CanUK_TeamFitz

Thanks for you answers, Eartha. So I get the reasons why we should not keep a Car TB logged into a cache and "discovered it" is for others to be able to log it. So what about enhancing the discover function? Couldn't there be an option or a tick box to add coords and/or location, so this could also give a distance calculation - even if you weren't dipping? I know people ask for others to log where/when on their discovered logs, but this would provide better tracking integration with the site and all your dips too, don't you think?

Started off discussing this on BlueDeuces thread but didn't want to continue hijacking it. I have some questions and suggestions so I want to air them out and get some idea of what is acceptable and what can be improved. 1) Since most of the week my car is parked in an underground parking (and I usually tube it to the office) I'd like to find a way to expose my Car TB a bit more. Since leaving a Car TB logged into a live cache is not acceptable - are we allowed to post (most likely) coords on the mission/description? Obviously on condition that it's not always going to be there. 2) Any guidelines for dipping? I will walk/cycle/drive to a cache. However if I drive, park, then have to walk 3 miles, I still intend to dip my Car TB - is this acceptable? What if I attached my dogtag to my car keys and take those to the cache (which I already have done)? 3) What do you do if you get a new car, is it possible to change the name/description and carry on caching? OK so here are some thoughts I had that could be converted into suggestions: A) Should Car TBs be treated the same as normal TBs. It seems very restrictive to be limited to discovered or dipping? For example: If your car is going to be parked next to a cache for a few days - people could see where it's parked and be able to log it. B.) The argument against leaving your car logged into a cache is that some people wouldn't realise it's not a typical TB and therefore not actually in the cache - but wouldn't this be the same argument you could use against additional logging requirements? Yet these are allowed. C) If I created a cache that had the Car TB as part of the ALR - ie. this is where it's parked if you want to discover it - then what is the difference between this and a normal ALR like post a photo? Could it not be treated as a puzzle/mystery cache or something? OK Well that's all for now.. but I hope I can get some clarity as well as generate a bit of discussion about Car TBs. Thanks.

Looked through the FAQs.. gonna start another thread with a few 'new' questions. Sorry for all the grief.

I've got more questions, especially about rules that I don't see answers here or in the forums and I don't want to hijack this thread anymore. Is it ok to start a new topic about all this?

I'm still thinking about what bits and pieces I need (and want) to respond to, but that is part of my initial question. Is it working like you expected? Car travel bug are really supposed to be Discovered by cachers and are not intended to be primarily logged though or found in caches. Thanks. I didn't mean to throw a dozen curve balls at you. I just wanted to sound out what I thought would be a neat idea -- and so is there a 'suggestions box' for Groundspeak?

Well thanks for taking the time to research a bit more than I did and give an explanation that made more sense to me, but it seems that it does happen that a car TB will do more than just a 'dip'. Not to beat a dead horse here - and I am aware I am now sounding pedantic but I just checked this one out and he is definitely leaving his car TB in an active cache for a few days at a time. I don't see a problem with this - but I want to know how much this rule is enforced as it doesn't seem very consistent.

Fair enough. I don't mean to sound cheeky but I've now posted 4 that are doing exactly that. Are these going to be locked then? TBJVVX TB19063 TB1D0H8 TBJA33 And if I dip my car? What effect is that going to have - I'm not physically going to have my car in my hand when I log it - are you saying I wasted my money buying a car travel bug?

Look, thanks for your advice so far. It's not virtual logging though - I expect the car TBs owner to actually visit and find the cache - I thought I had made this clear. So the issue here is with leaving car TBs in a cache? On the other thread you made no mention against it even though people were posting links to their car TBs - which clearly show the cars being logged and left in caches. So the only objection here is that I would place a cache specifically stating this purpose? (find it, log it, drop car TB... retrieve later). Have you got a specific example of a TB that has been locked previously for doing this? Obviously I want to be sure that this actually happens, since I'm considering dipping my car and if I create this micro cache I intend to leave my car in it. I found a couple more examples of this too, all I'm suggesting is making a cache specifically for this purpose: TB1D0H8 TBJA33

With all due respect, others are already doing this: 'Dipping' car into caches: WYLDFYR, TB21Q1Z Leaving the car in caches: TBJVVX, TB19063 Here's a thread discussing it - http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=192076 - interestingly enough BlueDeuce, you're even on this thread! So I'm not suggesting anything new or breaking the rules - it seems that people leave their car TBs all the time. It doesn't seem frowned upon either so I'm surprised you have an issue with what I'm suggesting.

