Arrow42

Like I said, you would need sophisticated statistical analysis. Since the current distribution of caches is a known factor you could weigh finds appropriately. I know what I'm talking about... I watched Numb3rs at a Holiday Inn Express.

I can't answer what might compel you, I can only comment on what would compel me - as I have already done. I just used that blow-up as an example since it had some interesting detail and was sharper then other parts of the image. I know... the guidance on the upload page is full of lies. I think the image processor they are using is GD instead of imagemagick... but I could be wrong on that.

Here's the full sized version of the image I was trying to make... scaling down my example of scaling down is kinda redundant. The image on the left is scaled down to 600px wide and the image on the right is full size.

I can't speak on behalf of Groundspeak so I'm just suggesting what I would like to see. If there is a technical problem with accomplishing what I'm asking for then I trust them to either A.) reject the idea, B.) modify it so it works, C.) resolve the technical limitations. Since we don't have any idea what may or may not be posible then it's useless to try to limit our suggestions based on that. In a (crappy) motivational seminar I attended a few years back they called these self-imposed limitations to our thinking "painted cattle guards". Forcing users to leave geocaching.com any use other websites is not a great strategy in my opinion. I have already signed up with an image hosting site so I can upload images for this thread... I had to find one that isn't blocked by the proxy at work.

Detail can be interesting. Also, if I want to use someone's image as a background I need to be able to crop it down to 1280x2048 to fit my duel screens (at work). In any case, as long as something like I suggested in my last post you can simply not click on them if you don't want to see them.

PLEASE do not allow 10MP pictures to be uploaded to the site...or at least left that size after uploading. I frequently access the site through my cell phone and don't want to have to wait 15 minutes for a picture to download. A high-quality 10MP image with 0 compression (direct from my camera) runs about 4MB in size. After post-processing and light compression the image is usually about 2MB. If your using a Blackberry or iPhone that isn't an unreasonable size, even if the extra detail is wasted on that screen. I'm not unsympathetic with slow internet connections (whether it's dialup or cellphones) but I don't think the right option is to dumb down the entire site to fit the worst connections out there. A better option, in my opinion, would be for the site to include a link for two different sizes: "Low/Hi" or something similar. Many websites already do this and the tools to accomplish this are built in to almost every installation of Apache/PHP on the planet. In fact, two options are given when setting up the server... Incidentally, geocaching.com already utilizes the poorer version of the two... but there are reasons why they have chosen not use the better.

The "navigator" software is not a product that is developed by Groundspeak, so this isn't the right place to get support. What is the name of the program? "Geocache Navigator"? if so, try here: http://www.geocachenavigator.com/Forums/ta...28/Default.aspx

Suggestion forums is thataway: --->

You mean... not search for a cache? Unposible! Blasphemy!

Why want things better? I dunno. You still driving that horse-drawn cart around? 125K, the current limit, seems pretty small to me considering the enormous descrease in storage costs over the last couple of years. I can usually get reasonably good quality at 800x600, but I would like to be able to have higher quality images, as well. On the other hand, since the images on this site are not likely to ever be printed, but are intended for viewing on a computer monitor, anything bigger than 1024 pixels across is probably not useful. Even if it's not printed, it's often nice to be able to zoom in on a feature and get a closer look. 1mp images (1000x1000) don't let you do that, but 5 to 10 mp images do.

Thank you for letting me know the exact limit - it escaped my mind. I do remember uploading images that were around 5MP after I cut them down. When you decrease the resolution or compress the image you lose lots of detail and generally make the quality of lesser quality. I have an nice camera and I'm getting better at using it... I would really like to be able to share that.

I intend to have some coins made like this someday... maybe.

I would sugest that you as troop leader take ultimate responsibility for the cache and create it under an account that you control directly. Kids by their very nature lose interest in stuff fairly quickly and there isn't much worse a cache owner can do then abandon a cache. There is no reason why you can't make setting up and looking after the cache a troop activity. I've seen a few caches put up by boy-scout troops and it's worked out fine as far as I can tell.

One of my favorite locations that a cache-hunt has brought me has been to a town dump. Unfortunately I didn't find the cache.

Haha... nice. I ran across a letterbox a few months ago. Relay nice cache... "small" but it was a good quality container, some nice swag, neat hand-carved stamp. Relay put to shame the crappy waterlogged 35mm film canister that I was after!

I try to live by the mantra "Be the kind of cacher you want other to be". I don't usually trade, but I frequently will leave an item or two without taking anything if the cache is sparse. How wheels, arrowheads, key chains, carabiners, playing cards, flashlights... you know, that kind of thing.

The day you decide "well, I'll wear shorts this time..." will be the day with 11 thousand burrs in your socks... *grumbles*

The whole internet works better on FireFox.

After you have initialy created the cache there is a link to upload images. After the image is uploaded copy/paste the address to the image and use common HTML to include it into the page. Example: <img src="http://img.geocaching.com/user/display/5c869db4-69b3-4fae-a63a-ba83e6bed0de.jpg" /> Results in:

<1 mp is just silly. Even on Waymarking I can upload 5+mp images without much issue. It realy is too bad that we must sacrifice so much quality when uploading an image. 5MB would be my preference, but 2MB would make me a happy camper. Oh, can we also get some kind of accurate limits listed on the upload page? They seem to be weirdly inaccurate.

I'm under the opinion that given enough finds and some high-tech statistical analysis someone could narrow down your home address to within a mile or less. From there other clues, such as first name and/or birthdate could be used to narrow it down further. Then again, I'm probably just being paranoid. Anyone who possesses the kind of resources and the motivation to dedicate the time could probably just get a subpoena anyway.

I'd like to see some way to sort bookmarks other then the default of alphabetical. Here are the choices I'd like to see... perhaps there are other useful ways to sort it that I am not thinking about? Alphabetical Distance (From Home Location Type (and then alphabetical) Type (and then distance) Found/DNF (and then alphabetical) Found/DNF (and then distance) Active/Disabled/Archived (and then alphabetical) Active/Disabled/Archived (and then distance) Set the default-default as Distance, but let the list owner switch the default to whatever suits them. - Arrow

This is fairly arbitrary. Should a skirt-lifter with 100s of finds be valued more then a cache at the end of a 4 mile hike with a few dozen finds? What about a challenging puzzle vs a "+1, -1" style? Value is not something we can define for others and without assigning value the concept is only useless... yet, perhaps still mildly amusing.

Geocoins? Awesome.

Define "many". Cache containers down pipes and other hidey-holes you can't get an arm down may not be common, but they're certainly not unheard of. Of the 1038 caches I've found so far, I'd guess that 25-30 of them were like that. Of those, most could be retrieved with a magnet but I can recall 7-10 which were plastic containers with velcro on the lid. Pete Found one recently...plastic container in a metal pipe with nothing on the lid. I used a wad a duct tape on the end of a long screw driver.