reddragon72

Yep I covered that in my post. Also on the ruggedness, I Vibrant has a pretty tough screen, gorilla glass, and the device is pretty tough as I have dropped it a few times at home, but never out caching, go figure. Also there are plenty of rugged cases to buy for smart phones and if they can stand up to a drop in a parking lot then it should be good to go on everything but really sharp rocks(which I'm sure not many devices could withstand). As for the GPS it was pretty good and landed me on a couple caches and within 20 feet on others. I was just putting out some info and other suggestions on devices in the 150 range, and this is an option.

This isn't just a geocaching thing trust me. I almost had the cops called on me when we were stuck in traffic because of an accident. We had stopped due to it with me GF and my two daughters that we just picked up from their moms. After about 10 min of setting in the truck we noticed other kids getting out of their vehicles and playing, in stopped traffic!! WT.... So my kids seen other kids out playing and asked if they could, I proceeded to tell them no ans they asked several more times. They kept complaining of being bored, but I didn't want them out playing around stopped cars on the road. So what happens next is a lady goes walking by my windows looking at me very suspiciously. I didn't think much of it and me and my GF continued to talk. She then approached the truck and asked me to roll down the window so I cracked it open. She asked if the kids in the back were mine and me and my GF both said yes. I then asked why. She said because one of them drew a sad face on her drawing board and held it up to the window. She said that she was just about to call the police and noticed that the other child had red hair to match mine so she decided to ask first. I almost had the police called on me and my GF because our kids were mad that we would not let them out of the truck and decided to draw a sad face and show it to people.... This kinda thing can happen anywhere at anytime, and you and your daughter should not let it get in the way of a good relationship. I recommend that you and your daughter go back to the park and find the people playing with the dog and talk to them and THANK them for what they did. I know that a lot of people may disagree, but if what if they stop doing that and a child is in actual danger? And talking to them will help and bring closure to an unfortunate situation. If you stop geocaching with your daughter over this then what other things in your relationship will be effected? Break the trend now before all is lost.

It 'scrapes' the existing web pages for info and then reformats it for the APP. That is really tough on site resources and is forbidden by the Terms of Use agreement (TOU). The official geochaching app for android is broken. That's not true. It has a minor bug that only affects a couple of specific handset models, and is easily worked around if you have one of the affected handsets. I have one of the affected handsets, I've used both c:geo and the official app, and I prefer the official app. I'm not trying to convince reddragon72; I'm just posting this so new Android users won't assume that they shouldn't use the official app. Try it and make up your own mind! Mine wont show the maps. Supposedly there is a "fixed" version located on some not so good sites that I refuse to download. So as of now I have no map on my Geocaching app. I did word that wrong and yes the app does seem to work for most users, and I let a little anger get in the way when mentioning it being broken. Also when playing with the app(without the map background of course) something I did notice is that the official app doesn't put smilies for found caches. That feature needs to be added... now before you start thinking just turn off found caches, I like to show people that I run into that like the idea of geocaching what it is all about. So I pull up the app and the map and show them what it looks like and I love the smilies that show found caches for that reason, and I just like to see my accomplishments. I guess I'll goto the suggestion box for the official app and ask them to add that in there.

Wow I am surprised that everyone is missing a REALLY good geocahcing device. I purchased a Virgin Mobile Optimus V for my daughter a few weeks ago for 130 bucks at best buy. It is a fully functional Android phone. It can be setup without purchasing a Virgin mobile account and can install apps from the android market like Geobeagle and Geohunter, all VIA WIFI. It also has a pretty decent GPS setup in it and put me, in heavy coverage, within 20 feet of the cache. For 150 buck as a normal price and the fact that it is more then just a GPS device you cannot loose. I would like to note that running with the GPS on got me about 5 hours of battery and that seems to be the only real downfall of the device, but a 25 dollar Energizer charger will extend it another 4-5 hours. More then enough to get through a full day. I am just adding to the ideas of what is out there in terms of GPS device options.

There are third-party apps that respect Groundspeak's TOU. For example, GeoBeagle or GeoHunter. The difference is that a browser merely displays web pages, where a scraper processes the web pages to extract data so it can later reuse that data in a different way. I'm going to drop this as I am not affiliated with C:Geo and am not going to argue it's merits, as well as promote it. /dropped/

It 'scrapes' the existing web pages for info and then reformats it for the APP. That is really tough on site resources and is forbidden by the Terms of Use agreement (TOU). The official geochaching app for android is broken. Yes I have reported it. So for now people on android are forced to use non official apps. Besides your comment can be nulled by the fact that I can use my phones browser to pull the same info as c:geo so what makes the difference?

Could be a cache waiting review. Could be a cache from a different 'caching site (did it have geocaching.com info sheet?). Could be a reviewed cache that was denied. Lots of possibilities. This one right here is one you REALLY need to worry about. Me and my fiancee are trying to hide a cache and it seems the two locations have been to close to other caches. The reason for one of them is the cache is hidden and for "premium" members only so we didn't know it was there. This "premium" feature makes if VERY hard to hide caches and we are about to give up all together on this. So before you hide you cache hundreds of miles away you had better make sure that there are no "premium" caches there that you cannot see.

.... and as with so many other games, there are different rules and guidelines depending on where you play and who's controlling the game. Groundspeak is just one of the listing sites, and their guidelines say sign. My girlfriend and I just found our first one yesterday! I told her we are sticking to "my rules" which is every find must be logged! Think of it this way, you would never visit a historic place or location without taking a picture, so why show up to a cache and not sign the log. I am keeping that mind set, plus it just makes it feel more complete. I feel that this is going to be one of the best outdoor activities we've done in a very long time!