The Cooker

Here are a few basic steps that I follow: 1. Get a theme Like other posters have mentioned pick something you enjoy and know about. I have caches with the following themes: Word Search, Stereograms, Number sequences, Scrambled letters, Logic Puzzle, physical puzzles, etc... One of the harder parts is getting the theme to turn into numbers. I have a puzzle that requires a bit of spatial skills. Most cachers, including myself, made a paper or wood model. The puzzle has numbers written right on it. Another is a word search. The direction of the word can be translated into a number (up=1, down=2, east=3, etc...) You can turn the numbers into letters by substitutions, or by spelling it out and using it. (9=Nine, 40=Forty, etc...) 2. Get a location If you can find a location or make a container that fits the theme, all the better. You will need to work this location into the solution theme. 3. Double check and triple check the solution. 4. Put it out there and see how it goes then learn from it. I hope this short reply is helpful. Take a look at my caches, and if you have questions, let me know. The Cooker

I believe that Geocaching's role in the world is just that: Geocaching. There are plenty of groups, associations, parties, churches, non-profits, corporations, governments, societies, etc... that fill their roles too. You are free to join these other groups and be a geocacher at the same time. Just because there is a large group of people here doesn't mean you should hijack it for your cause or frankly any cause. What if your idea of social awareness doesn't match mine? For example you use Xmas some would say Christmas. Should we fight over it here and ruin the one thing we have in common and that is bringing us together now? I say nope. You have other outlets for social issues... Happy Caching! The Cooker

These are very nice! We use them on 5gal buckets to store food like flour, sugar, rice, etc... Never had a problem with them. The Cooker

Just did a quick check... 77 of my closest 200 are PMOCs, or 38.5% This is of course only one data point. The Cooker

There are many different types of image files: .jpg .gif .bmp .png and many many others. They each contain an image but are, shall we say, tailored for different uses. In Microsoft Paint you can create an image and save it in the following formats: 1. Monochrome bitmap 2. 16 color bitmap 3. 256 color bitmap 4. 24-bit bitmap 5. JPEG 6. GIF 7. TIFF 8. PNG They all have different pros and cons for different applications. The OP wanted to use PNG files becuase they allow for transparency to let the background color come through the image. It you are interested further here is a good starting point: Link

You are not uploading the .png files to the forum. You are uploading them to the GC.com web site and they are being displayed on the forum. I would estimate that less than 1 percent of users here would have the ability to save an image as a .png file, and that less than that probably care about that as a feature request (I can make a .png file and I could care less about that ability for my forum avatar, speaking personally). In the list of feature requests and bug fixes that are presented in the Geocaching.com Web Site Forum by the community for review by the administrators, I would think that this one probably ranks pretty low down the list. A note/nit: Anyone who has Windows XP, and I presume Vista, has Microsoft Paint which will save as a PNG file. That would put us nearer the 70% mark of people able to save PNG files.

My condolences... Maybe "Caching Wills" are in order... You could give direction to the reviewers on what to do if you quit the game or pass on. A checkbox option in the profile could be: 1. Archive my caches 2. Transfer ownership to <Cacher Name> 3. Allow adoption by anyone 4. Informal adoption (keep in my name, and let the community keep them up as long as possible) 5. Other: Please explain The Cooker

Possibly a beaver decided to add a log to his dam? Is it near a stream that has, or will soon have a beaver dam?

There seems to be a lot of support for this feature. I'm curious, what kind of caches do users want to ignore? While reading the thread I could find 2 specific examples: 1. Micros. 2. Placing caches in uncomfortable places to search. For all those that voted yes, what is your specific reason? (Not that you need a reason to vote for this, I am asking so we all can make better caches...) Thanks, The Cooker

Find or create some simple puzzle caches. You can solve the puzzle while it is raining then seek the cache when the sun returns. Enjoy, The Cooker

I really enjoy making and solving puzzle caches. I am glad there are many different types of cachers out there. Some enjoy the traditional, micros under lamp skirts, etc... Some enjoy a more physical challenge (terrain) I enjoy a bit more of a mental challenge. (difficulty) When I make puzzle caches, I go through the following steps: (roughly) 1. Find a location for the cache and get the coordinates. 2. Pick a puzzle type or theme. Nearly anything can be turned into a puzzle. 3. Decide how your are going to get numbers out of the theme. This can often be the hardest part. 4. Make sure there is only one possible solution. It can be frustrating to solve a puzzle and then not have valid coordiantes. If you are in doubt include a Geochecker link. www.geochecker.com 5. Take the time to generate a well written cache page, don't confuse cachers with things that aren't part of the puzzle. 6. Be prepared to answer questions and be responsive to questions 7. Be ok with the fact that a percentage of cachers will look at your cache once and then ignore it. You will have less finds than a lamp post cache, but you will also have longer and more meaningful log reports. We all cache for different reasons. If you have any questions feel free to contact me, also feel free to look at my puzzle caches for ideas. The Cooker

8.1 Miles here with #200 being GC1B035

It would be great to have all the email I currently get to show up in an RSS feed. Say every user gets one Geocaching RSS Feed. And allow me to pick which items will be in the feed: 1. Notifications 2. Bookmarked items 3. Logs on owned caches 4. TB logs on owned TBs 5. Watch list items 6. Geocaching news 7. Forum threads We get email for much of this already! Instead they can be put into an RSS feed. Man do I love Google Reader to organize a ton of information and allow me to see what is new in the world I care about. You have my vote! The Cooker

