Nothlit

How about if I cut the price of the Vista back to $195 plus shipping? These units are selling as high as $230 on eBay, so this is a pretty good deal. Any takers? Don't forget you can get the handlebar mount from me too.

I'm selling a nearly-new eTrex Vista which is actually branded with the Hummer logo, but it's exactly the same as a regular Vista unit. I am also selling an eTrex handlebar mounting bracket that will fit any unit in the eTrex line. I've owned these items for just over a week. The Vista has been used on a couple of caches, but it's still squeaky clean. The handlebar bracket has not been used at all. I still have all the original documentation and accessories for both items (lanyard, PC interface cable, etc.). I have upgraded the Vista to the latest firmware from Garmin. If you are interested in one or both of these items, here are the details. You don't have to buy both! eTrex Vista unit - $200 (plus shipping) eTrex handlebar bracket - $10 (plus shipping) Or...drumroll please...you can become the lucky owner of both items for a mere $210 plus shipping! I will accept postal money orders, personal checks (will wait to clear), or PayPal Instant Transfer or E-check. Sorry, I can't accept PayPal payments funded from credit cards. I will ship via whatever method you prefer, as long as it offers some tracking capability. Shipping insurance is optional, and also at the buyer's expense. Post a reply here, or send me a PM or e-mail if you're interested or have any questions.

As you have discovered, the intial out-of-the-box satellite lock takes a while. I just got a new Vista a couple of days ago. I tore it out of the FedEx box as fast as I could, threw some freshly charged batteries in it, and tossed it out in the front yard so it could get a lock. Didn't even bother to go back out and check it for at least 30 minutes, but when I did, it was happily locked on with a 15 foot accuracy. But, from now on, your unit should only take a minute or two to get a lock, unless you travel a really long distance without turning it on.

Just to follow up on a question in the original post: You can easily disable the Vista's barometric altimeter and choose the "Use GPS Elevation" option instead. I believe it's in one of the menus on the satellite page. I have a Vista and just discovered that option a couple of days ago.

Hmm, I've been trying to delete my avatar for the past couple of days but it doesn't seem to be working. I logged out of the forums, went to my profile page, clicked on the "change/edit" link under my current avatar, clicked the "edit this image" link on the Choose Avatar page, clicked on the trashcan icon, clicked "yes" on the confirmation button that came up asking if I really wanted to delete the image. Then I went to the "re-register changes in the forums" page, logged back into the forums, and... the avatar is still here. I even waited a couple of days, but nothing has happened. Am I doing something wrong? Edit: Ah, well, I was able to at least change the avatar to a different picture. But it seems apparent that it must not be possible to have no avatar at all. That's too bad.

Any takers if I offer the Venture for $90 shipped? If nobody bites in the next day or two, it's headed to eBay...

Hello all. I've decided it's time to upgrade to a newer unit, so I'm selling my Garmin eTrex Venture. It's in great condition. I used it for light geocaching over the last couple of years, and not much else. It's served me well. I don't have the original packaging or owner's manual anymore, but you can download that from Garmin anyway. If you really want, I can print out a copy of the manual and include it for an extra $5. I'm asking $100, which includes shipping. U.S. buyers only, please. I'll accept PayPal (instant transfer or e-check, no credit cards) or a personal check or money order through the mail. Feel free to contact me with any additional questions. I might entertain a slightly lower offer if you catch me in a good mood, so it can't hurt to ask. Edit: Forgot to mention that I also have the serial cable that connects it to a computer, and I'll include that in the price as well.

quote:Originally posted by wooden_nickel:I like to work in radius from my zip code and enjoyed seeing searches come up with all found with in 5, 10, 15 miles as I completed each. Don't see how I can do that anymore. To filter by distance, see Jeremy's post above: quote:Add f=1 if you want to filter out caches you have hidden and found from a search query. Like so:http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?zip=98008&dist=100&f=1 zip = zipcode dist = distance in miles (max 150) f = filter type 1 (filter all) --- Grove City College

quote:Originally posted by rusty_da_dog:I really liked it when the caches were seperated by caches I have not found at the top of the page. I think something needs to be changed with the little X in the box, and it would work better in my opinion if they were seperated found/not found. What about MAP PAGES?? Are they going to be up and running anytime soon? can anyone give me a timeframe on that? I think it's been pretty well established in many, many posts on this thread that the sorting of caches by found/not-found within the search page was one of the things that was contributing to the server load, which is why it had to be changed in the first place. I doubt we'll see that feature again. As for the maps, if you're talking about the state maps with icons for each cache...you can find those using the URL format http://www.geocaching.com/map/TX.asp (for Texas). If that's not what you were looking for, my apologies. --- Grove City College

(edit: I was going to say something else, but I changed my mind.)

