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Miha Ivan

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Posts posted by Miha Ivan

  1. OK, I am a little lazy, I didn't go through the 24 pages on this topic to see if the question is answered anywhere.

     

    It appears that there is no way to get a pocket query that contains archived caches so that the status can be updated in GSAK. Has anyone come up with an automated way to do this?

    Most common way is to sort on last update GPX date.

     

    Any that have a date which is older than your PQ are usually because they have been archived.

     

    For one discussion on this topic please see related posts starting here

    Thanks. That is pretty much what I wound up doing. I was wondering if there was a better way.

     

    I assume that there is no actualy direct interaction between GSAK and Groundspeak to get at any of the cache information. It only plugs the URL into the browser and lets it talk to the web site.

     

    I was hoping for a function that could go to the web site and update the information for the current line in the list. Then I was hoping for a system variable that contained the date of the last GPX file. That way I could use a macro to set up a filter for anything less than the last GPX file date, and walk through the entries invoking the function to update that specific cache individually.

     

    I realize that it would probably have to be some sort of "screen scraping" to dig out the information, and that puts you at the mercy of the unannounced updates to the web site that will break everything. So I figure I don't have much hope for that one.

     

    I was thinking of different ways that this might be done. One would be to export a list of caches less than the last GPX file date. But then there isn't a way to read it back in and update the status through the macro. It looks like the file input functions are only to open files in the same manner/format as using the File Menu itself.

     

    The other thought was to call a COM object that would return the status. But it looks like all you can do is run a whole program, and I don't think that is going to help.

     

    The only other alternative I can see that doesn't involve you changing something is to export the entries with the "old" GPX file date (again that system variable would be handy here) in GPX format. Run a program that will process that file and set the status in the GPX file to reflect the true status, then import that GPX file back in.

     

    Any thoughts on any of this? :(

  2. thanks for that.

     

    so technically if i got a ticket for going 35mph in a 30 zone they are in the wrong as i was actually doing 30!!!! result

    No. Technically if you got a ticket for going 35 in a 30 zone they are right (assuming radar; if they paced you, that is a different story), but you would actually be indicating 40 (or there abouts; certainly more than 35) on your speedometer.

     

    Pilots get drilled on the differences between things like indicated air speed, calibrated air speed, true air speed etc. The results: what you see isn't what you get.

  3. Okay, I'm seeing more strange behavior - and I know Clyde is going to tell me it's a "personal problem" ;) but here goes...

     

    After running macros (most recently and specifically my "process found" macro, which copies waypoints to a "Report" database) - GSAK seems to be in an unusual state. Hitting CTRL-D, or selecting "Database->Select" from the menu, does not bring up the database selection dialog box - but instead does a "Calculating distance and bearing" progress bar, and then refreshes the current list.

     

    The only way I can resolve this is to exit GSAK and restart. This is "semi-reproducible" - it was happened three times this evening, but does not happen EVERY time I run a macro. Weird. That, coupled with the previous issue, would make me think I don't have the latest/greatest version - but I certainly appear to.

     

    Hmmmm.... like I said - must be a personal problem. B)

     

    Have a great evening!

    Billy

    It could be a factor of what is in the macro, not the fact that you are running a macro. Does it always occur with a given macro, or is that unpredictable? See if you can find a pattern in what is seemingly erratic. I know Clyde would appreciate the extra information even if it is to confirm that you have tried it.

     

    Of course I don't mean to speak for Clyde, but I know when I try to debug my own stuff, I like to know that kind of stuff myself.

  4. Hello all,

     

    I am brand new to geocaching. I just got a Magellan Meridian Gold two days ago. I just loaded GSAK yesterday and I'm just starting to scratch the surface with it. I did manage to run my first PQ to get all the caches within five miles of home. I successfully sent them to the MeriGold, all 87 of them.

     

    Of course, now when I display the map on my MeriGold, all I see is 87 cache names all piled on top of each other to the point where I can't see the map! I see a couple of possible solutions, and need someone to point me in the right direction.

