Ranger Fox

"Parsing Geocaches" Layman's Terms: Your browser download the geocache list from the server and began placing the caches on the map. However, it may have had a problem when doing so, causing it to stop what it was doing without clearing the "Parsing Geocaches" message. So matter how long you wait, it's not going to do anything more. Technical Explanation: The JavaScript received the JSON-formatted XML string from the server and has begun to index it and create the map pointers. I would surmise exceptions are not caught and the operation terminates abnormally. ----------- TECHNICAL ANALYSIS OF SLOW MAPS For people that say the maps are slow, I wonder if it is due to their computer's setup, including the amount of free RAM. I'm running a 3 1/2 year old laptop: 3.4GHz P4 HT (single core) and 2GB DDR RAM with 500-900MB in use. It's a Sager! My main browser is Firefox and operating environment is Win XP SP2. All tests were performed on a controlled network at work; no other traffic on the network. To give this a fair shot, here is my analysis of the maps. I am running a PQ for my home area, showing a maximum of 500 caches, which span an estimated 50 mile radius. This testing is done in two phases. The first phase is the interval between the geocache list request (via AJAX) and when the list seems to have been received (mostly when the map recenters). The second phase begins after the first ends and concludes when the caches are displayed on the map regardless if the map graphics have loaded. INTERNET EXPLORER 6.0.2900.2180: First Phase: 60MB RAM required; 1 minute, 28 seconds to retrieve data; around 55% processor activity Second Phase: 18MB RAM required (additional); 4 seconds; around 86% processor peak FIREFOX 2.0.0.9 (browser only open to forum): First Phase: 24MB RAM required; 20 seconds to retrieve data; around 53% processor activity Second Phase: 1MB RAM required (additional); 1 second; around 85% processor peak INTERNET EXPLORER 6 (after clearing session and closing browser): First Phase: 48MB RAM; 1 minute, 21 seconds Second Phase: 10 MB RAM; 7 seconds FIREFOX (after clearing session and closing browser): First Phase: 27MB RAM; 17 seconds Second Phase: 0MB RAM; 2 seconds Clearly, these tests show IE users might experience a less than optimal user experience. Considering how Microsoft's browser is not standards-compliant, it's no wonder it has to go through more processing. Can someone post test results for IE 7, including system specs? Perhaps part of the map problem has to do with the system setup? True, the system will differ, the PQ will be different, so the results will not be very comparable, but at least we'll have an idea.

I like the tie-in with Waymarking.com. I think it will definitely spark interest in that alternate form of recreation. I have been playing around with this hidden feature ever since the AJAX call was complete and am very interested in what the public release will look like--especially what other information will end up in the call-outs. Good business decision, Jeremy. I suppose someone is learning how to extract geocode information from the pictures you were taking at Geowoodstock V? I assume this to be a tie-in to Waymarking or even to gc.com at a later date.

I thought about that idea, but don't know how much of a benefit as a whole that would be to the user community. Many people (not me) have large GSAK databases they update with additional coordinates. For me, before I wipe the caches off my GPSr, I make a backup of all waypoints. When I solve a mystery or find another multi's stage and decide not to continue, I change the waypoint icon to anything other than a geocache. I edited and imported into my GPSr the cache type icons Groundspeak uses to identify cache types, so I change the waypoint icon to one of those. When I wipe geocaches from my GPSr, those waypoints persist. Anyway, getting back on topic... Permit me to modify your suggestion to apply it in a broader sense. Why not have a private note section you can use for each cache? A geocaching notebook, if you will, to jot down things from coordinates to how the cache was hidden to who you met to things that happened. You would only have one note field per cache; if you wanted to add more, you could append it to your notes. These could be added at the same time a log is created or from the cache page itself. HOWEVER, to prevent confusion with the "write note" log type, we would have to call it something else. One cacher in my area has a geocoin s/he dips in every cache s/he finds. The pickup notes tell how the cache was hidden and what the container was. I think the person does it so s/he can look up cache information if anyone calls him/her for a hint. However, this information is public. As someone who hides creative caches, I would really not like my information available in such a manner. Having private notes for a cache would give that person somewhere to put that information. That's my two cents. Will this deposit gain interest?

