Jump to content

Allen_L

+Charter Members
  • Posts

    658
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Allen_L

  1. As was mentioned, if you are worried about it run a My Finds PQ periodically and keep it in a GSAK database.

    For pure backup you don't really even need GSAK, just run the My Finds PQ and keep the attachment some where, (on your hard drive, burned to CD, on a thumb drive, etc). If something happened to gc.com's drives and the lost it, then you could get GSAK or some other program to look at the PQ.
  2. I have never try to make a PQ from someone else's public bookmark, don't know if that works. But a PQ made from my bookmark list will include all the geocaches in the bookmark even if they are archived. Of course I don't know if that is an oversight that will be corrected as soon as gc.com programmers notice this thread. But every week I clear all the geocaches in my special bookmark then hand add all the geocaches that didn't get updated. This bookmark is manually scheduled i.e. once I have all the geocaches I want on it, I click "Days to generate" to what ever the day is, and set "Uncheck the day of the week after the query runs". It runs and then I can get all those geocaches updated at once.

  3.  

    Each time the PQ is run, the current bookmark is used so the answer to your question is Yes.

     

    I do this all the time.

    I do it as well, I have a bookmark which every week I clear. Then I add all the geocaches that didn't get updated in my pq's that I load to GSAK. Then I run the bookmark pq and all the geocaches which were archived are updated in GSAK to indicate they are archived.
  4. Let me be clear. It is not an issue of me refusing to explain the "line in the sand". I am not allowed to explain this nor am I or any other reviewer qualified to do so. It is not my job or my place to do so. There is a clear reason behind this. We are volunteers and are given instructions on what we can and cannot make decisions on. This is not one of the things we cannot decide for ourselves. There are people who are paid to make these decisions. They work for Groundspeak directly and work for them full time. You are told to email them for these decisions, not to ask the reviewers since it is not our job to answer these questions.

     

    I can tell you that there is no "line in the sand".

    So there are instructions from Groundspeak that let the volunteer reviewers know when they have to refer the hider to the people at Groundspeak so Groundspeak can make the final approve, or not approve decision. What is the trigger that causes this referral?
  5. I use to use a program I wrote that is equivalent to Spinner and Plucker. But once I tried GSAK I use it and plucker. I even wrote GSAK macro that triggers a filter, creates a Mapsource file, then converts the cache data to HTML then calls the command line version of the Plucker distiller to get the data ready for my Palm. I can then load my GPS and palm with the same data. Quick and easy.

  6. ANY database of cache listings containing Geocaching.com data that is outside the control of Geocaching.com (including your own personal GSAK database) is technically a violation of the Geocaching.com terms-of-use. Legalese and all that stuff.

    To my non-lawyer mind the clause

     

    Licensee may modify the Data and merge other data sets with the Data for Licensee's own internal use. The portions of the Data merged with other data sets will continue to be subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

     

    In the terms-of-use means I can modify the Data into any form I want including a GSAK database, as long as it is for my own use.

     

    To the best of my knowledge, the only way to receive any archived cache data in a PQ is in your own personal "My Finds" PQ.

    One way is to go to the archived cache's page and click the "GPX eXchange file" button. Also a PQ generated for a bookmark list will include any archived caches in bookmark list.
  7. It's mind staggering for me to think of someone doing a 68 page magazine bi-monthly. My cost for a 28 page with mailing was about 6k. That was for 5,000 copies, about the minimum you can order.

     

    Also Today's Cacher had a very large staff of dedicated people with unbeliveable contacts in the geocaching world. We struggled to put together an online edition once a month. I can't imagine trying to do that twice a month in print.

    bi-monthly can mean "once in every two months". Which would still be hard.
  8. First let me first say that I use GSAK to keep an off line database for me. I use PQ's to keep up with the geocache in a 75 mile circle around me then when I get a chance to go geocache (which is rare lately) I use the GSAK filters to build me a custom set of geocaches for the mood and direction I am heading. The PQ's come once a week. So while GSAK accumulates logs, on the more popular geocaches it will miss some.

     

    But one thing has struck me with the people saying to find some geocaches they need the log where someone gives corrected coordinates, they are ignoring the fact that first person who found the geocache and gave the corrected coordinates found it using the coordinates on the page. So these coordinates are obviously good enough to find it.

  9. The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) while acknowledging that the web site owner can do anything they want, they recommend that owner make sure that URL’s continue to run.

    from http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI

    When you change a URI on your server, you can never completely tell who will have links to the old URI. They might have made links from regular web pages. They might have bookmarked your page. They might have scrawled the URI in the margin of a letter to a friend.

     

    When someone follows a link and it breaks, they generally lose confidence in the owner of the server. They also are frustrated - emotionally and practically from accomplishing their goal.

    ……

    It is the duty of a Webmaster to allocate URIs which you will be able to stand by in 2 years, in 20 years, in 200 years.

     

    So TPTB have the right to change URL’s but it would have been nice if they had taken W3C’s recommendation.

     

    Note the article talks about URI (uniform resource identifier) instead of URL (uniform resource locator). That is because the URL include how to get something i.e. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/ is an URL, and www.geocaching.com/seek/ is an URI.

     

    Oops, I just saw that OpinioNate has already committed to doing it.

  10.  

    Perhaps there's a similarly simple way to change URL names in IIS if you happened to rewrite a page - intentionally or not.

    Yes, it is fairly simple, of course you have to use a gui to do it instead of editing a plain text file. I did it several times on the company website before we changed to apache. Then I updated the .htaccess file to redirect the URL's with asp in them to the new php pages that replaced them. So the oldest version of the URL still works.
  11. I look at it this way

     

    While hiking (or geocaching)

    You could get mauled by a bear and die.

    You could get bit by a snake and die.

    You could fall off a cliff and die.

    You could get struck by lightening and die.

    Or

    you could stay home and fall off the couch and die.

     

    So I might as well get out of the house and have fun.

  12. I don't know where mtn-man gets the ides that a cache is to take you to a place you might never have been to without geocaching.

    From being around since early 2001. If you look at early caches, most were hidden that way. Mine were.

    I have been around since 2000 and that is what I remember. But anyway if you use the Internet Archive WaybackMachine and get the Nov 8, 2000 version of http://www.geocaching.com/articles/making.asp. You will see that it says

     

    Geocaching is just like real estate - location, location, location!

     

    and

     

    Ultimately you'll want to place a cache in a place that is unique in some way. The big reward for geocachers, other than finding the stash itself, is the location. A prime camping spot, great viewpoint, unusual location, etc. are all good places to hide a cache.

     

    In fact the current version of the page (http://www.geocaching.com/about/hiding.aspx) has the same words on it.

  13. Virtual cookies we don't have. It was decided that the real thing was better than something that isn't there. While some people might like virtual cookies, it appears that most people actually like physical cookies.

    I just looked and saw that geocaching.com had placed 5 cookies on my pc. Since I can't hold them in my hands I consider them virtual. This has nothing to do with virtual geocaches, but you did bring it up.
×
×
  • Create New...