     

    Am I supposed to set a filter in GSAK to select only a few specific caches to send to the GPSr? Alternately, I see that there is a setting in the MeriGold to turn waypoint visibility on or off. It seems very slow and tedious to do that one by one in the GPSr itself. Is there a filter in GSAK that will allow me to load all 87 caches into the MeriGold, but only have a selected few turned ON in the map via the visibility setting? That would let me store all the caches in the GPSr, and only turn on the visibility when I want to add them to the map display.

     

    Maybe this is a basic workflow question. Can anyone point me in the right direction here?

     

    Thanks,

    I use Garmin's product, but when that happens, I zoom in which, in effect, spreads the stuff out and then you can see the map. From there you can pan to see other things, then zoom back out if you want to do something different.

     

    I also use more than one database in my mapping software so I can load different waypoints in different "densities" depending on what I want to do. But I usually work with all the geocaching waypoints active and don't have much trouble unless I zoom out to the point where, as you say, there is nothing but a blob of overlapping waypoint names.

  5. Can someone tell me if I am doing something wrong? This is not new, but I finally decided to ask. When I get my PQ's and pull them into GSAK, disabled caches do not show up with the archived/unavailable flag on. Since I don't want to load these in my GPSr and CacheMate I have to find them manually and flag or remove them. Am I missing something?

     

    Thanks.

    I am not sure of what happened, but I noticed a similar thing happening with my PQs. I did get archived caches flagged for awhile, then it seemed like I noticed that some that I knew were archived or deleted were still shown as active in GSAK. I finally ran a PQ where I selected "Not Active" only. When I loaded that one, all the archived guys were properly flagged in GSAK. So while I have conflicting evidence here, I suspect that the PQ is including only active caches. You might want to take a peek at the GPX file and see if there are any archived caches in there.

     

    I realize this raises more questions than it answers, but I figured I would chime in anyway.

  6. That's why they should take a different default when someone chooses a pre-programmed route from the 60cs. It should just follow the route as it is programmed WITHOUT re-calc, or at the very least ASK if you want a recalc. Put another way, the auto re-route should be turned OFF by default when using a pre-programmed route from the route list.

    I ran into the same problem with my 76CS on a couple of roadtrips. It really irritated me because I tend to travel specific roads knowing what traffic is like on the alternative roads. I've found that I can set waypoints just beyond each potential route change (like the intersection of a hiway) to force my 76CS to take the road I want. Example; Traveling from Ventura to Palm Springs trying to avoid Los angeles. I set a waypoint on hiway 23 just past the 101 - 23 interchange. This prevents the 76CS from routing me all the way down on the 101. You'll get the feel for just how many waypoints to set after a while. I've found that the 76CS tries to U-turn me in weird situations so I tend to set many waypoints to avoid the problem.

    On the 60CS there is an option to turn off U-turns. If you will never do that, you can see if the 76 has a similar option.

  7. I don't recall Groundspeak ever allowing embedded HTML in the logs.

     

    If it did work before, then it would actaully be version 4.2 that had the bug.

    I see. Those .gpx-files weren't from Groundspeak, but converted from other sources.

    I can live with that...

     

    One other point: Encrypted log-entries. GSAk seems not to support them. Is that planned for a future version?

     

    myce

    Yes, this will come in a later release.

    Is it the logs themselves or GPX that doesn't (didn't) support HTML? I see several logs with links to things and colored text. For example, some of the folks from SLAGA are putting in plugs for MOGA in their log entries encouraging folks to attend the event, and using colors to "Sign" the logs. See GCE655 and reference the log from BlueBeadMan. If this isn't HTML, then how is he doing that? That is not a sarcastic question by the way.

  8. Thanks Clyde for a great product and even greater support.

     

    Is there a way to know which row I am on in the data base?

     

    If I have 3000 caches in my database and I am looking at the cache that is on row 55 down from the top, I am hoping that somewhere it will say row 55 out of 3000.

    If there isn't, I would like to see this. Sometimes I want to export caches up to a certain cache. I can scan from through the list until I get to the one I am looking for, but I cannot use the mark nn option to set the user flag if I don't know how far from the top I am.

