DreadPirateRoberts

If you read through the whole thread, there are some greasemonkey scripts I wrote a while back that will add DMS and DecDeg coords to the cache listing page. I just recently updated them to work with the current GC.com page layout. You should be able to use the scripts in Firefox, Opera, or IE. Let me know if you have questions about how to get them working.

FYI, I tried this and had to edit ™ out of the google maps page before gpsbabel 1.3.0 would take it. After that, worked like a champ.

I think it's also confusing because the "not recommended at night" attribute is often used for cemetary caches, or ones which for other reasons should be hunted only in the daytime. So, you have this situation: Not recommended at night = daytime cache Recommended at night = nightcache / scenic view at night / less muggles / ?? There's not really a way to express that a cache should be hunted only at night, as you can for daytime. EDIT: I guess you could do this for a nightcache: - not available 24/7 AND - recommended at night However, I think that would break the general interpretation of "no 24/7", which generally means it's not available at night. However, it would be technically correct for a nightcache.

Thanks... 100 finds doesn't seem like much with so many great longtime cachers in the area--I enjoyed meeting several of you at the Evansville event. My brother Mark (FrankVegas) and I were going to do that cache together for #100 for both of us, but he didn't make it to 99 in time, so it was #76 or so for him. I must admit, after climbing up to The Oolitic Limestone Cache (GC9BA0) and also tackling Captain McHarry's Vault shortly afterwards, FrankVegas and I looked at each other and both agreed that we were ready for some urban caching! (I never thought I would be happy to be hunting lamp post micros). And, totally unrelated but slightly funny, if you're wondering why someone named Mark has a username of "FrankVegas", it derives from the town in Kentucky where we grew up, Franklin. It sits on I-65 right on the Tennessee border. There's no lottery in Tennessee (or at least there didn't used to be), so there's a little strip of lotto stores in Franklin close to the state line where all of the Tennessee residents come up to buy lottery tickets. Many Tennesseans know about tiny little Franklin just because of that. Mark's wife thought this was pretty silly and gave Franklin the nickname "FrankVegas", and it stuck.

You could always hide or seek a Podcache, which you must hunt with a portable audio player.

I've found that the line "Why don't I take the kids out caching and you can relax a bit" works wonders, and the end result is less resentment and a greater chance that she'll tolerate me running out at some odd hour for an FTF, or leaving early for something to grab a cache on the way, etc. Last Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), the kids were hanging out with the grandparents. She went shopping and I went caching, and we both had a great day. I think the key is, what is she left doing when I'm caching. If I'm leaving her with the kids (when she's at home with them all day), or if she's stuck doing some mundane chore while I'm out having fun caching, I can understand how that might be a little difficult for her.

Come on, with a name like "unixboy", you've gotta roll your own solution! How about this: download the "GNU Utilities for Win32" package from http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/ This will give you, among other things, the "wget" program. Then, set up a scheduled job on your computer to run on the first of the month, and have it do the following: wget -O c:\some\path\to\wallpaper.jpg http://www.geocaching.com/goodies/%DATE:~10,4%-%DATE:~4,2%/800.jpg Set your active desktop to use the local file as your wallpaper. This type of solution actually has some side benefits. First of all, you're reducing hits on GC.com's server by your active desktop checking for updated wallpaper. With this script, you're only downloading once a month, or whenever you choose to run the scheduled job. Secondly, by pointing AD at a local file instead of the Internet, you don't have to worry about delays or problems if GC.com is down, etc.

It's unlikely that GC.com will do anything that allows you to get more than 500 caches at a time. Running PQs is intensive, and the files are non-trivial in size, so there are both server/database load and bandwidth issues to consider. For such a large database, there needs to be some limit. Also, I'm pretty sure that another function of the limit is to make it difficult for someone to get a complete "copy" of the cache database. The caches along a route feature is often discussed. There's supposed to be something in the works from TPTB, but it's been in the pipeline for quite a while, and we don't know where it stands on their priority list. For now, your best bet is to create multiple overlapping PQs that each have less than 500 caches.

Also, it looks like you have to have the "Advanced" version of Turnabout in order to install your own scripts. It's available from the regular Turnabout download page: http://www.reifysoft.com/turnabout.php

It appears that the scripts will work with Opera by using the "User JavaScript" functionality. I was able to get them both to work by following the instructions on this page with Opera 8.51.

My wife misunderstood the term at first and called them "mugglers". Now it's a joke between us.

