SpongeRob

quote: Fake sprinkler heads are so "last year." This year, everybody-who's-anybody is painting tiny little bison cylinders to look like the stumps of broken-off tree branches. Can I quote you on that? Hey, looks like I just did Seriously, what are the trends for this. I personally did a Birds nest and had not seen that before. Are there somethings that are "overdone?" -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826

A Fake sprinkler head? How did they do that? -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826

I'm currnetly doing an article on caches and how they have been disguised. I've personally done one that looks like a birds nest, while I've seen ones that are pine cones and logs. How has anyone else diguised their caches? -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826

This thread is productive why? We've had threads closed when there was productive conversations in it and this fodder remains open? Egads ! -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826

quote: This statement is ABSOLUTELY INCORRECT. You can download either format into the etrex through EasyGPS, which is a free program. No format conversion is necessary. Ok, perhaps I need to clarify here what I said. You can't directly take a LOC and feed it into your Garmin GPS. Easy GPS does the conversion. Based on the original post it seemed clear to me that the requester was trying to do this with mapsource not with EasyGPS. Hense my approach of conversion rather than Using Easy GPS. Ease up buddy. -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826

My wife and I both cached a lot in the begining. Now she doesnt go as much. I had 2 gpsr's one for her and I. Sniff, I'm gonna miss her out on the trail. -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826

I like the idea of having more than one place to find geocache information. I have started placing caches on other sites myself. I'm starting to add more. It doesnt take much effort to cut and paste the information. Guess it's like shopping at Wal-Mart, everyone goes there but the local guy might have something you've not see on the Wal-Mart shelves. I say the more the merrier. Open it up to other sites and the ability to go more places. -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826

quote: I know GC.com's admin say it's not competitive - but they are a listing service. They are not the rule makers of geocaching as a whole. They can, if they decide, ignore the leaderboard since it is their site. They cannot stop people from competing. They don't make the rules of the game - they make the rules on what they will allow to be listed here. I agree with that. However GC.COM has made it clear that they don't want to "List" stats. What I tend to complain about is that they don't make it easy for others to do it either. -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826

quote: There seem to be a lot of tech-savvy cachers out there; I wouldn't be surprised if someone steps out of the woodwork and picks up where Dan left off. Those who are interested in stats for whatever reason will visit; those who aren't, won't. Stats problem solved; everyone happy. My Attempt has been to allow users to enter their own data. There's some double posting involved however I've tried to open it up to more than just geocaching.com users. -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826

With the cost of the legend and the vista dropping fast, why not just upgrade? -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Geocaching Stats

You can't directly download them into the etrex but you can convert them with a few different software packages. I prefer (because I wrote it) the GPI utility. It allows you to simply open the LOC or GPX and import it into mapsource. GPSBabel is another utility that will allow you to do this as well. It has considerably more options to convert. Both programs are freeware. You can download through links found here http://www.keenpeople.com/index.php?option=com_downloads&Itemid=50 There are a few others out there I'm sure somone else will pipe up. -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Geocaching Stats

I voted for the Beaver. Everyone likes a good beaver -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Geocaching Stats

quote: "He said he ran into some other hunters who helped dress his wounds, then continued on his way. They offered to help him get back to his truck, but Murphy told them he could make it on his own." Who would let this guy drive off on his own?!! No kidding, that's just asking for a lawsuit. For that matter who would say that they could make it on their own? -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Geocaching Stats

quote:Originally posted by Cupajo:As time goes on, the leaderboard would show higher and higher numbers, which will (more often than not) just serve to discourage new players. That's hardly a valid point. If that were the case you wouldnt have kids out there playing baseball simply because they couldnt compete. You wouldnt have children learning to do anything simply because somone did it better. If stats discourage you then how on earth do you compete in anything? -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Cache'n Retrievers

quote: It's a security issue. Once I shore up the other potential uses of this, I'll send you to an example. I totally respect that. I'm curious though what security bug it creates. I'll be watching for your post. On another note I changed the stats for cache pages to a .JPG so it no longer needs IFRAME to work. Cache pages though will need to be updated with the new HTML. -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Cache'n Retrievers

