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The WAP interface is ok in a pinch when it comes to logging caches on the go, but not quite as fast as I would prefer. I have to reload my phones minibrowser and log back in to gc.com each time that I want to log a cache. My proposed solution: Logging caches by sms or by e-mail. I think it would be great to send a text message to an e-mail address and have it posted as a log. Similar to some of the moblogs out there every user could have a private e-mail address assigned that would be theirs to send logs to. Another option would be to have cachers register their phone number, and everyone send to the same e-mail address, then their logs could be automaticaly sorted out using the phone number that they came from. Just a thought.

Would it be possible to modify the instant notifications email to include the co-ordinates? I have these notifications automatically forwarded to by phone via SMS messages, but need to get to a computer to actually get the information to transfer to the GPSr.... I could probably write a script that pulls the cache URL, and adds the co-ords to the SMS message, but that would be a pain. And probably technically naughty. Just a suggestion. grnbrg.

Or try one of these services: Email-to-SMS gateways http://www.cellular.co.za/email_to_sms_gateways.htm

We collect all our email on our phone, so the GC notifications come to us anyway with the rest of our email. The phone only collects mail headers, then we get it to retrieve 10Kb of the email if we're interested in reading it. Many phones have a POP3 or IMAP4 email client on them these days, but you need to check whether your mobile network will charge you for collecting your emails, or if you have an amount of free data download on the phone. Certainly if you only collect the email headers initially, it's a minimal amount of data. With Vodafone, they convert our unused SMS allowance into data, so we can happily download email from our phone and surf to the full GC.COM website using the Opera mobile browser, or just use the WAP page version that uses minimal data.

I just set up notifications of new caches within 25km of home coordinates to be sent to my mobile phone via SMS. Got 3 Eckington just published as my first testing. Partial content emails, just enough to make me know there is a new cache up for grabs if I wish to get it, and if I do I can go check my email properly or search geocaching.com from where ever I am. My mail account inbox is filtered for new cache notifications and it forwards them to my email>sms account at o2 where it get sent out to phone via sms. Anyone else do/done this ? Any better way of doing it. Would be nice to get sent a full SMS of details when the caches are simple traditional type. Or include the waypoint rather than cache name which forms part of subject line as well as co-ord. Maybe I like the FTF rush to much ?

Thats great, thanks warthog. I can also meet you if that would be easier, let me know via email or sms.

Actually it is probably nice for those who don't hunt paperless or use Pocket Queries. Of course they most likely would not be Premium members, but just maybe they are. Now they can just get an email that a new cache is nearby and put in on their to-do list. Also will work great for those who plan ahead all week of what caches they want to hunt and have a notification setup for disabled caches in the area. Last minute check of email and you would easily see that that one cache you was going to go 10 miles out of the way to grab just got disabled. Or better yet, have it setup to send an SMS message to your cell if one is disabled. I like it. Thanks, Kenneth

Try your phone network. Orange offer a free sms alert for emails to one of their address. Not sure about the rest though Orange email

If you don't have a Yahoo mail account, here are the details of their SMS email service. -

At this point someone clever needs to go and write a program that sends SMS messages from an email account!

Earlier could you get NCALERT to send email (and if you had a "incoming email -> SMS" change service could you get information about new caches into your phone. But nowadays? No...

Yeah, but it doesn't help us who uses the excellent free service of NCALERT? Sometimes can you miss new caches since it can take a couple of days for them to be reviewed... But NCALERT are a great service who sends out a mail to you with info about the caches as they are approved. And since textmessages (SMS) are very popular on cellphones, do we get one set of the NCALERT to our email in our cellphone without extra cost! I have read somewhere that you (GC.com) are planning of making an own version of NCALERT, how are that process going? It is perfect to get an email to your cellphone while out geocaching, telling you about new caches nearby...

A little suggestion; if you have a cellphone that can receive email, for example can people mail to my cellphone and I recieve the mail as a SMS. Go the the NCAlert website and write down the mailaddress for your cellphone. Voila! Every time a new cache is approved nearby your home will you recieve an email to your cellphone also...

Personally, I'd rather the site work as well as it did a few months ago before byting off new projects. Fortunately, this feature doesn't *have* to be done by the master site; it can be done (and has beern) by other sites. Check out Skydiver's alert tool. http://www.rusticweb.com/geocaching/ncalert/ It will deliver the notice to your email. If your email address happens to bang a gong on your SMS fone, good for you. :-)

Re: Kablooey's idea for a notification system: I would definitly be interested in that, but agree with others that a Yahoo-group is not the way to go because it is a magnet for spam. Any other automatic notification system (email or SMS) would be better than that.

Verizon's also got the Kyocera 7135. Color PalmOS unit. Has graphical web browser with Java as well as a text-only (much quicker) and WAP browsers. Email and SMS too. Will also work as an external modem for a laptop with speeds purportedly up to 56K. Was at a stop on Memorial Day I "felt" would be a good cache site. Used the Kyo to search and found the page (and the cache). If they had a way to access the GPS in it, I'd have no real reason to carry any other device.