No I don't mean a TB-garage for anyone to log from their armchair. I mean real micro cache - but instead of a 'hotel' it's a 'garage'. I've read plenty of threads where people who have car TBs log their car TB into the caches that they find. Well this would be a micro for anyone to find, but it would just so happen that if someone had a car TB they could also log it in and leave it there, until they just want to retrieve it. I've read at least one other car TB where the owner lets people 'steal' his car and drop it in their found caches. Later he just retrieves it again.

I've just received my car TB today. A magnetic one I have attached to the back of my Rav4 and I'm now ready and waiting: TB2RM8G But I've been thinking about expanding on the idea of the controversial TB hotel. Since some people log their car TBs in and out of caches - I'm thinking of creating a Micro CarTB-Garage. I'd place it at a car park near me and allow people to 'park' their cars in the Micro. Of course the beauty of a CarTB-Garage would be that all the cars are virtual, the owners can grab them anytime they want to move on, so it's not the same as a TB Hotel where they can get imprisoned or muggled. What do you think?

You were disappointed to find several actually useful implements in the cache? Perhaps one of those pencils made it's way into a cache without a pencil of it's own, just in time so that some dufus newbie (who hasn't learned to bring a pencil of his own) could actually sign the log. Yeah no problem with that except when it's a medium size cache, with only 3 small trade items and several pencils.. plus a (non-Ikea) pencil in the bag with the logbook.. you do wonder. But maybe it's just me? I think I should go to Argos and grab a load of free pens for the next cache I do and swap out all the swag - after all - I'm leaving something useful!

Well since you can log a DNF on a muggled cache, what if someone actually DID find it? I'd love to see someone log the following:

OK rating systems aren't bad, as long as they are implemented in the right way.. and contrary to some of the objections I see here over idea - they do work in general. 1 or 2 bad ratings against 50 good gives someone a general impression it's good (and they should see it's e.g. a PND or virtual or Multi etc... first - therefore it's a good/bad multi and if they hate multi's they will avoid anyway). 50-50 will mean just that, there's a chance you'll love it or hate it. Anyway, this got me thinking. Maybe not an open terrain/difficulty rating system - but what about a log/comment system like Amazon.com? Amazon have a feature with the most positive comment/negative comment and a few key words could help someone determine if it's the cache for them rather than a simple 1-5 rating. (Eg. "I'm a wheelchair user and this was difficult to get to" or "I really enjoy scraping around in the dark so this was a great cache!")

I'm quite tempted to get a mobile dongle and take my Ubuntu Samsung NC10 out into the wild. Maybe in the future, I have no problem for the moment logging finds when I get home, but maybe for something like when we go camping - would be useful. Particularly being able to download and send new gpx to my Garmin from anywhere.

Doesn't always have to be swag just for kids though? I mean there's plenty of small £2 tools or other useful things for adults too. I'm married but have no kids so it's nice when someone leaves some kind of small useful item (and I do have McToys in my swag bag too). I've noticed elsewhere forum members have their own swag as well as each of their kids having swag too - so everyone swaps. It's not just a family sport so think of us 20-30 somethings.

All I can say is that I'd feel cheated if I was the second person to come along and found out I discovered a replacement cache rather than the original.. especially if the original was still there! The reward for me is in finding it - the harder the find the greater the reward.

I'm no Linux sysadmin, but think of myself a few steps beyond beginner and have Ubuntu Linux installed on my home system and Netbook. I have managed to get GSAK working under wine and am happy to offer help to get it running if you want to run Linux. The other suggestion I didn't see mentioned was running XP under a duel boot - most Linux distros will allow you to automatically repartition the drive and install a boot menu for you. Let me know if you need help. Just to explain the process: GSAK doesn't completely handle the transfer of GPX to GPS - instead it passes the task to a backend program called gpsbabel - which is basically a Linux program ported to Windows! All GSAK does is provide a GUI for configuration. (and yeah, it really ticks me off that GSAK benefits from using open source Linux-based software but doesn't develop a Linux version ). Anyway it's a simple process of replacing the Windows version of gpsbabel with the Linux version of gpsbabel and you're away - the process is described on GSAK forums somewhere (haven't got the linky sorry) but I had to tweak it a little. But basically it's a script and I have it so I can forward it to you and give you instructions on how to install it. I read somewhere of a hack for Virtual Box free version that let's you use USB ports - Ubuntu forums I think. Anyway I don't use virtual box so I never tried it. However, if you have a VMware image of Windows VMWare player lets you use USB ports, also I think Qemu let's you use them too. There's quite a few open source virtual OS packages in the package manager to try.

