alexm

Greetings! This is no big deal unless it keeps happening... I have a query I've had set up since the first week or so of pocket queries, "All the caches in the state of Louisiana." Today's query shows up with a mere 77 caches in it. I checked the settings on the pocket query generator and all seems fine. Even the preview shows the four hundred and something caches I was expecting. The query I got appeared to be something more along the lines of "everything I've found within 20 miles of New Orleans, LA." I checked the Found/Not Found status in the GPX and it appears to be based on my finds. I haven't touched my PQ settings in a few months... It's almost like I got somebody else's query settings with my username attached to it. Any ideas? (and if the gods are going to look, it's query #877, the one I have set to run daily titled 'Louisiana-All'. It ran at "2004-05-12T09:25:28.3125000-07:00" per the <time> value in the GPX header)

Send a copy of that GPX file to the folks at quakemap. It's likely that quakemap is expecting some data to be in the GPX that quite simply doesn't exist in the magellan SD format.

bump! April 24th. Southwest Louisiana. Canoeing with optional overnight camping (and not to mention excellent company). What are you waiting for? Paddle on down!

Like I said on the cache page... Come hell or high water, I'll be there. (pardon the pun). alex

Silverfire, Both my wife and I *will* be there. See ya then! alex

I'm getting mixed queries also. One thing I've noticed. My "All caches in Louisiana" query shows up as "Pocket Query: Louisiana - All" and my others are all like "Files For: Near me not found." Another thing... My one query that reads "Pocket Query:" also includes "temporarily disables" caches in it also. i.e.: <Groundspeak:cache id="36554" available="False" archived="False" xmlns:...> I don't think those were in the old queries. ???

I think GPSBabel can do what you're asking. It lists Fugawi as one of it's supported formats. i.e.: gpsbabel -i gpx,gsshortnames -f ~alex/gpx/877.gpx -o fugawi -F foo.txt yields data that looks like: # Latitude, Longitude and UTM coordinates are in WGS84 datum # # Every set of data contains the following: # # Waypoint name # Waypoint comment # Waypoint description # Latitude in Degree and decimals (soutern hemisphere has neg. degrees) # Longitude in degree and decimals (neg. numbers: west of Greenwich) # Height in meters GC763,Wild Azalea Cache,Wild Azalea Cache,31.2389500,-92.6217500,0.0 GC7E2,Palomino Cache,Palomino Cache,30.5812330,-91.0131330,0.0 ... alex

Certainly! Much of the stuff is open to the public, but it never hurts to register. You may just end up getting one of the grand-opening door prizes in the process.

Thanks! It's sorta strange about Konqueror. Of course, your mention of that made me expand the browser test bed a bit. I was able to reproduce it in netscape 4.71 and narrowed it down to two left-open table tags... somewhere.... Cramming two close table tags into the footer seems to have solved that problem. It's a conflict somewhere deep between one of the modules/blocks and the theme I based the LAGeocaching look on (DeepBlue). Now for something really strange... I went to alacache.com to test against another copy of DeepBlue, and when I try to get into the forums using Mozilla 1.3.1, the forums open in the little scrolling "last forums posts" block! In IE whatever-version-i-dont-use-it-unless-i-have-to, it works fine. Two weirdos in a row. Take Care! alex

Yeah. It's the hair. Definitely the hair.

Don't say that. I've already given it some thought. I think it took me a little over two days to ride that section this past summer. Jamie I don't mean to get off topic, but has anyone seen my travel bug? He was on his way from Birmingham back to Memphis and got "logged out" offline. If you see him, please call the Memphis police department at 555-JZ4U Thanks.

Here's a dumb question... Is there any correlation between the new format of geocaching.com cache page URLS, the old format, and/or the Groundspeak:cache id tag in a GPX file? new way: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid={A44C8349-4F2E-45D6-B1A2-7D77FD799CD8} old way: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GCG289 gpx cache id: Groundspeak:cache id="67715" And is the old way ever going to go away? I'd think there are WAY too many existing links in that format, but I figured I'd ask anyway. Thanks!

