Learned Something New

[+Spoo]

Probably you all know this but I did not. I'll put it up here anyways in case someone else has missed this.

 

When you find a Benchmark description on the GC.com site, it gives you the option to click on the original data sheet.

 

When you do this, it DOES NOT transport you to the data sheet that is currently on the NGS site. It is the original data sheet from NGS as procured from them by GC.com several years ago.

 

As such, you will not be getting the latest NGS info.

[GH55]

And to get the current NGS Data Sheet, go to

 

http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_pid.prl

 

Type the PID's you want to see into the box. Check the box "Include Destroyed Marks." in case the mark has been reported destroyed since the geocaching database was created, and submit.

 

GH

Edited September 18, 2005 by GH55

[ArtMan]

I have a couple of bookmarklets on my browser (Firefox, of course) that provide instant access to GNS and Geocaching sheets for a particular PID.

 

For Geocaching, the code is —

javascript:void(str=prompt('PID:',''));if(str){location.href='http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?Pid='+escape(str);}

 

For NGS, the code is —

javascript:void(str=prompt('PID:',''));if(str){location.href='http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox='+escape(str);}

 

In each case, the bookmarket spawns a little dialog box that asks for a PID. Type in your PID and hit return, and it brings you to the Geocaching page or the current NGS datasheet for that mark.

 

(For more about bookmarklets, see Bookmarklets.com, or search Google or your search engine of choice for more info.)

 

I have forgotten who tipped me off to these. Maybe Zhanna? I want to give credit, but my brain fails me. My intentions remain honorable and good, however.

 

-ArtMan-

[GH55]

That is the coolest!

 

Using Firefox, also. If I right click the bookmarklar, I can open it in another tab, or another window and not lose what I am already looking at.

 

GH

[evenfall]

Art,

 

I believe it was both Zhanna and one other, Maybe Blackdog, Buck Brooke or Harry Dolphin who were talking Bookmarklets while back.

 

Spoo,

 

Yes, what you have discovered is a Bummer. While back I tabled a discussion hoping to get a consensus for asking Geocaching to drop the old static database and recode to use the active and constantly updated NGS Database as a feed for Geocaching's. Complete with backward compatibility for lost marks which had been at one time found of course. But no one could agree on why it was important or how to do it and it faded to nothing.

 

I still think it as Doable and Viable. I also have a sense that if benchmark Hunters do not unite in a consensus, and speak to geocaching in one voice for some things we would like to see, that none will happen the way we would prefer. But building that consensus has not begun to become successful...

 

Maybe someday after geocaching changes everything and we all hate the outcome, maybe then, eh?

 

Best regards, Rob

[Wintertime]

I have a couple of bookmarklets on my browser (Firefox, of course) that provide instant access to GNS and Geocaching sheets for a particular PID.

Thank you, ArtMan, perfect timing! I've been using Firefox more and more and was just thinking earlier tonight that I needed to find a way to get the NGS PID bookmarklet from Safari into Firefox. I just dragged the code in your posting to the bookmarks toolbar, and voila!

 

I'm enjoying Firefox. The "Batman Begins" skin is cool. :-)

 

Patty

[+BuckBrooke]

It was the others; bookmarklets aren't my innovation.

[+GEO*Trailblazer 1]

Been doing it for 6 months or more I like Firefox too.

[mloser]

I do know that I got my bookmarklet from Zhanna after a thread on here. I think she was the original author.

 

She has it on her Website, which is worth a total look as it is well done. The bookmarklet is only a tiny part of what Zhanna has done.

 

Matt

[+Black Dog Trackers]

I use a web page that I call the Benchmark Lab for looking at GC and NGS benchmark pages and for sessions of benchmark logging on both the GC site and the NGS site.

 

I also use it to do various kinds of investigations, usually finding a new and interesting place to hunt benchmarks, checking out what survey marks people are discussing in the forums, etc.

 

I have made a free website to put the Lab and it is here.

 

There's several goodies in the Lab - check it out!

[ArtMan]

BDT,

 

I notice you have a link to the Census Bureaus county outline maps. These are state maps with the counties outlined and labeled, but no other orienting information.

 

I've been hoping to find state maps that have the counties prominently outlined but with just a handful of other cues including major highways and principal cities — not a detailed map, just a quick reference to determine that, say, Hooterville and Mayberry are both in Flotsam County (of which Gooberville is the seat).

 

Any ideas?

 

-ArtMan-

[mloser]

Since getting a BlackBerry for work purposes I am totally paperless. For a hunt I load the county or counties I need into my GPSr, and then use the BlackBerry to look up the marks as I get to them.

 

My brother put together the link to the NGS website so the data can't get more current! If anyone else wants to use the site it is at NGS Benchmarks.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

ArtMan -

 

Yes, the county border thing is a tricky problem. Even paper road atlases aren't that good for determining county borders because they seem to put the borders and their labels in the vaguest colors.

 

I tried the National Map Viewer that I referenced. I experimented with a place called Davids Crossroads in Virginia since it was rural and near some county intersections. The best I could get was to select "USGS Raster Graphics" in the "Topographic Maps" section and clicking on all the Roads sections in the "Transportation" section. The result was similar to the topozone results but with better roads and road labels. Zooming out 2 or 3 times was pretty good, but any further zooming out would result in a map too busy to read. Zooming in more than 2 times would cause the topo map information to disappear.

 

I found USAPhotoMaps to be much better than National Map Viewer's topographic mode.

 

Back to your question, without the topo map mode, I don't know a good internet site for county borders with sufficient other landmark references such as roads.