I decided I needed stats and put them on my own site. Somone pointed out to me that it really didnt matter where the stats were housed because the users entered their own data anyhow. -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Cache'n Retrievers

Not sure if anyone knows this but collection of plants or anything else on Forrest Preserve lands is generally ILLEGAL. Doing this not only takes away from the preserve but also gives geocachers a black eye. Information like this out in the general public only makes geocaching in approved areas harder. Please don't collect anything from preserves/parks unless you have received permission to do so. -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Cache'n Retrievers

quote: Wow, what lousy 'spin.' The only person who wouldn't read that as a 're-dressed' definition of sockpuppet is the person who actually believes the approvers are anonymous. The whole thing is a farce. No doubt. Don't you get tired of the "Do as Groundspeak says, not as we do." -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Cache'n Retrievers

quote: SpongeRob, Our forums are not intended for advertising. Please do not continue to post links to features and discussions on keenpeople.com. I have received complaints on your posts for ‘spamming’ the geocaching.com forums. Please use discretion with further posts. Please feel free to email me with further comments or questions. Happy Geocaching! Heidi (hydee) Heidi Hudlow Groundspeak - The Language of Location Appearantly Groundspeak refers to my aid in the community spamming. I'll ensure I don't pester anyone again with my contributions to the community. -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Cache'n Retrievers

quote: After all, at first blush the website does seem to be a bit commericial, what with the advertisements, mechandise, etc. If it's above the board, fine, no problem, I'd appreciate hearing so. If however, it's commercializism the type of which has been denied before, I'd like to know that too. We're not. I happen to have advertisement for my own products (stuff I created). It helps fund the measly $20 a month I pay to the web hosts. If somone wants to help support the site great, if not It's still out there. If anything it's a hobby. Some other things about keenpeople.com *ALL* registered users may submit news, articles, weblinks, etc. *I* don't drive all of the content. You want to place an article about you and your dog hiking in the woods - keenpeople.com is the place for that. We're about the experiences and the information. If somone came to me and said "hey, how about doing this..." on the site and it seemed related we'd put it up online. We're for the users not for the profit (of which we've made $8 total in all donations). -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Cache'n Retrievers

SpongeRob is just a sponge. Seriously. Keenpeople.com is an open community of users who use GPS Technology in the outdoors. Geocaching is a part of that. We also have tutorials on Map Creation which in no is not really related to Geocaching. Keenpeople.com was deisgned to be an open site of outdoors content. We have news about all sorts of things some related to geocaching others not. We also have NANU Bulletins and many other features (like cache ratings). We're simply about having GPS related content on our site. - Rob -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Cache'n Retrievers

quote: How does it look massaged into a PDA, though? Guess it would depend on the PDA. It's using IFRAME so on most it's probably not visible. -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Cache'n Retrievers

quote: Since the name of the cache is not listed, and to see the name you have to click on the link, wouldn't that make the "most visited" caches even more "visited" than they might otherwise be? Actually I have plans to get the name in there, just not quite there yet -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Cache'n Retrievers

For those of you that already use the "Free Cache Ratings" system on keenpeople.com I'm please to announce that there is now a leaderboard on there for the top rated, voted and viewed caches that partcipate the free cache rating system. For those of you not familiar with it, the Free Cache Ratings allows you to place a counter and a voting box on your cache page that lets visitors rate your cache based on their expereience and also shows how many times it's been viewed. Free Cache Ratings Thanks! -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Cache'n Retrievers

I called it and it said the number was out of service. Humm.. That's the same response I get from emailing contact@geocaching.com. Coincidence? Must be... -- SpongeRob rwmech@keenpeople.com www.keenpeople.com WPWU826 Cache'n Retrievers