Yeah, I recently obtained the domain from it's previous owner -- the grandfather of Louisiana geocaching and inventor of the campout event cache, Phil. Unfortunately, I made some poor choices along the way and have managed to position the actual domain, "lageocaching.com" into a place where I'm not willing to host it. That's the reason for the .com -> .org -> .com fiasco. In a few months I'll be able to straighten it all out and push .org to the background. I'm really excited about this whole thing, and I hope it goes over well with the locals. If it continues to go well, I've got a few ideas to make it better. I want to see how well the page counters go over first to see if people will actually use any "value added geocaching services" that I can come up with. Thanks for the kind words. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes! Alex

Excellent! I almost asked for your permission to steal some of the pics from your "Red Beans and Rice" and "Rolling on the River" cache picture pages, but I got tied up moving the site around between hosts and .com, .org, etc.... If it's just a matter of uploading them to the site (which can be time consuming doing it one at a time), feel free to email them to me in one big chunk. I can put 'em online in one fell swoop. That offer goes for anyone else with Louisiana cameras, or cameras that are likely to have Louisiana geocacher's pictures on them. We've got plenty of disk space and bandwidth for the site. I'm really looking forward to getting some more cache camera pictures on there. Considering the numbers of pictures I've taken at cache cameras versus the numbers I've actually seen, I don't think that too many cache owners keep up with it. Hopefully, this will work out for the LA folks and make it easier to get them online. I first did the Allons! pics about 9 months ago, and never got 'em online as I was never content with the layout. This way, it's out of my hands, and still looks pretty dang good... Thanks! Alex

Just a quick note to let everyone know that Louisiana's very own geocaching website, LAGeocaching.com is back! The official grand opening of the site is January 1st, however if you drop in early and register with the site, we'll enter you into a drawing for door prizes at the grand opening. We've got some decent stuff online, and more in the works. Probably the coolest things are the geocaching.com page hit counters & statistics. You can see one in action on my Allons! cache page. We've also have an image gallery with about 200 images of Event Cache photos, as well as never before published photos from the geocache cameras at the Allons! cache in Louisiana and Waterfall3 in Mississippi. If for no other reason, drop by and check out JamieZ's "Tarzan Boy' picture in the Waterfall 3 cache camera section of the gallery. I *almost* made it my geocaching.com avatar. So drop in and check it out. There may be some minor dust still left to settle, so please watch your step. Most of all, let us know if you have any ideas to make it better. Happy Caching! Alex

Can't help you on the lack of serial stuff, but the GPSBabel Project Page has a download for "magxfer", a Unix/Linux application for transmitting pre-made detail maps to a magellan unit via serial. You'd still have to "cook" the maps in mapsend, though. I guess it's also worth mentioning that GPSBabel does a fine job of loading waypoints to the unit via serial also.

Any idea what the guidelines may be? Thanks!

To answer both questions at once, yes. The style sheets are compiled into the executable at compile time and show up in the formats listing (gpsbabel -h). They can also be used externally at runtime via the "xcsv" input/output format. For example, in the gpsbabel source code tree there is a directory off the main program called "style". In this folder you'll find several files, including a "README.style" that explains what each style option does. The other files (*.style) are pre-defined csv style sheets that get compiled into the main program when it is created. The easiest way to make your own is to make a copy of one of these, modify it to your liking, and use it from the command line (if you don't have the resources to compile GPSBabel from source code yourself). For example, if you wanted a format similar to the MS Streets & Trips CSV format, but with a field for altitude, you'd do something like this: # gpsbabel XCSV style file # # Format: MS S&T 2002/2003 # Author: Alex Mottram # Date: 12/09/2002 # # # As requested by Noel Shrum on the gpsbabel-code mailing list. # Name,Latitude,Longitude,Name 2,URL,Type # GCCBF,44.479133,-85.56515,High Rollaway by rjlint,http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=3263,Traditional Cache # GC110D,44.6522,-85.492483,Brown Bridge Pond Peek-a-Boo Cache by Big Bird,http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=4365,Traditional Cache # GC171C,44.70605,-85.62265,The Michigan Frog by RealDcoy & LRB,http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=5916,Traditional Cache # DESCRIPTION Microsoft Streets and Trips 2002/2003 # # FILE LAYOUT DEFINITIIONS: # FIELD_DELIMITER COMMA RECORD_DELIMITER NEWLINE BADCHARS ," PROLOGUE Name,Latitude,Longitude,***Altitude***,Name 2,URL,Type # # INDIVIDUAL DATA FIELDS, IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE: # NOTE: MS S&T ONLY IMPORTS DATA, IT DOESN'T EXPORT THIS ANYWHERE SO WE CAN # HAVE OUR WAY WITH THE FORMATTING. # IFIELD SHORTNAME, "", "%s" # Name IFIELD LAT_DECIMAL, "", "%f" # Latitude IFIELD LON_DECIMAL, "", "%f" # Longitude ***IFIELD ALT_FEET, "", "%.2f" # Altitude in Feet*** IFIELD DESCRIPTION, "", "%s" # Name 2 (Big Description) IFIELD URL, "", "%s" # URL IFIELD IGNORE, "", "" # Holder for Geocache Type The sections in ***asterisked*** are additions to the existing file. Then to use your new file, you tell the xcsv handler to get it's directions from your new file with the "style=xxx" directive. For example: gpsbabel -i gpx -f my_waypoints.gpx -o xcsv,style=mycsv.style -F mine.csv The README.style combined with the examples in the style directory should be enough to get you going. If you have any other questions, please send them to the GPSBabel mailing list at gpsbabel-misc@lists.sourceforge.net. Although several of the developers of GPSBabel are geocachers, you're more likely to find a gpsbabel-aware audience there. And if you create a new format that supports a currently unsupported application format, send it to the list also so it can be included with the standard "compiled in" style sheets and save someone else the hassle of creating it from scratch. And if you haven't done it yet, you may want to get the Latest Release of GPSBabel, 1.2.0. More formats, more features, more fun. Hope this helps! Alex

