missionMode

My second Lab was based on a temporary art installation that has now been removed. At the moment I've turned the Lab "Off". Can I assume that if I "Delete" it things will behave the same as a normal geocache and folks won't lose their finds? Or should I just leave it there as Off? It will not be coming back.

One very important feature missing from the new page (and suddenly broken on the old page) is the checkbox to ignore logs before the last time you uploaded your logs. I switched back to the old page but it doesn't show you the checkbox until after it's already uploaded your entire file of drafts, so it's now too late to have any effect.

While the response doesn't appear that feedback will be considered that heavily I would like to add my voice to those who don't want to see the "Add Coordinates" go away just because it takes a small amount of space on the screen. More and more new users are trying to hide with their phones; and of course doing a HORRIBLE job of it. The new app still doesn't provide an averaging function or suggestions to use it. Lack of use doesn't always mean a feature is less valuable. It sometimes mean a practice isn't encouraged enough. This is moving in the wrong direction.

edit: I think you've just helped me with something in your description. I didn't realise the difference that if I was looking at the map for a specific PQ that it used the corrected coordinates. I see one of my puzzle solutions doing that now. Your idea may be useful too.

No kidding eh? I was going to go caching morning, but now I have no PQ.

I have mine switched to classic view when I go straight to Google maps but for some reason when I come from Geocaching.com it reverts back to New Google Maps. I guess it doesn't matter if we can't get the stupid PIN to show up.

My bookmarklet for grabbing the coordinates isn't working anymore and the distance measure tool is gone. That might have been a greasemonkey thing it's been so long since it didn't work. I hope so because I use those a lot. Whew I was able to go back to classic by clicking on the ? icon. I see a lot of comments from people who want these features back.

I was worried I got a virus or something, and then thought perhaps I had mistakenly created a calendar event in google that was called yes, but just now realized it was on the map. I am guessing this is somebody's debug information left behind.

In the end I am not really happy with it. Most importantly my daughter isn't happy with it. Since we have a full GPS the two-button paging and limited info on the screen is really frustrating. She'd just rather not bring it anywhere. I see the eTrex is newish again. I might try and sell mine to my brother whose kids are smaller and get her something better.

I just ran into this. Didn't have my finds from last night and I was wondering what was going on. "Luckily" I had mostly DNF last night so the number I had to manually download was low. I guess I could have just created my own pocket query too.

I just wanted to double check... the custom cache feature is not the Pockey Query support right? That's still not available as far as I can tell by navigating your website. More on the reasons TO buy a Geomate. I have a full GPS. I don't need 2. I'm not going to buy a second unit for my 10 year old daughter that doesn't have full paperless support or at least decent map and turn by turn support, and even those that don't are at least 20 or 30 dollars more than this unit. She would do fine with a full unit but will be tickled to have her own, no matter what it is. But what really sold me on it? The black friday $49 price at Amazon. That's cheaper than most Lego sets. So, instead of buying her cousin some lego, I bought them each a Geomate and they will open them at the same time. And if Pockey Query support is ready by then I can have the caches near my folks' house all set up ready to go... and now thanks to this thread I guess I will hide a private cache in their yard with some more goodies...

I began exactly one year ago, so my first 5-6 months of caching were in the snow. My first FTF was in a blizzard. I was surprised to find on the weekend that I still have over 400 winter-friendly caches to go after. My biggest help as I began last year was to depend on the "Found in last 7 days" search attribute. I never had any lack of finds. I did find on the weekend that my DNF rate went up significantly as it was last year. Part of that was visits to previous summer DNFs hoping that lack of foliage would make them easier. Unfortunately wind and driving snow removed that advantage.

Ordered 1 for my kid and another for her cousin. They can share the update cable.

In fairness, maybe the world could do with a calmer approach to trespassers. Perhaps the getting angry could be a secondary response. That would probably cause just a "few" less shootings and a little less work for police. Being civil gets the job done just as well. I've had one encounter of this type, but with a property owner who was far more reasonable in his approach. There is a local business park which is landscaped better than most of our public parks. It has treed rest areas with picnic tables near ponds etc. Of course that makes it the type of place people decide to hide caches, not thinking about the fact that it's really one big parcel of private property. People do use it as a park in off-hours. It was not really much of an issue until a new cacher with less than 50 finds placed one pretty much exactly where the undercover security guy parks his car. It was muggled the night it was published yet the guy went and hid another nearby. I showed up for "a quick find" but as a newbie the coords were horrible. After a few minutes, one of the property owners was leaving for the day (7:00 pm or so) and he drove up and rolled down his window. I could tell he was on the unhappy side of things but he still decided to ask before yelling. I explained what I was doing and he indicated it was private property. I assured him I was not causing any harm and that most people looking would be respectful of the property while searching, and I offered to leave if he was still uncomfortable. He said that wasn't necessary. I still decided not to stick around, since it wasn't at the posted coordinates and I was spooked, but it's been found a number of times, almost exclusively with security sitting right next to the person watching them. As far as I know that's only because of where it's placed because there are 10 others in the park and I never heard about security issues at them.

I read that it was going to be 98° which is great for those of us higher north...

Photo Edited is the locally hardest puzzle. I can't count the number of hours I have spent looking at this one. Friends, friends wives, even people who aren't caching have tried to solve it.

