bigeddy

MacCaching, Garmin's RoadTrip and a few other apps can manage data to some extent but not with the comprehensive filtering and reporting features of GSAK. Maybe some day a geocaching programmer will do something similar with the elegant Mac OS.

You can pick up a PDA to run CacheMate for under $20 on various websites; this has been discussed on the forum many times, of course. At a certain level of caching activity printing cache pages is too cumbersome and expensive. (Note to OP: please excuse this tangent discussion.) Please let me know where you can find a PDA that runs Cachemate that is priced under $20.... thanks! Well, there are scores of Palm and Pocket PC devices on the used market that will run CacheMate. I am most familiar with Palm OS devices such as the III-series, V-series, m100 and Sony Clie, all of which can be had for $20 or less on the usual online auction sites. Amusing to see all the posts on printing PDFs. Seeing as how that is the Mac's native format it never occurred to me that printing would be such a hot topic.

The G1 works reasonably well given the limitations of the phone's GPS hardware and battery, and T-Mobile's smallish network. Many apps use GPS and the integration with Google Maps is wonderful. There are several geocaching apps already and although none is first class yet their developers are working hard. I've used the G1 and Geodroid to find 2 caches but, frankly, it will remain a backup to my handheld GPS receiver until both the hardware and software improve.

You can pick up a PDA to run CacheMate for under $20 on various websites; this has been discussed on the forum many times, of course. At a certain level of caching activity printing cache pages is too cumbersome and expensive. (Note to OP: please excuse this tangent discussion.)

I often save cache pages for historical reference. Still paperless. For actual caching I'm about 98% paperless. Complicated multi-caches and puzzles that do not translate well to GPX format or to a small screen make up the rest. And sometimes it is just easier to scribble on a piece of paper. As an aside, my favorite caches are those that require using paper maps. These are rare but are designed as an adventure for the geocaching connoisseur.

Thanks for the pointers. I quickly adapted and used the Mac's PDF print option to save a few cache pages of interest. Seems like a positive change. The one quirk I noticed is that a decrypted hint is missing the line returns which can make it hard to read. No PDF printing choice was actually the first thing that made me notice that some website changes had occurred. So, I came here to see what was up and found that this was the tip of the iceberg! Looks like I am in for some forum time to sort things out.

Most people familiar with the guidelines would not object to the outcome here: move the cache and tone it down. However, it is not as cut-and-dried as many of the posters make it sound. The guidelines can be quite subjective and difficult to understand, even for an old-timer like myself. Take, for example, "political agenda." What does that mean? How do you decide when a cache is simply related to an interesting topic or person and when is it pushing an agenda? I rue the day when we become so PC that only bland caches are published. I had a cache approved that was a tribute to a candidate for president (albeit a dead one) although it did not promote a point of view. I had another cache approved that was a puzzle about how the two major parties choose their presidential candidates. By all accounts people had fun doing the caches and learned something, yet both were "political" and had an "agenda" of education. When researching both these caches I found many others that were clearly political in subject matter. Whether or not they had an agenda is a judgement call. We rely on the judgement of volunteer reviewers which, although inconsistent, generally works well for us. Compared to "political agenda," the 528-foot guideline seems specific but even it requires judgement. I have seen differences in how this guideline is applied, and in a few cases it even appears that the reviewer forgot to check. I bet this guideline trips up would-be cache placers more than any other. It is especially frustrating in areas where there are puzzle and multi-caches. The game has become quite complicated and I don't think the cache submittal process has kept up with it. As an aside, I have an active puzzle cache based on the 528-foot guideline. It is precisely that distance from two other caches but the finder has to deduce where among the several choices. Funny how some experienced cachers don't seem to understand the concept.

We've had a few episodes of caches disappearing as well as the opposite--caches being posted by a sockpuppet to make people look when there is nothing there. Several of my caches have been taken and I suspect another cacher. I was able to figure out the culprit with one cache because they took a couple of travel bugs which were later placed in other caches (they didn't log the travelers but did sign the cache logs which made the link clear). It is upsetting to have a cache stolen, especially by another cacher. I can't think of anything constructive to do about it, though. When stuff like this happens I try to remind myself that this is a game, cheating is common in games, and our best defense is to encourage a community of cachers who help one another.