I have seen the exception for, perhaps, 10-20% of the recently-published caches I bring up (view cache details). Of the times I remember, I always pull the cache by the "wp" query string (so I am not clicking on a link, but manually entering a URL via my Firefox bookmark keywords). At times, a security exception is thrown. Workaround: When I try to view a cache page and an exception is thrown, I pull up the log page for the same cache (again, a manual URL entry with bookmark keywords), then click the cache title. This almost always works and I am able to see the cache description. Other than that, I just wait for a minute and try again. Periodic exceptions are a pain to repro and debug. You never know if the current thread you're stepping through will produce the exception, nor if the act itself of stepping through will never repro the exception. Being a .Net web developer myself, I understand the pain.

I ran into this problem when programming the waymarks back into the map (Greasemonkey). The problem I ran into was with double quotes. You can add that to your list of unsafe characters. The problem is these literals do not work with JSON deserialization. For the double quotes, I replaced them with two single quotes--pretty much indistinguishable with the font used on the page. To fix the problem from this reported defect, I replaced the backslashes with forward slashes. Unfortunately for Groundspeak, you all have to find a way to display the literals and not a way around it. I do have an efficient JavaScript function that will fix everything you need, along those terms, to display the names correctly for JSON deserialization for waymarks and geocaches. Hmm... If it'll take Groundspeak a few weeks to fix, should I put out a Greasemonkey patch? Just as long as the csae(c,o,e) function is overridden correctly, that is.