Seems to me that the CO is just using it as an easy drop-off point for other TBs they pick up. It's not a horrible idea. I know from going to events that an awful lot of TBs can be dropped at an event and they might not all get picked up. This is one way of re-distributing them without too much work on the part of the person who ends up holding them. It's not really all that different from a "TB Hotel" except its more of a launch point.

My most recent cache was found in 1 hour and muggled within 3 hours. Apparently a cache in that spot a few years ago had trouble right away also. This is what I get for having a series of caches near Skate parks. In my city FTF is almost always less than 20 minutes, including the surrounding countryside. I've been beaten by 5-7 minute FTFs a number of times (I think I was there 12 minutes after publish in both cases) and also found a few within a mile of home within that kind of time.

Oh, I agree. Personally, I don't lift skirts in store parking lots, but I agree they "deserve" a TFTH log. I did find a rather "basic micro" in a nice park yesterday though, and although I suspect it will draw some "TFTC" logs, I didn't write one. Especially since it was their first hide, I found it on it's 2nd day, and they would probably be looking for feedback. So yep, drive-by micros weren't always around, but once they appeared in large numbers, dropping TFTC on them has been common for a few years. But these days, any cache, even a half mile hike in the woods to a .50 ammo box, is subject to getting a log like this: Joe Schmuck (20 found) tftc A perfect summary of where I stand on this topic. How did this turn into "people shouldn't cache with their phone"? That's so completely not the original point as far as I can tell. Focus on the word "trend". More and more logs REALLY SUDDENLY are now coming with no more than "logged from my mobile device". I wouldn't mind at all if the logs on my caches all had a signature type thing at the end that said "logged using Cacheberry on my Blackberry Bold 9700" as long as that is not the only log. I agree that it could be interesting to know what people are using. In my case very useful because it would let me know whether anybody else is using the same GPS as I am, since I have only met 1 other person in my area who uses the same one as me. Frankly, it would also be useful so that when a cache is 100 feet away from the posted coordinates I could check the owners logs and see that they are finding caches on their iPhone and likely hiding them too, which might make me increase my search radius.

A local cacher took it upon herself to write the following HTML snippet and put it at the bottom of her cache pages. Despite our pessimism that "it would actually require the finders to read the cache page" she found that her problems almost all went away. So I did likewise and also have found that things have improved. I even saw one log get edited from a TFTC to a meaningful log describing the fun they actually had in a tricky find and an honest thanks for placing it. The snippet looks like this: <p style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 15px;"><b>Logging Etiquette:</b> Geocache hiders sometimes go through a great deal of planning to place their caches. As a result, they'd like to hear your feedback on whether you liked or disliked any aspect of the hide, or if you feel that some cache maintenance is required. Single word, acronym, or emoticon logs may be easier when you have a lot of caches to log, but it doesn't tell the hider or other finders anything about your adventure (or lack thereof) in finding the cache. Please keep this in mind when entering your log.</p> No threats, no accusations - just a request. Education. Seems to work.

Why not just order from REI? They will ship it, and the exchange isn't bad right now.

The PN-40 does routing in Canada just fine. Lots of POI and accuracy is good. I am in Manitoba and the moment I took the PN-40 out of the box I ran the installer to put the Canadian regional and street maps on the device. They are as up to date as any other maps I have seen and very complete in major centres. It was immediately able to tell me I was at my address on my street. I did install the Topos but I have to say I wasn't very impressed with them. I ended up removing them from the PN until I need them because the device seemed to forget occassionally that I had turned them off. So, I think the only real question is whether the installer works ok on a Mac or whether you can figure out how to do that. You might still want to hold off on the PN until the 60 comes out because even if you don't want the 60 there is some chance the price of the 40 will drop.

Not to throw a wet blanket on all this PN love... since I feel the same way about mine... but I glanced at BGGs profile (I was curious whether Blue and Gold meant my local Winnipeg Blue Bombers football team - in which case I would start giving you advice for using a PN in Canada) and I noticed that all of your finds are in Europe... I'm not sure how good international support is in the PN at this time. I know they are working on it, and will likely have more to say in the next week or two, but you might want to make sure you check into that fully.

I fear I may not like your collective answer to this question, but here is what I faced this past weekend. I visited a cache in a hole in a tree which required climbing. I climbed the tree, found the intended container. Unfortunately the container was put together similar to a travel bug with a little container chained to a ceramic dog, and somebody earlier that day had broken and dropped the smaller container and the log sheet down into a deep hole in the tree. I had the cache in hand, there just wasn't a log available to sign. I left both a "Needs Maintenance" and a "Found" log. The person who broke it logged their find after I did. It occurs to me now that I might have taped a new log to the cache and that would have allowed me to physically leave a log. I logged the find with the consideration that the only thing preventing me from signing the log was that it was no longer attached to the cache.

In my work I have responsibilities to meet "billable targets" and to ensure that my work is getting done. How I do that is considered my business, as long as I am being truthful and responsible about it. That means it hasn't stopped me from dashing out once or twice to get an FTF. I just have to work a bit later or at home in the evening to make up the time. Also it happens that one of my senior clients is a geocacher who I have known for 15 years. We are starting to make a habit of some lunchtime caching to get away from the stress of the day. Just like some of us enjoy Geocaching as a way to be more active, it can also be a great way to encourage us to take our breaks.