Buildingblocks

I just bought all of these components seperately and thought I did well for $250! I hope you get a bite on this soon- this is a great package!

If selling these doesn't pan out, it sounds like an amazing sig item!

Thanks- it seemed logical, but I would have hated to have missed some setting I needed to change or something and lse it all. Just the kind of mistake I would have made...

When I enter the corrected coords for a solved puzzle, are the new coords preserved the next time I load that PQ? I want to get the new logs and status without losing my work!

I picked up our Garmin Legend HCx and maps for $200 on ebay- it is possible. This is our first gps with maps and let me tell you, it makes all the difference. If you search Legend HCx (or whichever model you are looking for) with the word 'bundle' it will include the mapping software. I wound up paying just $40 more doing it this way rather than buying the maps seperately. HTH!

Well, I tried the administrator thing- no joy. I switched it back. I kinda understood what you meant in the rest of your post...I found the waypoints folder in my documents file and clicked it out of curiosity. When I Xed it out it popped up with something along the line of, "I'm ready to sync now!" And whalla! It synced! I don't know if I can do it again, but I'm good for now. Thank you so much for your help!

This is just what I need - someone to hold my hand! I don't have time to play with it right now since I have company coming for dinner and I need to get my backside in gear. I'm glad to hear that this shouldn't be this hard. It's eaten way too many hours today! I am the administrator on this box, and I do have a 128mb card in this palm. We don't cache a lot, but I specifically bought the palm with lots of space so we can be more spontaneous and have as much info with us as possible. Thanks again- I'll try this after the crowd leaves tonight and let you know how it goes. Julie

Uh.... how do I do that? Thanks for your response! ETA: The popup appears on top of quick install, if that helps any. I did a search on my computer and it did not find quickinstall.exe. I don't know what, if anything, that means...

Just when I thought I had it figured out... I have a Palm m500 and Windows Vista 32. I downloaded Palm desktop 6.4 since it is the only one that supports Vista. My palm sync'd perfectly, and cachemate loaded onto it. Check. All I need to do now is go into GSAK, export to cachemate, sync again, and I'm golden, right? Well, after I export it gives me a nasty little box that says "Runtime error! Program C:\Palm\QuickInstall.exe Abnormal program termination". I have no idea what I'm doing here (having only gotten this far by following tutorials) but that makes no sense to me since it syncs up fine. How do I get my GSAK info into quick install so I can send it to cachemate on my Palm (and do I even understand how this works)?

I just wanted to pop in and thank you all for your hard work on this project and for making it available to all of us. We are a family of urban couch potatoes who are now planning some caches that we would not have otherwise looked at twice- having a map for some of the local trails have given us the confidence to head out with our little troupe of Babyblocks. Even though we are never going to acheive the high numbers of many cachers, we are looking forward to more "trompin' in the woods" this year! Julie for team Buildingblocks Jon and Julie BB#1 18yo BB#2 11yo BB#3 10yo BB#4 8yo BB#5 6yo

Thanks kdv- I was coming in here to specifically request the same thing! I use the google maps feature as my jumping off point for planning caching trips, and the ability to toggle off my ignored caches would be a very logical feature. In fact, the first time I used the ignore feature I thought I had done something wrong since they were still on my map. Shouldn't ignore mean ignore? Thanks also for the info about the ignore list beng applied in the (filter my finds) link. Simply rewording the name of the link to (filter my finds and ignored caches). I had no idea that it would apply there. That is a seperate issue, but an even easier fix. I use ignore for any caches I don't want to search for with my children. There are many reasons, including terrain, stealth factor, homeless camps/trash, P&G.... I have four kids ages 6-11, so I am pretty picky. The ability to pull up the map page and only see the ones I plan on doing would be invaluable to us. They love seeing those smilies on the map and being able to relate the map to a memory.

You guys are such a wealth of knowledge, and I am thankful for all of the info on the boards regarding going paperless. Unfortunately, so much of it goes over my head that I need to ask for a bit of handholding before I jump in. We have: Legend HCx premium membership GSAK Vista 32 with USB only (no serial port) Little money No computer skills After reading until my eyes cross, I think I have it narrowed down to a few PDAs that will work, be simple to use, and be dirt cheap. Palm Z22, m125, m500... have I missed any? Will any of these NOT work? I bow before your knowledge.

