mini cacher

I'm curious what you mean by this statement. "under the app" : under what app and where does it say it? I'm confused.

Well of course... the dog didn't mind the smell. But we owned the house and only we are allowed to fart in it. The UI has changed a few times. Using GeoBeagle for "on the fly" caching is pretty easy now:Open GeoBeagle. On the welcome screen, select the "geocaching.com" link, which opens the Android browser to the geocaching.com search page with the current coordinates. (You can also use AtlasQuest.com for letterboxes, or one of the OpenCaching sites in Europe.) In the Android browser, view the list of nearby caches, pick one, and navigate to its cache description page. On the cache description page, scroll down to the "For online maps..." list of links, and select the "Google Maps" link. The Android browser will ask whether you want to open the link in the browser, in the native Maps app, in GeoBeagle, or in any other installed apps that register an interest in Google Maps. Select GeoBeagle. At this point, GeoBeagle has the GCxxxxx ID and coordinates that were provided to Google Maps. You can use those to navigate to the cache. The cache description, hints, logs, etc. are accessible from the cache description page in the Android browser. As long as you have a data connection, you're good. But you'd need a data connection for any "on the fly" caching that isn't covered by your PQ data. ya... just went through those very steps. I must have been doing it wrong before because I didn't get it like that. However, that is not nearly as elegant as... uh... as I've heard it could be. *wink* All that scrolling and trying to tap on teeny-tiny links. If only there was a way to condense all that info into a form more appropriate for a small touch screen. It would be hard to ignore something like that. *sigh* One can dream.

IMHO, there would be less need to discuss this in the forums if Groundspeak posted a clear statement somewhere explaining their position regarding [name of app removed by author] violating their TOU.well... my dog farted one time and it smelled really really bad. But we all just ignored it and the smell eventually went away. I suppose I should give GeoBeagle another look. I had it installed for a bit but never got to actually do anything. I never tried it with a PQ because I don't really plan to use my phone for "preplanned" caching... I have a GPS for that. I want my phone for "on the fly" caching when I don't have my GPS with me. Access to live data is essential to that. So if GeoBeagle works like it has been described I'll have to try again. Maybe I was doing something wrong the first time. The UI was not helpful.

How do we know what application we can't talk about when you quickly remove any reference to that application?? How helpful is it to say "don't talk about [fill in the blanks] if you haven't filled in the blanks? Dude! What part of DON'T TALK ABOUT IT did you not understand?

me sad. me sit in corner. me cry.

GPSBabel 1.3.7 Beta will also communicate with the PN-40. I've used it before and it works pretty well. And it is free.

AIUI, "the app whose name shall not be mentioned" does not store anything. But... even normal browsers have a cache so there may be some wiggle room there anyway. IANAL either but one could probably argue every browser does at least some amount of "processing" between receiving the HTML and displaying it. They have rendering engines that perform this task and... unless the user must specifically instruct the browser to render each time... it does this automatically. Again, IANAL, but I view an automated scraper (robot, etc) as one that, when given a list of GC numbers, goes about its merry way automatically churning through the list, making page requests and recoding the data received. Obviously those can be easily detected by the speed at which it makes the sequence of requests. I'm pretty sure their is some sort of threshold already that will trigger an alarm. But AIUI "the app whose name shall not be mentioned" only reacts to user input... 1 click/tap = 1 page request... keeping that request rate on par with what would be expected from any other user/browser interaction. Bottom line though is that it is the Groundspeak TOU and they can interpret it any way they see fit on any given day. Whether they want to put the smack down on "the app whose name shall not be mentioned" because they see it as a big threat to their upcoming paid app or they really feel it is so naughty with its page requests... we'll never really know. There is a good number of Greasemonkey scripts with the sole purpose of making the browser alter the way it displays the page after it has received the HTML. I imagine a skilled GM scripter with some time on her hands could generate one that would make all the relevant pages on geocaching.com look just like those in "the app whose name shall not be mentioned"... now that would be funny to see.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that.

It scrapes the site, violating the following section of the terms of use: It is not a robot or a spider and there is nothing automated about it. The only thing that even comes close in that statement is the word "scrape" and that is stretching things quite a bit. I've watched enough lawyer shows on TV to know that one could just as easily make the argument that it is just a specialized browser with a custom rendering engine that makes a page request initiated by the user, receives the HTML returned by the server and then renders it (which was intended for large screens) is a compact manner suitable for small screens (think about what screen readers for the blind do... some translate it to a tactile output in the form a braille... is that a violation?). It is a shame because it is hands down the best free (authorized or not) Android app for caching.

All the more ridiculous that "the app whose name shall not be mentioned" is naughty when it basically does the same... with the user making the same clicks/interactions and does it all in one nice package (so I've heard). But since I'm a good little boy, I will eat my Soylent Green and eagerly wait for the official Android app... and hope that it IS the "Best" and not just the "Best approved" Android geocaching app". So far all the rest have not been the best.

I suspect you are hot fixing the gps reviews page since it is broken at the moment. Once it is fixed, if you haven't done so you may want to check the wording in the "reviews pagination" of a given device... it lists the reviews as "Devices 1-5", "Devices 2-10" etc. I suspect that should say "Reviews 1-5" etc.

so.. in the remote crazy chance that the player will ever be ported to the Palm OS, will that include support for a wired connection? My GPS and Palm communicate just fine via cable. That is unfortunate that a PPC can not do the same... and some people seem to think they are better? interesting.