Mozilla 1.3.1 here. No problems at all. On top of that, I can now do more than read when using Bitstream's Thunderhawk on my iPAQ. ???

Ditto.... Re-flash the firmware being sure to clear all memory before and after the upgrade. If you are still having problems after that, try re-loading your detail and/or basemaps. A corrupt detail map will exhibit the behavior you describe. ... alex

What you're feeding it is not a geocaching.com ".loc" file. It's an EasyGPS ".loc" file. Choose "easygps" as your input type and you should be smooth sailing. The two formats are not interchangable. ... alex

Your batch file for gpsbabel should look *exactly* like this to do what you are asking: @echo off gpsbabel.exe -i gpx -f %1 -o mapsource -F %1.mps Why doesn't geocaching.com offer mapsource as a dowload option? If they did one, then they'd have to do the rest when someone asked. NG Topo!, Topo USA, Mapsend, OziExplorer, etc... (GPSBabel currently converts between 40 different formats). By offering GPX format, they have essentially pushed the work for handling mutliple formats to third party applications like GPSBabel, EasyMPS, ExpertGPS, and the like. Which one(s) you use are, of course, personal preference. Or better than that, everyone should start pounding on the software makers (Delorme, Garmin, Magellan, etc...) to natively support the GPX format instead of everyone coming up with their own crazy file formats. Hope this helps! Alex

quote:Originally posted by rpecot:I'll be bringing a crew of my own - girlfriend and her two kids (Ashley couldn't make it this time ). I'm also bringing my canoe. I hope to place a hydro-cache while we're there. I read somewhere on the 'net that the lake was lowered 8 feet to kill off vegetation. Any reports on lake conditions? I called about a week ago (318-487-5058). According to the guy on the phone, the lake is drawn down a bit, but still open. He didn't say anything about the boat ramp being closed or anything like that. I'm dragging my boat along anyway. I'll be heading out earlyish today and dragging the stuff along to make a small (2 gallons or so) cajun gumbo for tonight. I walked outside at about 6:30 am this morning and suddenly realized that this is indeed decent gumbo weather. Hope to see everybody there! alex

quote:To make sure I had the syntax correct for the rest of the commands, I created a route in Mapsend Topo using manually placed waypoints. GPSBabel was able to filter the caches using the arc file from Mapsend. I would really rather use S&T since it follows the roads and Mapsend is point-to-point routes. Any suggestions or corrections? GPSbabels' "s_and_t" option doesn't do .EST files. The "s_and_t" format is really only useful for getting waypoints into Streets and Trips via the "import data" option in S&T. There is currently some work being done to reverse engineer the MS .EST/.AXE file format(s), but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it. .EST files are quite complex and very undocumented. Even if/when it does get completed, the routes stored in the .EST format are not arcs per se, but simply lists of stopoff points. The routes are generated on-the-fly. Using one of these to generate an arc from a route would be no better than a mapsend point-to-point route. The best I've seen so far would be the ability to "trace" over a route with the line tool and extract that line as a track/route. ... alex

quote:As much as it sucks - I won't be able to make it. Does Steph know how to get there by herself or do you need us to finder her & petie some detailed directions? Really though, bummer. I hope this isn't the start of a trend. Was really looking forward to enjoying a few free PBR's on Friday.