Hey, I (almost) did that! I didn't have the dif1a and ter1a- I'll go switch that. I think that will make it easier to read! I have the %hint, but it is pretty short. Beats nothin' until I figure out the rest of this stuff. I'm sure I could just cache this way, but I'm seeing it as a personal challenge to learn how to do something more than just email on this computer. I really like the idea of paperless since I'm already drowning in paper and organization is an issue. Now I just need to figure out a way to flag a cache on the gps to alert me that looking atthe cache page is necessary. I may just have to do it by hand... Thanks again- I may just get there!

Well, I went ahead and openned a gmail account and changed my account details/default email. Should be 'problem solved'! Thanks so much, all!

Yipes! I use yahoo, and haven't had a problem with anything being bounced in the ten years I've had the account. Has anyone heared of a problem with them?

I ran a PQ that looked great on preview and shows that it was sent, but there is no sign of it in my email box. I then rechecked my info, including my email addy, and it was OK- and a second PQ did the same thing the next day. What the heck am I doing wrong?

Nice to know- I'll make sure ours doesn't get left in the van. Temperatures rarely make it out of the eighties here in Seattle, so we should be OK unless it bakes in a vehicle. I'll definitely keep it in mind this summer! I don't think the Topo maps are in the bundle I have coming, so I'm hopng the streets and trips maps are sufficient.

We are a family that tends to the sofa spud end of the spectrum, and I'm desperate to get more caching in. We started several years ago with a second hand Magellan Sporttrack Map that had no maps. It did ok, but I upgraded because of the new antenna (W. WA here) and the greater storage capacity. It also comes with the Streets maps. I want to be more spontaneous and not so paper bound, but paperless seems overwhelming to me. A good compromise seems to be the POI tricks and GSAK if I can figure it out. (I am SO not a techno geek!) Most of the caches we go for are suburban and easy, so most of them will not require any more info than that, limitting the paper avalanche. I really don't think we need TOPO at this point. I may add NW Trails map, again if I can figure it out, but we never wander off the trails. Does this sound reasonable? Reading through some of the forums here, I see there is a Garmin product called Mapsource- is this the name of the basemap that comes installed in the unit? I just can't wait to get my hands on my new baby, get the screen protector on it before the kids wreck the screen, and figure out all of this blankin' software!

Well, we just got back from the craft store, and picked up the basic 950. I didn't see any letter brands, but we did get a simple stencil set that is the perfect size for the 1.25" blocks we found 3/$1. Yee Haw!

The rubber stamp idea sounds great, and would definitely save a lot of work, but it would be expensive to set up, and the ink isn't as vibrant against the wood as paint. Of course, I have a sneaking suspicion that we are way over designing this little project, something the Craft department chair has tendency to do <sheepish grin>. Since stamping/carving our whole name would be tricky, hubby is woking on a design with two offset blocks with "B" on the facing sides to maybe stamp. We would then put a card with the same logo and "Team Buildingblocks since 4-05" so people would know who it is. This is comin' together folks- we're headed off to the craft store tonight to get supplies for prototypes. I really hope our skill and patience is up to this! Yamone- the dominos sound really cool, and would fit in most caches. What types of things do you do to decorate them?

You guys are awesome! I'll blow these ideas past the Garage Department and Craft Department and see what they say. Hey Robert, quick OT: Do you have anything to do with the homeschool curriculum Write Shop?

I really hope I can rally my troops to do this. My oldest (Babyblock#1, even though he is 16!) is saying I should just buy a set, sand down one side, and stamp it with a team stamp. I think that would be OK, but the initials would be more personal. I was actually thinking that it would be easier to paint the blocks while they are blank, then dremel away the "background"- painting will go much faster. We'd love to head over to the valley soon- we actually have tentative plans to go tour the dam before the pass gets icky next fall. Who knows- keep your eyes peeled, you may spot us!

Our nic being 'Buildingblocks', we were thinking we could use a small block of wood and somehow imprint our five childrens' initials and 'team Buildingblocks' on the six sides of the block, making it look like the old wooden blocks. We are pretty crafty, and I'm thinking of making a simple stencil for each side, carving with the dremel, then painting. We haven't done tons of caching, and frankly, I'm trying to get my hubby a little more excited about it, and I'm hoping he'll 'get it' a bit more if we have something meaningful to leave. Anyhoo, since this obviously wouldn't fit in micros, we would probably only go through a couple dozen in a season. 1) Does this sound like way too much work for a sig item? 2) Is using my children's initials a bad idea? I keep that info off the internet, but I don't see the problem with putting it on an item that will only be seen by a few people. I'm not planning on imprinting it with our home address. 3) What size block would work well? I'm thinking 1.5" or so so there is room for detail. Hubby is concerned with that being too big for many caches. 4) Do you think this would be a cool thing to find?