Edited September 21, 2005 by Black Dog Trackers

[lumpynose]

I've been hoping to find state maps that have the counties prominently outlined but with just a handful of other cues including major highways and principal cities — not a detailed map, just a quick reference to determine that, say, Hooterville and Mayberry are both in Flotsam County (of which Gooberville is the seat).

 

Any ideas?

 

-ArtMan-

http://www.newatlas.com/

 

Click on the link Online Maps on the left. They're pdf files. Not sure if that's what you're looking for though.

[ArtMan]

http://www.newatlas.com/

 

Click on the link Online Maps on the left. They're pdf files. Not sure if that's what you're looking for though.

Thanks, but not quite enough detail, esp. in metropolitan areas. Also, county lines that follow rivers are not clearly indicated.

 

Oddly, just west of Baltimore they have a fairly large town called Security. No such place, as far as I know. It does seem to indicate the headquarters of the Social Security Administration, however. Maybe it's one of those features that mapmakers put in to ensure that no one copies their maps.

 

-ArtMan-

[+gpsblake]

I found this way to find benchmarks on firefox even easier

 

I bookmarked the following two links

 

http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=%s

keyword: bench

 

http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=%s

keyword: usgs

 

Then in the address bar, I merely type in either

 

bench ab1234

to see the geocaching.com database

 

or

 

usgs ab1234

to see the Geodetic survey page on it.

 

Substitute the real pid instead of ab1234

 

YOu can also do this in Internet Explorer if you download the Power Toys.

Edited September 22, 2005 by gpsblake

[+Black Dog Trackers]

ArtMan -

 

Here is a site on U.S. counties. Click any state, and then when the state's page comes up, click on the state to get a map of counties. Still no landmark detail for the counties, but at least for once, the counties' borders are completely obvious in a map.

 

By the way, the site says that Arlington County, VA is the smallest of the U.S.'s 3,066 counties.

 

Oddly, the state maps have counties with the same color bordering each other although the longstanding 4-color map thorem was finally proven, so they could've made the maps so that no 2 counties of the same of the 4 colors shared a border.

[edmcnierney]

By the way, the site says that Arlington County, VA is the smallest of the U.S.'s 3,066 counties.

The site certainly says that, but that is not correct. The smallest county in the United States is barely more than one-quarter the size of Arlington County, VA. I was born there.

 

- Ed

 

Ed McNierney

President and Chief Mapmaker

TopoZone.com

[lumpynose]

Here's another "county boundaries" try for ArtMan:

 

http://www.nationalatlas.gov/atlasftp.html

Edited September 26, 2005 by lumpynose

[ArtMan]

By the way, the site says that Arlington County, VA is the smallest of the U.S.'s 3,066 counties.

The site certainly says that, but that is not correct. The smallest county in the United States is barely more than one-quarter the size of Arlington County, VA. I was born there.

 

- Ed

 

Ed McNierney

President and Chief Mapmaker

TopoZone.com

Ed,

 

We're honored to have the supremo of such a useful site here in our humble forum.

 

I have lived in Arlington for the past decade, and my understanding has been that Arlington is the country's third smallest county. (I think this means "real" counties, including Alaska boroughs and Louisiana parishes, but not jurisdictions such as Virginia's independent cities, which are not part of any county.)

 

Website Answers.com lists Kalawao County, Hawaii, as the smallest in the country, at 13 square miles. That's half the size of Arlington, approximately.

 

Couldn't find on a quick search any online source for the second-smallest county.

 

-ArtMan-

[edmcnierney]

ArtMan -

 

Kalawao has always seemed something of a mystery, and there seems to be some confusion and debate about whether it's a "real" county or not. If it is indeed a real county, then you're right - it's the smallest one around. I didn't think it was one (more like an "unincorporated area" sort of concept) but I may be mistaken.

 

However, that's not where I was born <g>. New York County - Manhattan Island - is the smallest county in the US in my book. But I misread the indicated size of Arlington County (don't do detail work when sleep-deprived) and while Manhattan is smaller it's not much smaller. It's 23 square miles rather than 26. But it is unambiguously a county, so I'm surprised your original source omitted it.

 

You wouldn't think such a simple question would be so complicated!

 

- Ed

[+PFF]

The smallest county in the United States is barely more than one-quarter the size of Arlington County, VA. I was born there.

 

- Ed

 

Ed McNierney

President and Chief Mapmaker

TopoZone.com

 

Ditto to Art's welcome, Ed. I'm a subscriber and frequent user of your products. They are great. And the Urban Hi-Res photos are awesome! In fact, they are SO good that I want to cut my grass and wash the car before your next fly-over! [grin]

 

-Paul-

[edmcnierney]

Paul -

 

Thanks - I pop in from time to time and keep an eye on posts that mention TopoZone. Sometimes I can contribute, and sometimes I can simply correct a bizarre misunderstanding of what TopoZone can and cannot do (or lecture someone on the non-difference between WGS84 and NAD83 coordinates). After all, I *have* been a GC member for almost three years <g>.

 

Unfortunately, there are a huge number of user communities that use TopoZone, many of whom have no idea the others exist (any amateur genealogists hanging out here?) and it is just impossible for me to keep up with all the professional and recreational forums.

 

- Ed

[+BuckBrooke]

It's good to know we are on the "have to keep up with this forum" list. It's good to see you here.

[+rogbarn]

any amateur genealogists hanging out here?

yes, with entirely New England ancestry. On the other hand, my wife's is Scots-Irish, ending up in southern Ill and western KY.