It is understandable that the developers are plowing new ground and do not want to commit to a schedule. I think most users are fine with that. We may get annoyed at long delays but we will accept them so long as we know what is going on. The important thing is to keep us informed of general goals and progress. Going 7 months without any word is bad. Quarterly if not monthly status reports--just a few sentences from the people working on it--would help.

Seven months later. Has there been any progress in developing a way for a Mac user to run the emulator? If I had a way to do it I could quickly double the number of cartridges in my state.

Well, waddayano. Pocket Tunes has a A2DP app for the Palm. How can they do that, with that "dated" OS? The Palm OS does not natively support A2DP. Clever programmers can work around such limitations although their efforts may create conflicts with other apps. At its best bluetooth has been an iffy proposition on the Treo, but for $19.95 Softick's app is worth a try for those who want to listen to stereo music.

A story at Palm InfoCenter says the 775p is being quickly phased out by Verizon in favor of the Centro. The 775p is still available for only $99 from Verizon's web store, a real bargain considering that last December it cost $299.99 with a 2-year contract. It would make a great geo-smartphone so act quickly if you want one, otherwise the Centro will be the only choice. BTW, I'm on Sprint.

I've used the Treo (600, 650 and 700p) for about 5 years with CacheMate and then GeoNiche. They work well for paperless caching and logging in the field. The Treo and the smaller Centro are fine, stable smart phones with a large library of applications. The main limitation is that the Palm OS is dated and does not do things like multi-task, support wi-fi or A2DP, or have a built-in GPS receiver (I have used a Bluetooth unit with it). A new OS is in the works for release early next year but will require new hardware. In recent years Palm has expanded into Windows Mobile and has some nice smart phones running that OS--not something I want to switch to but worth mentioning.

There are several reviewers in my area which can cause some hair pulling. For example, there was a new cache placed under 528 ft from of one of my caches but the reviewer said that was Ok because it was on the other side of a river. My cache was later muggled, so I archived it and put a replacement a few feet away--farther from the other cache than my original but still less than 528 ft separation. A different reviewer rejected it for being too close to an existing cache! I got a good laugh out of that situation. For fun I created a puzzle cache, Area 51 Geo-Node, based on the 528-ft guideline. That one got published quickly.

I stumbled across this interesting discussion. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I sympathize with the reviewer although I find it amusing that the extreme action of banning caches within highway rights-of-way resulted from "curiosity." It can be dangerous to talk to highway agencies! I say this with a smile because I have worked with federal, state and local transportation agencies on plans and projects, mostly on the west coast. I don't know the situation in SC but DOTs tend to be--how shall I put it?--rather single-minded in their purpose and that purpose is to keep cars moving. Also, they are classic bureaucracies. Ask different employees, departments or agencies something and you may get very different answers. Frankly, I would take what the DOT officials say with a grain of salt, and use common sense and accepted local practice in making geocaching decisions with regards to roads and highways. There are traffic safety considerations, of course, but in a broader perspective the public rights-of-way are intended for many transportation, economic and social uses including recreation. DOTs frequently ignore these other uses, often claiming safety concerns, until pressed. Intriguing subject that I'm sure we'll hear more about as geocaching grows even more popular.

If I understand the rules a cache must be within 0.1 mile of the lookout site. The final of Pine Mountain Stroll is roughly a half-mile away so I don't think it qualifies. I have a night cache about 0.15 mile from the site so it does not quite qualify either. I doubt if either of these affect the participants but I mention it for the sake of accuracy.

Unlikely to happen. As previously explained, what comes after onclick is JavaScript. While you only want to use innocuous JS, it's virtually impossible to analyze the string and determine automatically whether it's benign, so they have to prohibit JS. ... That makes sense, I suppose. But if there is little chance of JavaScript coming back and no alternatives, why are we left hanging for months? Why not tell us the ground rules for cache descriptions? I have to assume the site programmers have something up their sleeve; I'd just like a little hint of when we can expect it.

Which is JavaScript... I don't understand the problem. The cache pages are full of JavaScript. Our use of these event handlers merely calls simple images. Assuming that the code could potentially be used for nefarious purposes, is there is a benign way to do the same function (click or double-click a button to reveal characters)?