I believe they use what are called "Hall Effect" sensors. Wikipedia Link We use them in aerospace to determine positions of rotating mechanisms. The Cooker

I have a puzzle cache GC151EH - "Under Lock and Key" that requires cachers to find 4 travel bug keys. Once they have the keys they can then find and open up the cache. It has a side purpose that cachers can highlight their favorite local caches, and meet up with other cachers if they each get some of the keys. I didn't expect cachers to find the keys and then pass all four of them around to other cachers without placing them in caches in between. I wasn't mad or frustrated, It was very interesting to see what the community did with this puzzle, so I updated the description to say "These keys will be moving from cache to cache or cacher to cacher as all good travel bugs do. " No use getting upset, enjoy how the new cache is enjoyed by the caching community. Will they miss out on things you find fun, yeah. Are they doing what is fun for them? Maybe, I don't know, but I assume they are enjoying it. I make puzzles because I like making them, and I hope others enjoy them. The Cooker

I too did not receive an email when one of my travel bugs was placed in a cache. Any idea on when this will come back? I haven't seen any response from TPTB on the thread... TB1CWX1 Thanks, The Cooker

There is a "Flashlight Required" attribute you can place. This may cover many of the nighttime only caches... The Cooker

Thanks for the reply, and the work around. I'll add my vote in hopes it bubbles up higher in the priority list. The Cooker

I created a bookmark list named Puzzle Notes to store my partial answers, coord info, etc... for the puzzle caches I am solving. This worked very well until I had three distinct types of notes 1. Puzzles I have partial solutions to 2. Puzzles I have the solution to but haven't logged the cache yet 3. Completed puzzles where I have logged the cache My list is getting longer and longer.... I have resorted to starting the bookmarks in group 1 with "AAA" and the ones in group 3 with "ZZZ" to group them. (It sorts alphabetically) This is due to the fact that I can't move a bookmark to another list. When editing a bookmark I can change the title and description, but the list pull-down is grayed out. Am I missing something? Is it possible to move a bookmark from list to list? How do others manage their puzzle bookmarks? It would be a nice feature to add, what do you think? Thanks, The Cooker

This would be great! Count me in. If for some reason I have to update the coords, the checker would automatically update as well. It would reduce some hassle to manage the links from geochecker in a separate document etc... The Cooker

I love the puzzle cache! It adds some meat to the sport. Is it really a challenge to find 10 caches and 8 of them are lamp post micros? I have created 8 puzzle caches since April of this year here are the stats: 0 finds for (4/1.5) 26 Jul 08 new! Logic by The Cooker (GC1EGGX) 0 finds for (3.5/1.5) 26 Jul 08 new! Basic by The Cooker (GC1EGGK) 2 finds for (2.5/1.5) 21 Jul 08 Word Search by The Cooker (GC1DQ46) 8 finds for (3/1.5) 28 Jun 08 Stereogram by The Cooker (GC1DHKV) 7 finds for (2/1.5) 28 Jun 08 Scrambled by The Cooker (GC1CQG8) 8 finds for (3/2) 28 Apr 08 Tri-Color Puzzle by The Cooker (GC1AY6N) 19 finds for (3/1.5) 20 Apr 08 HAIGTGTOOT by The Cooker (GC1B1M0) 11 finds for (4/1.5) 5 Apr 08 Under Lock and Key by The Cooker (GC151EH) If you don't count the two that were released yesterday... There is an average of 9.1 finds on an average of 2 months released. And all but one of them are member only caches. Cachers in my area seem to like them. I hope they are kept around! I also should give props to my favorite puzzle cache, it took quite a while to figure it out. "Good Luck" GC1AHH4 The Cooker

Also, when I go to your profile page, your profile image is waaaaay pushed to the right and slides off the main listing page before I can even start to shrink the window. Yet when I go to my profile page, my image appears about the same size by my image slides way over when I shrink the window. Not sure if that's because it's me looking at my image, but something funky seems to be going on there. I have checked both our profiles and they act the same for me in FF 3.0.1, they act a bit differently in IE7. The image in my profile doesn't move as far to the left when shrinking the screen. It has got to be the tables in my stats section... Getting a dynamic web page to render in literally 2 dozen browsers/versions is a big headache. Thanks to all the Groundspeak folks for the day you are sure to be putting in.

Also, when I go to your profile page, your profile image is waaaaay pushed to the right and slides off the main listing page before I can even start to shrink the window. Yet when I go to my profile page, my image appears about the same size by my image slides way over when I shrink the window. Not sure if that's because it's me looking at my image, but something funky seems to be going on there. There have been more than superficial changes here... There have been some updates to what is generated out of the database, and it is affecting the rendering of the pages. I'm starting to look through the generated pages source to see what may be going on... There are some odd dots near the top of my profile page... The Cooker

Thanks for the idea. It was working fine in the old version... I'll give it a try, or maybe just make it an image... I have seen other caches that have had overlapping lines of text and various other rendering issues. Thanks again, The Cooker

I am running XP Professional and checked in both IE7 (7.0.5730.11) and FF 3.0.1 One of my caches GC1DQ46 http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...ba-fe6ca57b31c8 doesn't render correctly anymore. I have a table of letters that forms a word search puzzle. The letters are being cut off. In FF 3 it is still readable, but in IE7 too much is cut off to be useful to the cacher. What changed? How should I fix it? Thanks, The Cooker