Oh, wow, which story do I tell? How late at night do I want to confess I cached? While I'm the local FTF shark, I try not going for everything that comes up. However, I am free to go for any sort of trail-based cache at any time of night because I know no one else will that night. Some times, it's as early as 10PM I'm out on the trails and at other times, I'm still out there at 2-3AM, being stalked by deer and who knows what else all the while. It was really difficult choosing just one story since I have so many and yet each one is not engrossing enough on its own. Therefore, I'll summarize a few stories. For the full versions, you can always look at my logs for those caches. "Maggi's Multi" (GCYDGM) - 20060922 This is one of my favorite stories to tell. A few days prior, I did nine FTFs in a row, then had to RMA my 60CSx. Someone commented that would give others a chance to find caches. I didn't tell them my PDA came with a Bluetooth GPSr. Before this cache, I had never tested its accuracy, so it was an odd way to "christen" or test it--in the middle of the night. This cache was on one of the lake trails. I drove to the parking lot and entered the coordinates. At the time, I had an Energizer flashlight that converted to a lantern. Very convenient, though the circuitry had died a few weeks before and I had to get it replaced. I found the first stage of the multi with fairly little work. However, to find the second stage would be a multi-day affair. You see, I live in the middle of North Carolina and the next stage's coordinates pointed me more than a hundred miles off the coast into the Atlantic Ocean. Hmm... Another cache with misprinted coordinates... There are more these days, too. Anyway, the degrees was the only thing off, so I adjusted and walked the rest of the mile out on the trail to the final. On my way, a few things scurried across the trail, possums or such. Some times they make me jump because I don't expect to hear anything. At the cache site, I found the container without event. It was midnight on the dot. I hung the flashlight, in lantern mode, from a tree and signed the log. No sooner had I written the "x" in my handle than the light went out. No amount of clicking, shaking, or battery or bulb replacement would make it come on. The circuitry had, once again, blown. Hmm... A mile out on the trail, no light save for a PDA, and critters are out and about. Not good. What to do, what to do? I tried using the PDA, but could only see five feet in front of me. Hmm... No, not good. I finally decided to bushwhack directly out of the trail area about a hundred-fifty or two hundred yards, cross someone's back yard into the front, get on a street, and walk out that way. Did I go out in the woods after that? Sure; twenty days later I was back out and FTFed another at 10:15 PM. The Furniture City Marathon (GCYP1H) - 20061022 This was released as part of an event. Everyone got into organized caching teams and hit the event caches. This was the coveted final. I should note the event began with breakfast and I also hit 1K at the breakfast event. We cached through the evening, FTFing more than this after the sun went down. Check out my log for GCYQZQ; we were out on those trails at 10:55 PM trying to scour laminated pictures for very small numbers. At that time, we were the only ones still running the marathon. In the end, we cleared the marathon final at 12:35 AM. A fun time indeed. A Tale of Two Trails (GC109TH) - 20070114 This was an important FTF by many definitions. First, it was my 100th FTF. Second, doing this cache at night gave me an idea for a night cache that has immensely impressed the locals. This cache was by one of our local masters of camo and was certainly not meant to be found in the dark. The first stage was somewhat close to the parking area, so I hiked out there around 10:15 PM and began looking for the stage. Fast forward an hour of searching and frustration and I found it. Because I went through all of that, I was certainly not going to let anyone else have the FTF. I walked back out of the trail, drove the car around the lake, and walked a mile out on the second trail. I found the second stage easily at 12:25 AM and continued to the final. If you have ever seen areas in the woods of many downed trees, you know exactly what the final stage's site looked like. Tons of places to hide tupperware. In the end, I had to DNF for the night, giving up at 2:00 AM and walking the trail of shame a mile and a quarter back to my car. The next day, I went out and completed the find in the daylight. The cache name made me wonder if I could create a cache that would tie the trails closer together. I came up with a way, a night cache that takes most people two and a half to three hours to do, "A Tale of Two Trails - Bedtime Story" (GC112D8). I do not think anyone has topped this one as of yet. Sketcher's Vault (GC10CEQ) - 20070202 Whoo, this is a little fun story. This was the final to a series where some caches had correct coordinates and others were more than 100' or more off. There was even a nano in the woods, but by the time I did this cache, I had spent four hours on that one and could not find it. The cache owner was, at that time, known as the most evil guy in our area--a little background to frame the story. In fact, we didn't have all the information we needed to find this final. We had the coordinates, but not a key piece of information. You'll see. Halfway through the series of caches, I teamed up with histryboy and shared information. We took his kids out a mile and a half on a trail one evening. The sun was still a little away from setting. We thought we would be able to do the cache in an hour or so and get out before dark. If anything, we could hack the cache. What I am about to tell now is NOT in my log and only the cache owner knows of what transpired. A little bonus for those who enjoy reading along. So, shh! I found the final and saw the four digit lock on it. We had some clues, but it turned out one of the other caches we had yet to find modified those. I tried all variations of the clues and the lock did not open. Hmm... What to do but brute force hacking? That's right, folks, I began with 7000 and tried each number one at a time! It took, if I remember correctly, 30-40 minutes to try a set of 1000 numbers. Fast forward two and a half hours. It had gotten terribly cold and my hands were beginning to numb. Histryboy went off and found "A Tale of Two Trails" with his kids, returned, and built a little fire in a clearing. I took the cache to the fire and kept trying numbers. We had a good time chatting and the kids were very, very patient and well behaved. Eventually, it was past eleven or midnight, so we decided to head out of the woods. I took the cache with us and back to my home, trying numbers there until I got it to open. We met the next morning, signed the log, and I replaced the cache on the trail in the afternoon. Believe me, no one was going to look for that thing for days to come due to the component caches' stages. After that, I told the owner the story and he said the find was invalid until we found ALL of the component caches. I had one left--the nano in the woods with the questionable coordinates. I had searched for that thing multiple nights and could not find it. I joked with others about buying a metal detector and bringing it out there. The owner heard of it and spread nuts and bolts around the cache site. I heard of his action and went out and bought a metal detector because of that--at least I would know the roundabout location of ground zero. I cleaned up the metal and located the cache twenty minutes later, signed the log (FTF at 8:20 PM, very dark), and notified histryboy of its location so he could find it second and be able to log the "Sketcher's Vault" as FTF again. One more, then I'll stop: Happy Trails to You (GC12DWT) - 20070502 and So, Where are the Palmettos? (GC1120V) - 20070228 Both of these caches involve the same thing--local wildlife, the same trail, and both were found right around 9PM. There are other instances, but these two are the only ones I can think of at the moment. They involve deer. The locals, by now, ask me if deer stalk me after I complete an FTF in the woods at night. These two caches may have started that. When I was finding the "Happy Trails" cache, deer began circling the area I was caching, just out of my flashlight's reach, but so I could see an outline and the reflective eyes. It was an entire family unit of at least five. They slowly paced a half circle from the trail on in as I looked and looked and looked for the cache, all the while trying to keep an eye on them. I had thoughts they might try to run me off. And still I looked for the cache. After forty minutes of this uneasy stalemate, I found the cache and left the area only to run into another pair of deer on the way out. For the other cache, I ran into four of I don't know know what on the trail and had an uneasy time. ------------------------------------- ------------------------------------- ------------------------------------- Fun times and I hope people enjoyed the stories. I like to tell them. There are plenty more. However, I think the trail system filled up with caches some months ago and no new ones have come out there since. Too bad. These stories are not to be confused with my through-the-night caching runs or the midnight FTF urban cache runs. And, yes, I do occasionally get stopped by the police for caching at two in the morning. For them, the truth is stranger than fiction.