I've yet to meet any other cachers, and I've gone on about 15 hunts so far. Haven't had to resort to the "cell phone method" yet, either, but I know that day will come... Usually when I see others on the path, I just act like I'm out for a stroll and make sure they're out of sight before I dive off the path and start searching in the woods for the cache. I think I may start carrying a couple of little business cards with me that have a brief explanation of the game, and stuff like that, in case passersby become interested, or if I have to explain to "the man" why I'm poking around in the middle of nowhere. --- Grove City College

If they hadn't made these changes, we might have had a mandatory break for a year while they picked up bits and pieces of the server after it exploded under the load that the old search interface was creating. I like the new interface, but I won't rest until I see a simple option to toggle found/dead caches on or off without having to re-enter all the search criteria over again. I don't have my home coordinates memorized, so it gets rather tedious when I have to start a "new search" and re-enter them with the "exclude" box checked. (But I've said all this in the "official" thread, so I might as well not even get started here... ) --- Grove City College

I think this is a good idea, however I'm not sure if it differs enough from the pocket queries that premium members can perform. In either case, I'm seriously considering going premium just because I want to support the site, and if an API is something that's possible to implement without too much hassle, I would love to see it. --- Grove City College

I've noticed that it is still possible to use URL query strings on the new search page...examples... ?ul=username for all caches found by a user ?u=username for all caches hidden by a user ?acode=### for all caches in a U.S. area code ?key=keyword for all caches containing the keyword However, if I do a search for ul=Nothlit, to see all the caches I've found (yes, I realize I could just go to My Cache Page, but humor me for a moment) then both the black "public" and green "private" last found dates on each cache are identical, even if someone else has found the cache since I did. If I perform a search from my home coordinates, the black and green dates are different as they should be, if someone else has found the cache after I did. (Jeremy, is this what you meant by "2. For caches found (by username), if the query is for your finds, show the last found date for the cache and not of the user." at the beginning of this thread? If so, my apologies for rehashing something that's already been brought up.) Not sure if you still want us to use query strings like this, Jeremy, but I thought I would point this out... Edit: A couple more things I just remembered... I wholeheartedly agree with others who have suggested that instead of a select-only-one dropdown list of cache types, we should be able to select multiple cache types to search for, either from a list of checkboxes or from a list that allows Ctrl+clicking to select multiple options. Also, I keep getting thrown off by the fact that when I change from "By Postal Code" to any of the other search methods, the page has to reload before I can type my search query into the text box. Sometimes it takes a couple of seconds for the page to reload, and I've already typed my search term, only to lose it because I forgot that the page has to reload first. Is there an absolute need for this, or is it something I'm just going to have to get used to? The more I use this new interface, the more I like it, but a few tweaks like this could make it even better. --- Grove City College [This message was edited by Nothlit on June 16, 2003 at 11:56 AM.]

I agree with much that vds said above, however I appreciate that Jeremy has expressed interest in color-coding the rows of data. I really think that with that small addition, the usability of this new design would increase tenfold. I did like the old way of having found and dead caches down at the bottom of the page, but I understand if that created additional load on the database (although at the moment, I don't quite see how it would have...anyone care to explain?). I can get used to having everything in one big-ol' list if we could get the color coding so that it's easy to distinguish found/not-found/dead at a single glance without having to look for that little X. I would also like to see the ability to click a link at the top of any search results page that says something like "show/hide found caches" that would simply toggle the display of found caches on or off within the current search criteria, without having to re-enter that criteria all over again. As vds said, at present, this seems to be mostly an improvement on the speed/sysadmin side of things. It still has a little ways to go before I'll be happy on the user side of things, but I'd say it's off to a good start, with a lot of good suggestions from everybody so far! --- Grove City College