It would certainly add significantly to my use of the site. And it is a logical extension of the existing size categories: Large - bucket - 640 oz (5 gal) Regular - ammo can - 100 oz (about 1/6 the volume of large) Small - serving container - 16 oz (about 1/6 the volume of regular) Micro - film cannister - 2 oz (about 1/8 the volume of small) Nano - pill capsule - 0.05 oz (about 1/40 the volume of micro) The nano is off the scale--very different from a standard micro to my eyes--and really stretches the definition of a cache. The main (relatively minor) problem I see with adding a new category is that it will take some time to work its way into the cache listings.

It's been nearly 3 months. Some of my caches are still messed up by the stripping out of HTML code including onclick, ondblclick, onmouseover and onmouseout. Also, I'm unsure as to what code I can use with new caches; a list of excluded code and workarounds would be helpful. Thanks.

There are many reasons to read--or at least scan--the cache page for even simple hunts: special instructions, restrictions, history, and important logs from other cachers. In some cases you must read the description to do the cache as intended. The challenge is that there are so many caches. How do you find the time to read even a small fraction of them? When I research caches for a trip there are often thousands of potential hunts. Even after heavy filtering there may be hundreds of caches to choose from along a route or in an urban area. I try to make use of local bookmark lists but they are inconsistent. I use a PDA to store queries but that has limits and still takes considerable time. There's my phone which can fill in with real-time searches in coverage areas but takes more time. Groundspeak's search abilities are good and getting better but are far from sanitary. It has gotten to the point that I often run out of time, pick a handful of caches (out of hundreds) to do based on gut feel, and ignore the rest. Sometimes I aim for only requirements in challenge caches--anything to narrow the research to something reasonable. What do you do when faced with hundreds of caches to choose from and time to read only a few of them?

It depends on the park. Not sure of your area but we have been through this in Central Oregon and determined the following: No caches in: Pilot Butte State Park and Fort Rock State Park. Caches with permission in fee parks: certain areas are out and they would like some input for placement. Examples are Tumalo State Park and Smith Rock State Park. Open for caching: no-fee and undeveloped state parks. Examples are La Pine State Park, Cline Falls State Park, and Robert Sawyer State Park. Notes: 1. Certain areas are monitored and security measures are in place. 2. Where park grounds are close to private property, indicate a parking spot so that cachers will stay in the park when searching. 3. When in doubt contact State Parks. Good luck!

Thank you. Unfortunately the only answer to Mac use offered by posters including Jeremy is to run Windows on the Mac, an expensive and (in my mind) highly undesirable "solution." If Garmin, another company that states they have no platform bias, is any example we may expect a Mac version within, say, 2 years--the time it has taken Garmin to develop some minor Mac apps for some of their receivers. I hope to be proven wrong with Wherigo--we shall see. Meanwhile I can't even play the existing Wherigo cartridges because they are for another Windows-type platform, the PocketPC, whereas I use the Palm OS on my phone and PDA. I don't understand why a game for a large community of users is platform-specific. Try placing a cache that requires specific software to find--it won't get published--and yet here we are with Groundspeak doing just that.

That's not what I wrote. I wrote "at the start" meaning that the development at this point doesn't make resource sense, especially when the plan would be to make the builder application web centric to be OS independent. I don't have any OS bias but you seem to have it in spades. What I see now is a Windows-only builder and your statement that this is because of user share--that is what I was responding to. If the plan is for an eventual OS-independent builder, great, although it begs the question as to why initial development is Windows. Yes, I have OS bias, but I'm not a software developer for a large community of users. I am happy to hear that you have no bias.

I have a Mac at home and I can't say I'm happy or unhappy with the product. I live on both sides and just feel like they're all tools. Some do things better than others. True enough from a practical standpoint but note that satisfaction surveys place the Mac at the top in terms of the operating system, reliability and tech support. Computer users tend to be more productive when they are happy and spending less of their time on system problems and confusing interfaces. I, too, have used many different computers over the years (Commodore, TRS-80, Apple, Wang, Xerox, etc.) and more recently worked with a Mac and a Windows box side-by-side on my desk. There is no doubt which one makes me happier! Granted that I deal more with words, numbers and images than computer code but that's true of most people. I can't see why GPS receivers or geocaching apps need to be platform specific. Given today's knowledge and tools it should be straightforward to build universal code that is easily adapted to work almost anywhere. That would certainly make the >7% (and growing) of us Macs users even happier.