You're right on that. However, as long as you know all those days have finds, that's what matters. Since I get backed up on logs, I use the calendar page to see which days I have not logged.

If it was the end of geocaching as we know it, I'm glad that for once no one informed me of a scheduled event. Perhaps October 9th was the invasion of the micros and we'll never see a quality cache again. Well, I might just have to do something about THAT. ---------- Yeah, I do know how to see my streaks, but this was a defect I found with the gc.com interface. There are other applications aside from itsnotaboutthenumbers.com. Going to my profile and clicking on "geocaches" in the top menu, as you cite, IS the page where this happens. So that won't work anyway. If I really wanted to get picky, look at the "Geocaches" tab in any profile. You see that all types of caches with an asterisk apply to the bottom-line number. However, the mega event cache type does not have an asterisk, yet it is applied to the bottom-line number. Now, THAT is picky.

This defect has been confirmed with another user's account. Summary Hyperlinks are not displayed on the calendar control for all days geocaches were found after the 8th of October. Depending upon when the user entered caches before that, such as times the .Net 2 code was on production, a few more hyperlinks will be missing. I have found a cache every day since March 2nd, so this problem is not reported because I thought I should be able to view days without finds. More than one find is logged on most days, some finds logged a week later, and other finds logged on the same day a cache was found. More Detail For Oct. 1st and 3rd, I logged the days' finds a week later, so the .Net 2 code was on production at that time. Most caches were not logged on the day found, though the more recent ones were. Looking at the output from the My Finds PQ, I cannot see any sort of data defect. Finds logged for a date on gc.com are reflected with this date. However, the time is reflected as a constant 7PM on that day and not the usual 7AM as seen with the 1.1 code. Displaying other months are successful; all days (on which I had a find) are hyperlinked. Another clue this is for the current code base. Clicking on a linked day does in fact display all that day's logs. I have not created a Greasemonkey script to test submitting for the missing days. If requested, I will perform my QA this way. Client Details This problem is not client dependent; the server provides this HTML. Therefore, client details have not been supplied. Misc If you need any more information, HTML source, or would like me to test a different way, please ask. I usually enter defects for my code at work this way, so do not be offended by the somewhat formal report. Can everyone else reproduce this defect?

Here's something else for your defect management system. Software: .Net 2 gc.com site; server-side code Component: LogBookPanel Synopsis: The month display is different for edit logs as it is for new logs. The problem is in the calendar web control, used on both the cache and TB log pages. Steps to repro: Display the page to add a new log to a TB or cache. Note the months are in their word form (January, February, etc.). Click on a link to edit an existing TB or cache log. The months now appear in their numerical form (1, 2, etc.). This defect seems to occur when the LogBookPanel is assigned a date to display. Misc: The date drop-down list (DDL) next to the month DDL always has two digits on the new log page (09, 10, etc.). The same DDL displays the dates in single digits (9, 10, etc.) when the form is in edit mode. Refer to another defect for the LogBookPanel being assigned a date before its value is requested (which happens when logs are submitted), resulting in all logs being for the current day.