     

    The other thing that wold be handy is to have the list scroll when I used the slider to position it. I realize that on a database application without having the entire db loaded into memory in the list box this may not be possible, but it doesn't hurt to ask. It is just nice to see where you are and release the mouse when you get there rather than just a blind guess with the slider.

  9. Hey, I have a question, what's the use of planning route on the computer to download into the 60cs if the 60cs will overide those downloaded routes anyway?

     

    To me that seems kind of dumb. It should at the very least ASK if you want the 60cs to re-calculate a route if it's already in there on the route list. Otherwise, why even have a route page? A waste of memory...

    First, one of the things you have to remember is that the computer software is also used on units that are not capable of recalculating a route.

     

    Next, it is a lot easier to enter stuff on the computer than to use the tedious entry on the GPS. While a route that only goes from A to B is not a big issue, entering a route with multiple waypoints is done much more easily on the computer than the GPS. So even if it did recalculate the route, there is still a case for computer entry of the waypoints.

     

    Ask before recalculating? Sounds OK to me. I acutally find that the GPS sometimes calculates a different route than the computer anyway. Sometimes that is good and sometimes it is bad. In the long run, it may have been easier to program the GPS to act the same all the time than to make an exception for downloaded routing. They may even be omitting some of the download data to conserve internal memory since the unit will calculate the route anyway. Of course some of the last few things are only conjecture.

  10. I have a Garmin, so this may or may not apply. If they work the same, then you might want to see if this makes sense for you too.

     

    The 60CS comes with Waypoint Manager software. As I collect non GPS waypoints, I download them from the GPS, then cut and paste into a "non-caching" file.

     

    Anything I load into the GPS gets added to what is already there. It doesn't wipe everything out and start from scratch. When I go on a trip, since there are only a limited number of waypoints the unit can hold, I wipe out everything manually, then load up the "non-caching" stuff which I always want, then load the stuff for the area I am going to go into the GPS using GSAK.

     

    The reason I don't use GSAK for the non-cache stuff is because GSAK doesn't have all the icons available that I want to use for those things. It does a good job for the cache specific stuff, but I wanted more than what it could provide.

     

    If I am not mistaken, you can use memory cards with your unit. You might be able to keep you basic stuff in the unit itself, and put all the geocaching related stuff on the memory card. I don't know how your unit works, but I am sure there are others that can comment on the specifics.

  11. Oh yes. I forgot one other all important reason for using it on those trips. Since I have all the rest areas in there as waypoints, when I get a "I have to go NOW" :) from the passenger area, I know how far it is to the next rest area, and have a better idea as to whether I have a crisis on my hands or not.

  12. Well, I like the backlight when I use it in the car, and since the eats the batteries rather quickly, I stick with the accessory plug.

     

    I often drive from St. Louis to the gulf coast, and have it on for 12 hours at a time in the car. Not so much to keep from getting lost, but it's speedometer is more accurate than the one in the vehicle, and it keeps better track of my estimated arrival time than I do in my head, since my arrival time depends heavily on how many times I have to use the rest areas :)

  13. I just carry an extra set of batteries with me. When ever I replace the batteries in the unit, I replace the back up batteries in my "geocaching backpack". Like the previous poster said, my battery life varies even for the way I use it. I always plug it into the cig lighter in the car, but sometimes I forget to turn it off when I get out, and it runs on the battery since I have the option to automatically turn off disabled, so that adds to my own personal battery wear rate.

     

    Other than that, I do think that the battery drain is quite high on the 60CS, but at least it consumes normally cheap cells and not some wacko size you pay a premium for.

  14. Another request - this time for ALL export formats.

     

    In the GPS->Send Waypoints feature you can specify how many waypoints to send. In order to do the same thing in any of the exports you have to figure out how far away the nth cache is from the centre point, concoct a filter that eliminates everything further than that (assuming you are sorting by distance - I haven't even figured out how to do this if you have some other kind of sort in place) and then do your export. It would be really nice to have a means of specifiying a limit on how many caches to export directly. This is particularly important for the HTML ones which can get quite large and chew up all the available space on my PDA when I send them over there.