All right, I gave it a try. Let's see what happens. edit: Success! --- Grove City College

I registered last summer (as you can see at the bottom of the message) and apparently set Atlanta, GA as my location. I suppose that's accurate enough, but I would rather it change it to Roswell, GA. I thought I did this...I went to Profile under the My Space tab up there and changed both the location fields to Roswell, but it's not showing up in any of my new posts. It's been several days now! Anybody know what's up and what I can do to get this thing to obey me? --- Grove City College

I highly recommend going ahead and opting for a unit with the option of connecting it to a computer through a data cable. Entering a few waypoints by hand isn't too bad, but if you really get into this sport, I think you'll find the extra $10-20 cost for the data connection to be well worth it! I am currently using the eTrex Venture, which serves all my geocaching needs more than adequately. The only thing it doesn't have that I wish it did is a real compass...it computes your current heading based on your previous and current positions, so it doesn't work if you're standing still or turning in place (something I do a lot while geocaching!) More expensive units have built-in magnetic compasses, but I don't think it's worth the extra money for those. If you find that you need precise directional information, you can find decent compasses pretty cheap at any sporting goods store. --- Grove City College

I first started geocaching last summer...late last June, if I remember right. Anyway, I found several caches then, but alas, I was whisked away to my first year of college, where my lack of a car prevented me from getting out and hunting off campus. Now that I'm back home again for the summer, I'm back on the hunt, and I just have to say...I don't see how I ever made it through nine months with no caching! And I already have a couple of places in mind to put some caches around my college town in the fall. This is so addictive... Now if I could just find my compass...I went hunting yesterday and the tree cover was giving my etrex Venture the fits, and since it doesn't have a built-in compass, I was hopelessly wandering around hoping to stumble across the cache... --- Grove City College

I've never had to pass my eTrex Venture off as a cell phone yet, but I'm sure someday I will. I tend to hunt caches mostly in suburban park environments where there are people jogging, walking dogs, etc. I don't worry so much about walking down a well-defined trail with my GPSr out in front leading the way. What I do worry about is when I have to leave the trail, but the cache location is still visible *from* the trail. I can only imagine what all the joggers think I must be doing off over there in the woods, wandering around in circles looking at tree stumps... --- Grove City College

Seems I can get into all of the cache detail pages (anything containing "cache_details.aspx" in the address), but nothing else. Weird. --- Grove City College

Same overload error here as well. Guess I'll have to wait a little while longer to log today's finds. --- Grove City College

Before I get started, I should mention that I am going to e-mail the tech support address listed at the ExpertGPS web site, but I thought I would post here as well in case other users have experienced this... I downloaded the ExpertGPS trial version yesterday, and I really love all the features of this program. However, it keeps randomly crashing, and the error log file offers nothing other than "an undetermined error occured." It seems like this is happening mostly when I'm trying to download aerial photos, either by zooming in on an area where I don't already have data, or by dragging a "download rectangle." I read about Terraserver's recent move and that people were experiencing some problems with that, but I'm not sure if this is related. I'm running Win XP Pro, and I do have the most recent version of the ExpertGPS software (1.2.7). Any ideas? --- Grove City College

I think something some cache hiders (and seekers!) run into is not knowing the subtle differences between the "difficulty" rating and the "terrain" rating. And I may be wrong, too, but it seems to me that terrain would be an indicator of how tough it is to get to the coordinates and difficulty refers to the ease of finding the cache once you are at the coordinates specified. I think sometimes people get the two mixed up, or jumbled in their minds when they rate a cache, or go out to find a cache.

I think something some cache hiders (and seekers!) run into is not knowing the subtle differences between the "difficulty" rating and the "terrain" rating. And I may be wrong, too, but it seems to me that terrain would be an indicator of how tough it is to get to the coordinates and difficulty refers to the ease of finding the cache once you are at the coordinates specified. I think sometimes people get the two mixed up, or jumbled in their minds when they rate a cache, or go out to find a cache.