I asked this question 2 days ago, no one answered me, maybe you will have better luck. I was hoping to use GPSgate but no luck since the Wherigo-player only accepts bluetooth and without knowing a good reason for that... it just sounds like a really stupid limitation. I have no problems connecting my old yellow eTrex to my old Palm with a cable... not that the player is ever gonna be a Palm app. I really really want to try this... but I really really don't have the funds to buy a bunch of new equipment just to try it... specially since there is nothing wrong with the equipment I've got.

Indeed. That one point may have been accidentally skipped over when this topic was first answered. But it would be nice to hear of any plans (or no plans) to make it available for the PalmOS. It would be kind of short-sighted to not recognize there is still a pretty large user base with Palm Powered devices. Buying a bunch of new hardware may be a burden to entry for some.

@Trailgators: Indeed. It just sucks that it ends up being a lose-lose all around. But there is a certain amount of "principle" involved.

It would be interesting to see how some sort of "boycott" of a park/agency would pan out. Unfortunately, it doesn't feel like there would be a huge amount of "public" support for such a cause since geocaching is largely unknown to the general public. And it is not like the park would "feel the burn" of a boycott the same as a retail chain or something... specially when it would appear that they would prefer fewer (or no) visitors anyway. I would even say that they are not likely to make a connection between "no CITO events" and "lots of trash on the road".

Well... I'd say that pretty much answers that question.

TFTT

@Trailgators: its unfortunate that you are dealing with both a land manager AND forum members that don't quite comprehend what is (and is not) going on there. I look forward to hearing more when more is known. Sorry we'll have to sift through all the noise in this thread to get that when it does come out. Good Luck. Edit: changed "here" to "there" since I am not there... I am here. I didn't want my post to mislead people into thinking I was from the area in question.

I've done that a lot before. I'll even do it when I only found 3-4 caches at a time. And I always try to make something in each log unique to that cache. I don't think that having some common text in each log should be a problem. And I don't understand how the cacher owner has the right to dictate that you don't put "#x of Y for the day" in your log. It does not seem to fall into the guidelines for reasons to delete a log. Since CYBret has lovingly chosen to refer to this lame log (thanks, sweetie ) instead of something like this one or even this one I feel the necessity to defend its merit. OK, so it may be stupid, but at the time I thought it would be helpful to see the percentage of hiders and hide types, time spent looking, number of DNFs etc. I have to say that I think I would find any of those logs a *little* annoying even if they showed up only once in my email. But I would never delete them. Those were your logs. They say something about you (although I'm not sure you'd like what some people think they say about you). But I think I would prefer these type of logs over the "TFTC" logs. (Although I've left those as well... sometimes that is all I'm inspired to write... and it does not always reflect the quality of the cache. We all have days where the mind doesn't work as well as other days)

WOW... who is this d-bag? I'm very curious to know what prompted the sudden change... if anything. Do we know if something specific happened?

Can he delete your log? yes Can you re-log the same thing? yes Can he delete it again? yes Can you re-log the same thing? yes Can he delete it again? yes Can you re-log the same thing? yes Can he delete it again? yes Can you re-log the same thing? yes Can he delete it again? yes Can you re-log the same thing? yes Can he delete it again? yes (this could go on for a long time.... )

I don't live there... and I don't know any facts. But..... If there have been some cachers/caches that violate the guidelines, then it would be very easy to punish those individuals directly... perhaps even use them as an example of what happens when you violate the guidelines. But to shut down the whole thing? that is lame. Geocaching is probably the only activity in these areas that actually has a record of who is doing what... where and when. which also makes it an easy scape goat for anything that ANY body visiting the park may have done. Ranger 1: Hmmm... this damage wasn't here last week when I drove by here. Ranger 2: oh.. well I can see that there is a geocache 100 feet from here and CacherX visited it just yesterday. Ranger 1: Well, there is no way that any of the 50 hikers that came by this past week could have done this. Clearly CacherX caused this damage. Ranger 2: Clearly... I guess we need to ban geocaching in the entire park.

I understand what you are asking. Like you, I understand the need make sure the data is updated but what is so special about the link on that page that the regualr "Forum" link on the left nav can't handle? I just bookmarked the forum separately and only go through the regular loop when I think my forum account needs updating which is hardly ever. I don't really think it makes that much difference in the end. Exactly!! Thanks for taking the time to think about what I am saying. Where I work, we are grabbing data from other servers constantly. That isn't exactly new technology. When someone logs into the forums, initiate an ODBC call to the geocaching.com servers and update whatever you need. Not rocket science, unless I'm missing something very important here. Yeah, I'm nitpicking, but thats what nits are there for. I don't understand. If going to the 'bridge' or whatever is a waste of resources, wouldn't it be a bigger waste of resources to do this type of thing constantly? huh? Anyone who clicks the "Forums" link on the left is going to always need to click the second link on the interstitial page... so how would it take more resources to just do what ever needs to be done when people click in the "Forums" link rather than when clicking the second link? Unless they intended it to be so annoying that more people would just bookmark directly to the forum and only use that link when they REALLY need to update their info.

I understand what you are asking. Like you, I understand the need make sure the data is updated but what is so special about the link on that page that the regualr "Forum" link on the left nav can't handle? I just bookmarked the forum separately and only go through the regular loop when I think my forum account needs updating which is hardly ever. I don't really think it makes that much difference in the end.