A few things of note: Static finds on logs: I can see where you are coming from with that. Though it might be helpful, it just doesn't feel all that necessary. It also puts more of a focus on numbers, and such a topic certainly does not need further encouragement. Generally, you tend to get a feeling for whose logs to trust when related to your own caching proficiency so you can judge whether you will be able to find a cache. But as for including a snapshot of the user's current find count on the log, something about that makes me shy away. Does anyone have any comment on this? =========== Standalone versus combined statbar: I will only build a combined, fully-customizable statbar. This is my goal. With it, you should be able to make whatever statbar you desire--one for each use or one with everything. If you want separate statbars, such as for Waymarking and benchmarks, build the statbar that way (in other words, use two different URLs to produce that result). I will, however, keep this in mind as I was going to require the find and hide count to be included on all statbars. That would not work well if you wanted to include the benchmarks found and that's it. =========== Conserving resources: I see what you mean. Currently, the load is just on the find and hide counts--top level numbers. The same stored procedure is executed each time a statbar is requested. Additionally, the same SQL join is executed when a cache page is populated with logs. Therefore, I am ruling out any sort of concern about resources when considering only top level numbers. However, when we look at breakdowns by cache type, I am not so certain. To explain the above scenario: To pull a user's finds, one would only have to query the cache log table where the user's GUID equals whatever it is. To pull a breakdown, you would have to join the cache log table with the cache table and get an aggregate sum grouped by cache type ID. Considering those are the two largest tables in the database, it would still take more than thirty or forty milliseconds to complete even with the correct indicies in place. Just considering joining those two tables makes me hesitant. For the lay person, the cache log table has more than 15,000,000 rows (approx. 600,000 active and archived caches with an average twenty-five log entries each). So, yeah, lots of data and lots to consider. Now, let's assume we decide to release the cache breakdown on the statbar, but cache the query results to produce a lighter server load. Should my application cache the last value by fifteen minutes? Would this delay be acceptable to the end user or would it look like it is not functioning correctly? =========== Other information on the statbar: Certain metrics, such as "Caching since 30-09-2007", can be added as plain text to the statbar. Other items, such as "Caching for xxx days" will in fact need its own programming. I'll think about things like that. If there is enough demand, that might be a next version thing. I will, though, build into the fully customizable statbar the ability to add more than one text field. Position as you want and assign a value. Viola: instant other information for which we don't have to make an additional DB call. But, yes, most items are calculated metrics, so I'll have to think of something to do. =========== Nonzero finds: I did not plan to show cache types without finds. It's good to know such a thing was brought up and has been discussed. Save for the major cache types (traditional, multi, and mystery), I guess we can leave that off, though for viruals and letterboxes I am less certain. =========== Well, that's all the time I have to include comments. I need to get back to work.

All right, then. When I finally get Jeremy's attention, I will be certain to include waymarks in the list. He asked me to email him about this after GW5. Four months and two or three email reminders later and I'm waiting patiently for a reply. When I finish what I am doing at the moment and its UI, I will instead contact Raine (also only once the .Net 2 site is released) and try to get this through. Check out the statbar at the following link. This is part of my semi custom statbar experiment. It's progressing. Without OCR or Groundspeak's support via a web service, I believe this is as far as I can take the statbar modification. http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?u=creacher Before this thread dies, is there anything else to request? Would there be interest in a benchmark-only statbar or even one that mixes in Waymarking? As long as it's a good, thought-out idea, I'll spend time developing it for the community. I'll check back here when I can; I will be attending the Alabama Open Invitational (say hi to me if you're there) and am already down in Florida, doing priority number one. Cheers!

The following is a statbar concept I mocked up (all but the handle and find/hide count will be optional). This is where I would like to go with the Statbar Modifier, supposing I am given the web services I requested. This is the concept: As you can see, it has a background, logo with transparency, selectable font color, and the find breakdown (including benchmarks, though not shown). I want to add a hide breakdown, but need to decide how to distinguish between the two. Perhaps text behind the breakdown, I don't know at the moment. I'm working on another update for the Statbar Modifier that will include backgrounds and selectable font color. It will be a few months before I can come out with the UI for everyone.

I'm still waiting for Jeremy to respond to my web service request, which has been outstanding since the end of May. In it is a web service that will provide me a breakdown of finds by cache type for a user. If I can ever get that, I can provide everyone with that breakdown on their statbar--including benchmarks. Here's what I can do for you at the moment: Tell me where you want your benchmark stat to appear on the statbar and what it should look like. I will try to add that as a side feature to the Statbar Modifier, supposing it works out. If you provide the URL with a number, it will display that as the number of benchmarks found. Until I get that web service from Groundspeak, that's all I can provide, so it's better than nothing. Alternatively, you could always put the number of benchmarks you found in the user quote section (I created a Greasemonkey script to show whatever statbar you want on your account page). I could also remove your find and hide counts from the statbar and place your benchmarks found count in its place. However you want it, I can also add the benchmark icon to the statbar. Discuss how you want it to appear and I'll see what I can do. Statbar Modifier: www.devfolio.com/geocaching/statbar It's a free service I created for everyone to use. Submit whatever G-rated, non-copyrighted images you would like. I'm currently working on a new type of statbar with a background and such. Check my profile page for the live test. (When I'm finished with the fully customizable statbar, I'll put it on its own domain.)