I know you specified buying them online, but have you checked at an army surplus store? I'd be afraid that the weight of the ammo boxes means you're going to pay a good deal for shipping if you buy them online. My local store has gobs of them, I got a 30 caliber box for $2.95. EDIT: The other good thing about buying at a store is that you can inspect them and pick out the "best" ones.

And, hot on the heels of the DMS greasemonkey script, here's a script to add DecDeg coordinates to the cache listing page as well, if you prefer them: http://www.thephillipsfam.com/geocaching/g..._decdeg.user.js

I have been itching for a reason to write a greasemonkey script for a while now, and this one seemed like a good way to get my feet wet. If you have Firefox and the greasemonkey plugin, try installing this greasemonkey script: http://www.thephillipsfam.com/geocaching/g...ing_dms.user.js When activated, this should show a DMS link just as you described. Let me know if you have any problems with it. Here's the link to the greasemonkey plugin: http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/ EDIT at 16:40 Central time (GMT-6): fixed a small rounding problem. If you downloaded the script before this time, you should refresh the page and install again.

From a security standpoint, passwords in a URL are a Bad Idea. When a password is in a URL, it gets stored in (potentially) all kinds of places, like your browser history, any web proxies that you might be using, and in server logs. It could even get sent to third-party sites as an HTTP-REFERER header if the website you're going to doesn't redirect you after logging you in (similar to using google and clicking on a search result--the website you clicked on knows what search terms you used to find them). By putting the password in a POST form, it stays out of the URL and doesn't get logged in all of the above places. This is much more secure. Now, I realize that GC.com doesn't use encryption for login, so talking security is a little moot here, but I think it's always a good idea to be thinking about security in whatever environment you have.

It happened about a month ago, check out this thread for a very lively discussion about it.

Also, no one ever responded to my comment about two fire tacks paths crossing... this seems like it could be a real problem. But as someone not really familiar with nightcaches, maybe it's not. Anyone have any thoughts about that possibility?

But for a nightcache, if the routes crossed or were too close, isn't there a chance of the person hunting the cache getting on the wrong trail by spotting one of the other fire tacks? I have no idea if that was the issue in your case, but if there was another nightcache anywhere near this one, it seems like that could be a legitimate concern.

I just tried to go to the Waymarking website, and got a "403 Forbidden" error: You are not authorized to view this page The Web server you are attempting to reach has a list of IP addresses that are not allowed to access the Web site, and the IP address of your browsing computer is on this list. Um... I'm a premium member and as far as I know my IP address is not banned from GC.com, what gives?

So are you committing a federal offense when you use one of those penny smasher machines?

So, after getting some finds under my belt, I decided that I'd like to try to place my first cache. I scouted some locations, and came up with what I thought was a good one in an out-of-the-way place in a small city park. In order to follow the rules, I called up the parks department in my city to ask if they have a geocaching policy. But they had never heard of geocaching. Fortunately, the parks director was open to the idea. I've sent her the brochure and tried to really emphasize the CITO aspect. But I fear that she'll go to GC.com and see that there are dozens of geocaches already hidden in local parks and be upset. Did I just ruin it for everyone by asking for permission?

With some databases and data structures in programming languages (hashes in Perl, for instance), there is no guarantee of the order that you'll get entries out if you don't specify a sort method. However, in practice, in certain situations, you will often find that the entries will come out in the same order that you put them in. Often, this is simply a side effect of the underlying method for storing and retrieving the data. As a programmer, it can be easy to forget about sorting the records when they come out so neatly at first. But then at a later date, something can happen (database rebuild, data grows to a certain size, who knows) and the order will change, and it will become apparent that it was never really sorted to begin with, it was just a happy coincidence. I have no idea if something like that happened here, just a thought.

No, there is too much, let me sum up. Sorry, given my username, I couldn't resist the quote.

I don't want to open up a can of worms in this thread (that's already covered here), but I'm considering doing something like this for my 5-year-old. Howver, the problem is that he won't be able to log members-only caches. Now, I love GC.com and gladly pay my membership fees, but I can't justify paying twice just so he can log those. This is doubly bad because many of the more kid-friendly caches in my area happen to be members-only, and we've done several of them together. I guess when I go and backlog all of his previous finds, I'll just have to skip those, and I can be careful about not doing a MOC with him in the future, or just make sure he knows he can't log it.

I assume you mean that you're including an e-mail address in the body of the message? You can check the box to get a copy of the message, and I would think that if the e-mail address somehow got stripped, you would notice that in your copy too. If I am familiar with the cacher that I am e-mailing, I usually check the box to include my e-mail address with the message, and I get about 50% replies through regular e-mail and 50% through GC.com.