I went to a cache which is just off a motorway and found quite a lot of Ikea pencils in it. Obviously from the big Ikea which is 20 miles down the same motorway - was quite disappointed and logged my disappointment. Seriously - wooden Ikea pencils - that's just lazy and/or stingy!

So far I only have 28 caches behind me, but the best thing I found was a mini-screwdriver set with 4 bits in. It was in a disk shape with a hole in the middle to fit the bit. This was when I was in Canada and unfortunately the 'Robin Hood' airport security (don't worry all of the swag we take from you goes to a charity and they get the money) deemed it too dangerous an item to take onto an airplane. I can understand the dangers of a full-size screwdriver, but I would hardly have been able to scratch someone with it. If you looked at the thing you wouldn't think twice about it.

Thanks Blorenges/Knowschad, Unfortunately I wasn't carrying any paper, but I'll make a note to add some notepaper to my caching bag for my next hunt!

I may be wrong, but I think BBs are only able to calculate coords when you're moving. So if you slowed down as you approached GZ it may be a little off? Anyway, don't give up, micros can come in different shapes. Also check anything that seems to stick out. I put my fingers on a key-hider micro twice thinking it was a part of the metal street furniture I was searching. I've seen some hanging in trees too.

No idea about all this. I've been using IE8 regularly for some weeks now, with no problems at all. Regular anti-malware scans and virus scans show up nothing. No web pages cause problems. It's as fast as anything else I've seen. It never crashes. What more do I need? Are you using it with the compatibility mode switched on? I suppose it depends on browsing habbits too. If you mainly visit a number of regular web sites.

Hi All, I'm a relative newbie based in the UK, but I got a great head start from my bro-in-law and who hooked me on geocaching in Canada. Thanks to him taking me on his caches, got me signed up to a premium account, guided me through all the ins and outs. In turn this accelerated my geosense and made me quite confident to go it alone (& with wife) when I got back to the UK. Recently I came across a micro where the log was completely full and people had started logging on the white-spaces. I literally took the last 'white space' there was, and logged it as a 'needs maintenance' - but now I'm having second thoughts, particularly since it seems that most COs are happy with the honours system. My question is, when a log is full but there is nothing wrong with the container itself - is it right to log it as needing maintenance? Or is that supposed to be reserved just for caches that are damaged/wet?

I keep on top of security thank you very much, the issue lies with FF. When FF can perform at a satisfactory level I may move until then no amount of geeks wittering on about security holes or standards adoption will persuade me to accept it's sub-standard performance. If FF want to lead the standards war they need to make their software work better I just don't understand the attitude of the FF evangelists, I can accept that you may like it but do you really need to convince everyone else that they're at risk to promote your chosen browser. I've used IE extensively for over 10 years with no problems, maybe it's not as full of security holes as you allege or maybe we all need to use some common sense regardless of our browser choice? Not that I don't believe you, but it makes me suspect that you may not know what an actual browser problem looks like - like malformed webpages (it's the site-designers fault), browser-hacks (someone reading and watching your web browsing without you knowing), trojans and viruses (operating behind the scenes doing all sorts to computer but hey, browser works fine!). Absence of symptoms does not mean all clear. Viruses and malware don't always announce themselves or their activity. Even hard-core techies get computer problems (it could be argued they spot a lot more problems than the ordinary user - as they know what to look for). And I will say that Firefox is not immune, neither is Safari, Chrome, Opera or any other browser. It's just that you will find, due to their open-source nature and speed of updates that Firefox and Chrome at least, will get security holes plugged faster. You may be interested in this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7784908.stm Oh, and if you think IE is rendering pages for you now just fine, wait till you are forced to update to IE8 where Microsoft have finally adopted web standards - get ready for lots of broken websites designed for IE6!