I saw this thread yesterday and still have the same opinion. If you're going to add any sort of attribute, it would be "Dangerous Animals". It covers not only baboons, but bears in some areas. Perhaps not the stalking deer in my area, though... Anyway, something like that would fit better since it is multi-use. As an alternative, you could stick the "Dangerous Area" attribute on it. Slightly off topic: But, really, how useless are the attributes when most of us do paperless caching? The attributes are NOT included in the GPX files, so we will never see them. It is best to put the attributes directly in your listing.

Run a "My Finds" pocket query and load that into Cache Stats. Click the "Export to HTML" button the application, select what you want, and click "Copy to Clipboard". Go into your profile page and paste. What else would you like to know?

I currently offer a service called the "Statbar Modifier". It works by requesting the current gc.com statbar and changing the logo. I have implemented the following features in it: --It caches the last requested statbar, so will work even with gc.com is down. --It fixes the long user quote clipping issue; have a longer message on your statbar, if you'd like. --It fixes the long user name clipping issue, but this is a per-user basis because I have to adjust a file the program uses. --You can put a logo on both the left and right side of your statbar. For now, one on the left is required (though I can easily make this optional). --You can specify a list of logos to be used randomly. I have this up on my profile page, so refresh your browser window and you may see a different logo. --Due to supporting users in Germany and Italy (thank you!), the first page is available in German and Italian. When I get more time to work on the application, I will check the other pages and ask my contacts for the translation. All the above is free and ad-free to everyone. I cover the cost on my own and ask only that people use what I have spent my time to make. If people want a new feature, all they have to do is ask. If you want to submit your logo to be used on the Statbar Modifier, please do. I do not allow people to upload logos directly because I don't want inappropriate images used--and I want to guarantee that what is up there works 100% and looks good. I talked about a fully customizable with Jeremy at Geowoodstock 5 and what I would need from Groundspeak to make it happen. For an example of what could be possible with this new statbar, look at the very bottom of the "About" page on the Statbar Modifier site. At the moment, Jeremy has not responded to my email, so I have been sending him a reminder every month. There is never a time when Groundspeak is not busy. For the fully customizable statbar, I want to offer the following, all optional for users: --A statbar background --A breakdown of finds by cache type --The inclusion of the number of trackables found and owned --All the icons of trackables found and owned (which I mentioned as an idea in my previous post) --The ability to have line breaks in the user quote and even the inclusion of multiple quotes. --Transparency in logos so they work with backgrounds, if desired. --And whatever else the user community can come up with. The Statbar Modifier is at www.devfolio.com/geocaching/statbar If or when I implement the fully customizable statbar, I will move the service to a domain of its own so it's easier for people to remember. Old links will still work. Anyway, I see, DPHC, you emailed me while I was writing this. Your logo has been uploaded and tested; it's ready for you. Enjoy!

Yes, we could do a different statbar for TBs. I wonder what that demand would be? I did give the TBs-on-statbar idea some further thought. I met with Jeremy at Geowoodstock 5 and shared some ideas with him. He asked me to email him and I'm currently in a rather long wait for his response. If I can ever get a few web services from Groundspeak, I can continue working on a fully customizable statbar. On it, I plan to offer the option of including a find breakdown by cache type. I don't think it would be any stretch of the imagination to include two stats for trackables found and owned. There's another consideration I can throw out to everyone--trackable icons. I found many people like to collect icons for their profile page. Perhaps an option for the customizable statbar would be to include very small (10px x 10px perhaps) versions of every icon on the user's page. If I can fit twenty a line, I may only have to deal with a maximum of five to seven lines of icons, which means it might be an either/or thing to include the cache type breakdown or trackable icon list on the new statbar. Another alternative could be knocking the opacity down to 20% and using all the icons as a background (offered in addition and not instead of). Provided I have the data and support to do so, I'll gladly take up statbar programming and design.