Prepared? pah! Am I only only one who heads off to a cache with the coords if lucky but certainly no printout of the cache description, and sometimes without having ever even seen the description? If my random stumblings fail to find a cache in a reasonably time I may attempt to 'phone a friend' and get them to read the description of the cache down the phone to me, or better yet email or SMS it to my phone. That way I can wander around looking at the GPS in one hand and the phone in the other. Of course this only applies to trip where I start out with intent to find a cache. If I happen to be in an area and remember there are caches I may have to phone somebody to SMS the coords... Of course this would explain why at the current rate of progress I'm unlikely to find my 100th cache till 2005. I do hasten to add that when I do venture into remote and hilly areas, especially in winter, I do have the required boots and clothing for the conditions so I'm only ill prepared for finding geocaches, not the conditions.

I'm enjoying my m130. I can beam calendar & phone numbers to and from my cell phone. If I beam an appointment from my phone & then sync my palm with my yahoo calendar, Yahoo will then send my phone a SMS alarm. (It's fun to go in circles.) I'm still trying to figure out a way to sync for my Yahoo email and some other web pages.

quote:Originally posted by enfanta: Could someone explain to me how the Fox Hunt worked? It seems that there was some actual chasing going on-- how did the geocachers track the fox?? "Nothing says 'I love you' like the gift of a spatula." Ok, let's try to explain this: The "Fox" was a car with a telematics unit unside it. You sent a SMS (text message) to a certain number, and it SMS's you back with it's location, speed and direction of travel. From there it is up to you to follow/intercept the fox. It stoppped a total of 5 times on it's 4 hour journey in order to let the "hunters" catch up. Once you caught it, you had to get a "magic numvber" that was displayed on the dashboard. We managed to catch it after 1 1/2 hours and it was an afternoon well spent. Email me if you want any more info. Lol Michael aka 1/2 of Team Blitz If life iz a game, then y aint it fair, im alwayz the lonely 1, u dont even care :S

quote:Originally posted by enfanta: Could someone explain to me how the Fox Hunt worked? It seems that there was some actual chasing going on-- how did the geocachers track the fox?? "Nothing says 'I love you' like the gift of a spatula." Ok, let's try to explain this: The "Fox" was a car with a telematics unit unside it. You sent a SMS (text message) to a certain number, and it SMS's you back with it's location, speed and direction of travel. From there it is up to you to follow/intercept the fox. It stoppped a total of 5 times on it's 4 hour journey in order to let the "hunters" catch up. Once you caught it, you had to get a "magic numvber" that was displayed on the dashboard. We managed to catch it after 1 1/2 hours and it was an afternoon well spent. Email me if you want any more info. Lol Michael aka 1/2 of Team Blitz If life iz a game, then y aint it fair, im alwayz the lonely 1, u dont even care :S

Couple of thoughts... First, you mention having a userid at the wireless website to check in at the first checkpoint. I'd be careful about what requirements for the creation of that account you impose. I, for one, would not be terribly happy about having to provide any personal information to search for a cache this way. Second... Maybe it's just because I don't have a phone with wireless web, but I'd feel a bit shut out for not choosing the "right" phone to do this. In my case, I'm on a GSM network with a Nokia 8290. I could do this with SMS or some other form of email-based text messaging, but WAP is out for me. Obviously, I could do some kind of WAP with a Palm device (via the IR port on the phone), but that increases the complexity of searching the cache by quite a lot. Perhaps this could be done with an email-based system. That would allow more devices to be used to participate in this. Third.. Even assuming that wireless web is available on the phone, there is usually some charge for WAP use on the network. Sometimes, it's non-trivial - Sprint, I believe, charges as much as $0.69/min for Wireless Web access. The same may hold true for an email based system, but it probably would not be quite as bad. I think it all works out to be the non-inclusive nature of the hunt. It assumes a level of technology that isn't normally required for a cache-hunt. That, in itself, is not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think the infrastructure has caught up enough to make this as easy or inexpensive as it needs to be. Also, I gather that this is an urban cache, which can be tricky. I, for one would be a bit irritated if I'd paid the wireless fees to chase after a cache that some homeless person (or other non-player) had removed. All that said, a time-limited cache is a fine idea, and I think that given the right implementation, could be a lot of fun. If you decide to proceed, I'd be interested to know how it turns out with the wireless web elements.

What a fun idea! I'd imagine a database of longitudes/latitudes of where you will be in the web cams view. Then you need to save the picture to the cam cache details page via some device ... The only limiting factor would be how to activate the capture of a picture. I can send email and ICQ with my cell phone via SMS. Or I can use my phone and Palm and use a browser. WAP is also an option. I tested geocaching.com/wap successfully. ------------------ Peter Scholtz www.biometrics.co.za