065310 does not work anymore, right? Seems like I remember reading about how they did away with what I think were called backgrounds.
  16. Iowa Tom
    It's ironic in a way for me in that I didn't want to take the time to learn how to use a program for creating HTML so I learned it the hard way. In doing it that way I understand a lot more than I would have otherwise. At least I think I do. One of these days I would like to try something that will free up more of my time however.
  17. Iowa Tom
    That would require javascript, which is a no-no in cache pages. Thanks. That saves me the hassle of more research. I figured that was the case. -it
  18. Iowa Tom
    This is something that I have wanted to ask. Does anyone know if the GC webpage will accommodate a mouseover event? If so can someone provide a simple example along with the code? Thanks, -it
  19. Iowa Tom
    A lot of the HTML that I learned how to use was obtained by finding something that I was interested in on a webpage then finding the code in the source information. E.g. let’s say that you want to know how I set up the table with pictures at my Look again my friend geocache. Look for a distinct word or set of words that are written right before the table. In this case the words “mode for” should work. Now go to the tool-bar at the top of the screen and if you are using IE click on Page, then View Source or if you are using Firefox click on View, Page Source. On your keyboard hit Ctrl F (a shortcut for find) and type in the words, mode for. [NOTE! Sometimes the HTML gets split between two lines so a word search may not locate “mode for this” but it will locate “mode for”, for instance. In other words, don’t give up if you cannot find a two or more word part of a sentence.] Now click on next. The screen will take you to the HTML that comes right before the table begins. The HTML for my table begins with… <center> <table border="1" bgcolor="green"> <tr> <td></td> <td> <center><b><font size="3" face= "Microsoft sana serif"><font color="Yellow">1</font></font></b></center></td> <td> <center><b><font size="3" face= "Microsoft sana serif"><font color="Yellow">2</font></font></b></center></td> <td> <center><b><font size="3" face= "Microsoft sana serif"><font color="Yellow">3</font></font></b></center></td> Notice that part way through the table HTML is this… <td><a rel="nofollow" href= " <img src= "http://img.geocaching.com/cache/0739b07d-8062-4fd0-adbd-7cd7e9824045.jpg" width="55"></a></td> The leaves image that shows in the table cell to begin with is the second URL; it’s the one that is set with a width of 55. When you click on that image up comes the leaf face image whose URL is listed first. It goes like this: URL- 1 on top is what you go to when you click on the URL-2 on the bottom. The code for tables is pretty intuitive. Like , <tr> means the beginning of a table row and <td> means table data and </td> means the end of that table data. If you would like to get a copy of the short-cuts I use when typing in HTML let me know and I’ll send it to you in a Word document. One of the biggest problems I have had is making tables and pictures too big for the screen of computers that have their screen resolution set much lower than what I have mine set at. I don’t realize that I’ve done that till I go to the school where I work and see it on an older computer. Notice how, at the bottom of my "Look again" cache page, I adapted the geochecker tool. I got the HTML code as supplied by the geochecker site and adapted it. When you click on the geochecker symbol the checker webpage comes up. To get the URL for the geochecker icon I used Firefox. Simply right click on the graphic and click on Copy Image Location. The HTML for the geochecker is… <br> <a rel="nofollow" href= "http://www.geochecker.com/index.php?code=f9ebfdcd8c81095f6b64a16b3595a0b9&action=check&wp=47433136573536&name=4c6f6f6b20616761696e206d7920667269656e6421&visitcount=1"> <font color="white">.</font></a> <a rel="nofollow" href= "http://www.geochecker.com/index.php?code=f9ebfdcd8c81095f6b64a16b3595a0b9&action=check&wp=47433136573536&name=4c6f6f6b20616761696e206d7920667269656e6421&visitcount=3838ccf6f9446c63fa91d414ecfb4c37"> <font color="white">.</font></a> <center><a rel="nofollow" href= "http://www.geochecker.com/index.php?code=ebd805460bd13ad0a2c3b67ca827c41b&action=check&wp=474354514842&name=497361616327732050757a7a6c65&language="> </a> <a rel="nofollow" href= "http://www.geochecker.com/index.php?code=f9ebfdcd8c81095f6b64a16b3595a0b9&action=check&wp=47433136573536&name=4c6f6f6b20616761696e206d7920667269656e6421&language="> <img src="http://www.geochecker.com/gc3_coin.gif" border="3" vspace="5" hspace="5" width="100" align="center"></a></center> The <br> serves as a break to separate the checker graphic from the text above it. I would also say use Firefox and NOT Internet Explorer when writing up a webpage. I do this in part because Firefox has a spell check built in. One of my pet peeves is careless spelling. One last thing. Copy all your work into a text document before pasting it into the GC.com edit box. -it
  20. Iowa Tom
    A lot of information can be found at this thread I myself do the HTML by hand. I do a lot of copying of code and pasting it in. It can be a real headache because the GC website tries to make corrections automatically, as far as I can tell. The corrections often add extra " " which disabled the ability of the browser to read the code for color and so on. I find it necessary to find the extra " " and so on and edit them out on the webpage editing feature. I may be able to help if you decide to do something the way I do. I use the auto-correct feature in Word to save time. Like when I type hreff.. up comes <A rel="no follow" href="http:// ">words</a>. To that I simply input a URL and add words that when clicked on go to the link. Good luck. -it
  21. Iowa Tom
    I tape plastic and PVC up with camouflaged duct tape (which rapidly fades to a cyan color) then paint the tape with Rust-Oleum camouflage spray paint. As I apply the tape I deliberately add wrinkles. If the paint starts to rub off I have the tape below to help. Yes it may fade to cyan if it gets exposed but the general leaf pattern remains and is a lot better than the plastic it covers. -it
  22. Iowa Tom
    Here is a cache that uses a transmitter.
  23. Iowa Tom
    Thanks, I just sent him the URL. -it
  24. Iowa Tom
    I am writing to a friend in The Netherlands about geocaching. When I direct him to a geocaching webpage will it automatically come up in Dutch or can he make it read in Dutch if it doesn't. -it
  25. Iowa Tom
    For all practical purposes this is correct. Water is only weakly diamagnetic. As far as I know the earth's magnetic field is not strong enough to see the effect. Here is a simple way to see it. I have not carefully read all of what they have to say at that website however.
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