Nope. I've never seen it either. Here are my two tests: ENVIRONMENT: Firefox 2, Win XP, normal network operations, keywords under Firefox for faster page access TEST #1: Logging caches and updating mileage tracker (normal operations) I typed up all my logs in MS Word and had the GC at the top of each log. I brought up two tabs in Firefox: one for the cache log and the other for my mileage tracker. For each log, I created a Greasemonkey script to select "found it" and my mileage tracker from inventory. I type "log GCXXXX" into the address bar and the log page displays. By that time, I have copied the typed log and am ready to paste it. Three tabs and a space bar will submit the form. Control-tab to my mileage tracker, backspace to the previous filled-out screen, F5 before the log confirmation page returns, paste my log and adjust the cache number before the page refreshes, click the button. Copy the next GC and repeat. I can complete each operation in fifteen to twenty seconds, max. No throttling here. TEST #2: Page loading I pulled a PQ result search and control-clicked on each cache listed on the page. All pages returned without problem. TEST #3: iframes I tried constructing a JavaScript that would load 24 cache descriptions into separate iframes. However, script exists on cache pages that will break out of an iframe. Test failed. TEST #4: Clicking a list Similar to test #2, I created list of hyperlinks to the 24 test cache descriptions and control-clicked on each one as quickly as I could. Since I could tab and control+enter each link, this is the fastest humanly possible. No problems whatsoever. I was able to click on all the links in under ten seconds. TEST #5: Screen scraping Okay... Is this even a problem? I created a quick scraper in .Net to see if the site even catches something like that. 11 of 24 returned were blank. Okay. It IS possible to get a blank page. Therefore, the thing catches when pages are requested faster than #4--much more than I can do manually. RESULT: I do not know how you are experiencing this problem. Do you have GSAK trigger your web browser to open at one time all caches you are logging? If so, this may be the case. However, going to the pages themselves through any manual means (clicking a list or using Firefox bookmark keywords), does not seem to trigger this problem. That's as much as I can accomplish on my own for QA. I wanted to find a solution to your problem, but could not repro it manually.

I hope you have fun, Dick. Around here, someone hid a nano (a quarter inch magnetic cube) in the woods as part of some difficult series. I joked around about buying a metal detector to find the thing and was later told he heard my joke and went out and sprinkled nuts and bolts around the site. Since some of the coordinates in his series were off by up to 100' and others right on, I went out, bought an MD, and went out to the site to find the nuts and bolts. That actually served as verification of where I should search. So, after picking up all the nuts and bolts I could find, I found the cache five feet away. There are a few uses for MDs in geocaching other than that. Have fun!

Thanks for rolling back, Raine. Good luck with testing what went wrong.

I believe it was removed due to problems encountered. Looking at the new map, it seems some things aren't working right. Anyway, load up your browsers people; ALL new site changes were just reverted.

Ah, yes. The sticky issue with JavaScript on the site. HTML-tidy does strip out script blocks and external script references. However, it does miss a little and you can take advantage of it. Just as a warning, I will say some people may not like the use of JavaScript on the site. I was using a script for expanding and collapsing divs on my profile in October and was asked by someone to take it down because someone else not so tech-savvy had a fit and did not understand. So I then went through the channels to get it approved and never heard from them again. I plan to add the divs to the profile once again when I feel like it. That said, I'll say two things. First, HTML-tidy does not remove the tag events. Therefore, you could have a short script execute with a tag's onclick event (or other events). You can access other tag properties, change the page around, and call other events if you wish. So, really, you could have an input box display, ask for something, and the script can validate it. However, it needs to be very simple. And do not forget some people may view it on a PDA. Second, the big hole in it all; I am sworn to secrecy. There is a way to load an external script file and register it with the page. I discovered this while trying to see if it was possible to include the Rico accordion on my profile page. However, I realized others could learn from and misuse it, so I never did get to use an accordion. What about an alternative? One other person linked to an external site for his puzzle, GCVQNT. You could always choose that way and follow suit, reviewer-permitting. It would certainly be less of a headache.

Here's a bad scenario: Someone visits a TB hotel frequently or walks by someone's cache on his/her morning jog. One day, the person sees the cache needs maintenance. If we were to count the NM log as a find, the person would now have a duplicate find entry for that cache. No good. What if you are searching for a cache in a tree and only find the apparatus used to hang the cache, but the container is gone? (This happened to me at one time.) You can't claim that as a find, but you do need to post the NM log. I'd rather keep finds and NM separate. It is also less confusing for others who have no idea NM will equal a find.

It shouldn't matter if JavaScript is turned off. Should a user disable JavaScript in his/her browser, the browser will follow the hyperlink to the URL, which includes a querystring to decode the hint. Browsers with JavaScript enabled will not follow this link if the function call is successful; the call returns false, which instructs the browser not to follow the link. However, if a JavaScript error occurs, the exception will be caught and the script will return true, which, of course, instructs the browser to follow the link, hence "reloading" the page with the decrypted hint.