deskdata

You don't mention which phone you have. If you have an android phone then download c:geo from the play store. It's free and is the best geocaching app out there, by far. You can download, find, log, add notes and waypoints, in fact I can't think of anything, geocaching-wise, that isn't supported. I don't know if it's available for iPhone, but then I don't consider an iPhone as suitable for geocaching because you can't change the battery. Once the battery is dead you're stuffed. I've been using c:geo on ZTE Blade for years now and it's brilliant. In a ₤6 leather case the phone is robust and survived being dropped several times. Battery life is about 7 hours and should it die I just pop in a fully recharged one (which cost ₤2 on eBay). Definitely give c:geo a try. If you need an android phone you can pick one up on eBay for not much money, e.g. A new unlocked ZTE Blade V for about ₤50. Just make sure any phone you get has a magnetometer.

It is a game that runs very well thanks to this website. Pay them the $30 and just enjoy it. Don't list any PMO caches if they bother you. You can still refuse to find them. It would run better without the "enhancements" introduced for purely commercial gain. I'd be more willing to pay Groundspeak $30 to get rid of Premium Membership and PMO caches.

I think you have it in a nutshell.

I think we have a winner! I'll bet you a croissant that's the language and "quote" on the website that set the Cache owner in question off. First, my apologies for being silent on this forum since raising this topic. I have just returned from another skiing and geocaching trip, this time in Spain, and I only had very flaky internet access. (Before you ask, I did not find any PMO caches so won't be upsetting any Spanish CO's). I have not read through all the posts yet, but thanks to all the messages of support, and thank you to Bryan for deleting the defamatory notes posted by the CO on his archived caches. I originally let them go because my logs had been restored, so I had the result I wanted, the caches were archived anyway and, well, there's a danger of losing sight of the fact that this is a game and is MEANT TO BE FUN, so I was happy to let sleeping CO's lie. However, when my logs were subsequently deleted again by Groundspeak I was going to complain about the defamatory posts, but Bryan has saved me the bother, so thanks. Now ... Mr. Yuck, you are exactly right. The CO latched onto the word "Exclusively" and gave that as justification for deleting my logs. And who can blame him?, that's how it reads. In my original post I complained that Groundspeak were not applying their guidelines consistently, but the real problem is that the guidelines themselves are inconsistent. On the one hand Groundspeak are saying PMO caches are placed and FOUND exclusively by PMs and on the other hand they say that Basic Members can find and log PMO caches, and support a mechanism to do so. PMO caches were obviously introduced as an inducement to persuade members to part with their cash for Premium Membership, but they are ill-conceived and only serve to introduce divisions into the geocaching community. This "tinkering" with our hobby/game is the reason I choose to remain a basic member - I don't want to swell Groundspeak's coffers and encourage them to introduce further game "enhancements". Let's keep it simple and just enjoy it. It's only a game.

I thought this issue was cut and dried but I thought I'd share this incident which highlights Groundspeaks failure to apply their own geocaching guidelines consistently. I am a basic member. Like many others I sometimes go geocaching in a group which includes Premium Members and have been logging any Premium Member caches found. I don't know exactly how many but I suppose I must have logged getting on for a hundred Premium member caches without problems. Then in January, while skiing in France, I logged finds for two Premium Member caches. The CO subsequently deleted my logs without any explanation. I therefore contacted him to ask the reason and his reply was that Premium Member caches were for Premium Members only and he was in the habit of deleting any logs posted by basic members. After a further exchange of emails where I tried to explain the current guidelines on basic members logging finds of Premium Member caches it was evident that the CO was not going to budge. Now, the cache listing did not mention that basic members logs would be deleted, and because I had expended a considerable amount of effort to find them, I raised the issue with Groundspeak. On 8th February I received this response from Groundspeak: "Thank you for contacting us. I have reinstated and locked your two Found It logs. My colleague is currently working with the cache owner to explain why we have taken this option. And to explain that in fact, yes, Basic members can log PMO caches. Please let us know if you have further questions or concerns. Best Regards, Sara". So, Result. But then over a month later, on 11th March, my logs were deleted by another Grounspeak Lackey, Jessiep, again without any explanation. When I asked what was going on I received the following responses: "While this is not common practice we have decided to let the logs be removed. We are currently looking into our Guidelines in regards to basic members logging Premium Member caches and will be clarify this issue in the future. Regards, Jessica" When I asked what had changed to cause them to change their decision I received the following response: "We have addressed this issue as was appropriate for the situation. Regards, Jessica" So, no explanation then. Go figure.

I'm using Firefox 3.6.13 and Proxomitron. I've been getting the same error and putting up with it but today I just tried disabling Proxomitron temporarily and I can decrypt the hints. So it looks like it was one of the proxy servers' filters preventing the decryption.

Did you recently move up to Firefox 4.0? If so, exactly the same thing happened to me. The LeetKey extension, which I've used for years, isn't compatible with 4.0, either, so decrypting logs has become a bit of a pain. I actually had to do it the old-fashioned way this morning. My Pocket Decoder geocoin is finally earning its keep. --Larry I'm using one of the 3.x versions of Firefox and I have the same problem not being able to decrypt parts of logs (hints decrypt fine, but not logs). I'll have to try it on another browser (didn't dawn on me that my browser might be the problem - I just gave up and decided I didn't really need to read the logs that bad).

No, the iPhone is deliberately crippled in many, many ways. It's not that it couldn't do it technically, but Apple have imposed many political/commercial restrictions designed to prevent you doing anything that isn't expressly approved and authorised by them. The bluetooth support is exceptionally limited, and it doesn't support GPSr. Furthermore, because it doesn't support a GPSr, all the programs that use a GPSr use the internal GPSr and have no way to select any other. Rgds, Andy A shame, but then what do you expect from Apple? I use an external bluetooth (BT) GPS, bought off eBay. It's the size of a matchbox, supports 52 channels and is staggeringly fast at obtaining a position fix, even deep inside buildings. I paid £25 for it several years ago, looks like you can get one for a tenner now. (Yes, I know the most satellites visible over the horizon at any one time is never more than 12, but I presume the additional channels are used for error correction, which probably accounts for its staggering performance). If you could somehow get this working with the iPhone then it's a cheap way round the problem. I use mine in conjunction with a Sony Erricson phone on which I run a free program rather clumsily called LOCIFY. Locify downloads cache information and maps from the internet. This information can be stored on the phone if you think your internet connection may be flaky where you plan to go caching. It includes the basic cache listing, the decrypted hint, last few logs, and additional waypoint details. Once a link is established to the BT GPS it will navigate you to the designated co-ords by a soft compass. Locify actually does loads of other location based tasks as well - google it if you are interested. All that is needed is a standard bluetooth connection and the ability to run standard Java applications on your phone. Assuming you can run a third party Java application on an iPhone, and can establish a bog standard bluetooth connection to another device, then it should work. I can't help you with all the other shortcomings of the iPhone, though. Or you could buy any other cheap bluetooth, internet and Java enabled phone for use with an external BT GPS - the total cost would be far less that that of a dedicated GPS device and would be far more flexible.