     

    Thanks

    You can use the User Flag option for Set for next nn Records to select the number or waypoints you want to transfer, then use the filter on user flag to display only those, then do the export.

     

    A single field in the export might be easier, but this will work. It is what I do when I export stuff out of GSAK.

  15. Clyde,

    Thanks for the directory vs. file explanation. That clears up a lot.

     

    Awkward Socks:

    Have you installed MapSource that came with your 60CS on your new computer? It should load the drivers and at least get you connected even if the drivers are old. I would do that and make sure you can download from the 60CS into Mapsource to make sure that the connection is in place before even talking about GSAK. Otherwise it is a Garmin problem and maybe the 60CS discussion thread may be a good place to iron out a connection problem.

     

    FWIW, on the Interface setup screen, if everything is working and set up, when you plug in the USB cable between the PC and the 60CS, it should show "Connected". If not, then it isn't going to be visible to any programs.

  16. Clyde,

    This is similar to a question about automatically creating the folder that has come up before. I made a point that applied to files, and you pointed out that I was talking apples and oranges because what the html export wanted was a folder. I let it go back then, but was curious, and now that it has come up again, it has gotten the best of me. WHY are you asking for a folder for the html? Are you writing out multiple files or something like that. I have see MS Word do things like that when it creates html. But it asks for a file name, and that is where the html goes. Under that directory it creates supporting directories for the extra things like images it wants to put in separate files.

  17. Actually, with the bean bag thing, you can turn the mount so that the bottom of the mount comes down between two of the bag ears, and the vertical clearance becomes just about the vertical size of the GPS itself. I use mine in a Toyota Tacoma, and it works great unless you bounce around too much on a rough highway exit. The combination of bouncing and turning seems to be the only thing that causes a problem with it scooting around.

     

    It took me awhile to figure all the different ways that thing can be adjusted.

  18. What if they subdivided the GPS Units And Software so that GSAK becomes another level in the hierarchy? Then messages could be started by users, but they would be grouped under the GSAK topic.

     

    I know this requires changes by Groundspeak, but I wonder if this would solve any problems discussed. What becomes of the search function? Not being a savvy user, I don't know if the additional sublevel does anything for you there.

     

    I also don't know what it does for the "follow the thread" automatic notification feature. That is what I use, and I have to turn it on every time another version comes out. I don't generally go into the forum other than via that route. I assume that would be lost under my suggestion.

     

    Anyway, I didn't see it in the original list of possibilities. That is unless it was there and I didn't recognize it. So I thought I would see if those who knew more than I might comment on it.

     

    I would imagine the real issue might be getting Groundspeak to make it happen.

  19. hi Clyde, any chance the export html option could have the option to create a directory if the location for the export doesn't exist please? At the moment it just complains about the directory doesn't exist and the browse option doesnt allow you to create a new one.

    I'm just being lazy :-)

     

    Thanks!

    In theory it sounds like a reasonable request.

     

    However, the problem you open up here is users will mis type the directory name and then wonder why they can't find their files.

     

    As this also has the potential to increase my email support burden I am going to have to say no to this one.

    Well, I just cranked up the program to see what was going on here, since I thought I remembered that you used the standard Windows open dialog. That give you the ability to create a directory and othe file related functions as well. I brought up the export to an MPS file, and sure enough, it had the standard file dialog. But in the middle of crafting a post to the other person, I realized that the subject was the HTML output, so just to be thorough, I checked it out, and to my surprise, it opens up and entirely different dialog. It would seem to me that you could fairly well satisfy the request's intent by using the standard dialog here like you do for the MPS export, and I don't see how that will increase support traffic. How about that as an alternative?

  20. OK. I downloaded xImage_22.exe and ran it. Nothing happened. According to the instructions, that is supposed to start the install, and I am to follow the instructions. But there is no evidence that anything at all happened. It just returns to the command prompt. Has anyone tried this particular version on Win 2000?

  21. I had thoughts about the screen. But what really bothers me is when I have it mounted in the car, and get a terrible reflection and cannot read the screen. At times like that it is better as a rear view mirror than a GPS. It would seem that a texture to a protector would help in that situation. Maybe I can kill two birds with one stone.

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