ATXTracker

A few comments, but first, I'm not trying to spark an argument, so please be gentle 1) Dear Groundspeak, can you please comment on the Chirp and what your plans are for limiting or supporting its usage. Would love to hear from the horse's mouth. As a side note, Jeremy rejected my suggestion on the iPhone forum in about 5 seconds claiming that the ANT protocol is a proprietary Garmin thing, which is only sort-of true. 2) I don't think that the Chirp violates the spirit of the commercial restriction. Caching already requires gear for many caches: GPSr, Cars, Boats, Shoes, Tweezers, Sunblock. The spirit is that it should not be used to used to soely promote a non-related product, IMO. Technology will evolve and we will all buy more gear to make caching more fun. 3) iPhone support should be doable. While not an iPhone developer, I'm guessing there is a caching/iPhone guru that could get an app out in a few weeks. There are iPhone ANT dongles already, and a handful of third party apps that already talk to Garmin devices (heart reat monitors, cadence sensors, etc). And of course there is the Nike thingy. Here is a great site with even some sample code: http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2010/05/first-l...ant-iphone.html - Hey iPhone wiz-es; I'll pay $5 today for the app, even if I have to buy some hardware to go with it. I bet some other cachers would too. 4) On Disruptive technologies: Business folks will know that a successful company can't stand still. Groundspeak is already competing with lots of other location-based games. I'm not sure that the Chirp is that big of a deal, but if they are too resistive to change, then they stand to loose market share in the arena. I suspect they have cool plans for the Chirp since it was deveolped by a long-time partner, with marketing from Garmin that it is specifically for geocaching. It does however create a little conflict with their Geocaching App sales if they don't plan to incorporate it. I've types too much, and now the post will be ignored : )

I like this idea. While I hope not every cache will have chirp, I certainly welcome something new. How about a puzzle cache, that simply says, 'walk such-and-such path and wait for a chirp signal.' Just another variant of figuring out the final location while in the field. It would also be cool as a multi with instructions to, 'walk 300 paces due east, for the next chirp' for example. Good work Garmin. Someone write an iphone chirp app already (don't actually know if this is possible or not with the iphone hardware).

Hey, I've actually found that cache. What are the chances that someone would post a cache that I'd reconize. I guess the chances are about 834 in 1.1 million.

If I were new to Geocaching and I asked a simple, albeit uninformed question, I would be really turned off by the miserable way that some of you have greeted this individual. Very rude folks.

I am happy to have the new features, but I admit that the delivery mechanism is significantly less convenient. Previously, I had an outlook filter to save the pocket queries to my GSAK folder. Now I have to fire up a browser, log in, find the new query in the list, save it, unzip it, and move it to the folder. I’m not really that disgruntled, but it’s a pain Raine. : ) Doing this several times a week, possibly 35 times a week (if I were to max out my PQs per day) is not super fun. I know that Groundspeak always works to delight their customers/users, so I’m providing feedback in an attempt to be helpful. Keep up the good work!

Will Groundspeak be developing a geocaching app for the windows phone 7 series launch late this year?

I didn't get to read all 12 pages of the thread, but in the 4-5 pages that I did read, I didn't see anyone bring up the fact that my Garmin Oregon, only allows a very limited number of characters in the field notes and it is hard to type on with my fat fingers.

A large amount of caches have been archived, and geocaching has been banned from a big chuck of public lands in North Carolina as the result of a badly placed ammo can which worried local law enforcement. It is not final yet, they are taking comments at: comments-southern-north-carolina@fs.fed.us Here is a link: http://www.ncgeocachers.org/forum/phpBB3/v...117&start=0 or see cache: GC145MP archive log for the link.

Like This?

AGREED. This should be tweaked so as not to confuse users. How about a Capcha, so that the user can recover if he/she accidentally trips it??

Since I posted many 'bring it back' messages, I owe it to post a great big THANK YOU note. The new feature is better than the old. I'm pretty sure 500 caches per page is much better than the previous version, and the icons are smaller, which is great! Also, with my membership expiring next month I will now definately renew, rather than holding out. THANKS AGAIN!

The days not over yet, but so far I don't see the KML link. Anyone spot it? Any news on the issue?

Thank you! I have been unhappy with the lost feature, and was considering not renewing my membership. Any word on how many refreshes for members? Maybe the limit could be weekly or monthly, since I imagine most people's usage varies greatly from day to day. Like roll-over minutes.

Please bring it back! How can 200 users cause a performance problem - sounds like a bogus reason to me.

Raine, Thank you for the insight. I would like to first note that I am one of the fans of the GE interface and would really like to see it brought back. As software engineer myself, I appreciate the intricacies involved in writing software for the web and Google Earth. At our company we build data mining tools against multi-terabyte databases, sometimes with billion-row tables. If you would like suggestion on how to optimize the queries, improve performance, or provided the ‘calling back’ ability inside GE, I would be willing to kick around ideas with you. It seems that the Groundspeak folks are apparently proficient at such things I’m assuming the problem is resources/time and not really a technical infeasibility. Given, that I’m looking forward to it’s eventual return!

Please bring it back!

I used it a bunch; I'm very disappointed. If something with only 200 users caused performance problems, then they should fix the performance problem, not kill the feature. GE is way better for browsing areas than that little map window, IMO.

not for me: (

Still not working - bump.

Me Too. Bump.

Same here. No caches at all - just red error icon in Google Earth

I noticed it last night. I use Google Earth a lot, and I understand how the Network Links work. I've tried multiple versions of GE, and tried it from three different computers on 2 different networks. The Geocaching server is responding with the error (But I'm zoomed in tightly): <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.2"> <Folder><Placemark><name>Google Earth / Geocaching.com</name><description><![CDATA[View must be less then 500 miles.]]></description><visibility>1</visibility><Point><coordinates>-122.34902, 47.620382, 0</coordinates></Point></Placemark></Folder></kml><?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.2"> <Folder><Placemark><name>Network KML Error</name><description><![CDATA[There has been an error in the Network KML File.]]></description><visibility>1</visibility><Point><coordinates>-122.34902, 47.620382, 0</coordinates></Point></Placemark></Folder></kml>