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Geocaching.com Secrets...


TheOhioBears

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Exploring the Geocaching.com website, there really is a lot to see, and use for caching. What are some of the favorite features that you have found on this website that really should not be missed? What are some of the little-known features that you just love?

 

I recently discovered the "map-it" feature.

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Features that I perceive as being not widely known:

 

Bookmark lists, if you're a premium member.

Being able to mark a travel bug "missing" from a cache, if you are the cache owner or bug owner.

The "old" state cache maps, if you are not a premium member.

The gallery that collects all the photos used on the front page banner.

The "Advanced Search" feature for Travel Bugs, where you can search missions, names, etc.

The Groundspeak FAQ page (on the Groundspeak site, not the GC.com site).

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Features that I perceive as being not widely known:

 

Bookmark lists, if you're a premium member.

Being able to mark a travel bug "missing" from a cache, if you are the cache owner or bug owner.

The "old" state cache maps, if you are not a premium member.

The gallery that collects all the photos used on the front page banner.

The "Advanced Search" feature for Travel Bugs, where you can search missions, names, etc.

The Groundspeak FAQ page (on the Groundspeak site, not the GC.com site).

 

Where are these great features? In particular the front page banner gallery and the mission search.

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Where are these great features? In particular the front page banner gallery and the mission search.

I think he was talking about the pictures at the tom of the main GC page. Click on the pictures and they will take you to the log. I am not sure where it is but all the front page pictures can be viewed - there is the large picture banner page and the small banner picture page.

Edited by bogleman
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Where are these great features? In particular the front page banner gallery and the mission search.

I think he was talking about the pictures at the tom of the main GC page. Click on the pictures and they will take you to the log. I am not sure where it is but all the front page pictures can be viewed - there is the large picture banner page and the small banner picture page.

No, you can now view a gallery of ALL the pictures that have appeared on the front page banner. To access the gallery, click on a picture from the front page. Follow the links at the very bottom of the details page for the image.

 

Link to "Large" banner photo gallery

Link to "Small" banner photo gallery

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Exploring the Geocaching.com website, there really is a lot to see, and use for caching. What are some of the favorite features that you have found on this website that really should not be missed? What are some of the little-known features that you just love?

 

I recently discovered the "map-it" feature.

 

Recently, I went to paperless caching with a palm m515 but need an easy way to update the palm with the latest log info. So, I set up a bookmark called "ready to find". All caches that I select are bookmarked into "ready to find". I then set this up as a pocket query twice a week to run and download the gpx files into GSAK. From there to my palm. Takes about 2 minutes, twice a week...and my palm has the latest logs for the 50 some caches that are "ready to find". Works great for me. Parazest

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WHY have all respondents so far beaten politely about the bush and revealed only silly and trivial little website features? WHY has no one told the OP of the secret society -- often called the "Inner Circle of Premium and Charter Members" -- within the GC organization, and the many benefits available to initiated members of the secret inner circle? Do I have to be the one to blab it all again? Huh? :D:laughing:^_^

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WHY have all respondents so far beaten politely about the bush and revealed only silly and trivial little website features? WHY has no one told the OP of the secret society -- often called the "Inner Circle of Premium and Charter Members" -- within the GC organization, and the many benefits available to initiated members of the secret inner circle? Do I have to be the one to blab it all again? Huh? :laughing:^_^:D

 

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh :D

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GOOGLE EARTH PLUGIN!

i can't get over how convenient and useful of a tool this is, and when i encounter other cachers many seem not to know about it yet. it's so useful that it surprises me that its not a members-only feature, to be honest.

 

Toooo inaccurate, imho.

 

PQ fed into GPSVisualizer and the output fed into google earth. Now THERE'S a tool!

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GOOGLE EARTH PLUGIN!

i can't get over how convenient and useful of a tool this is, and when i encounter other cachers many seem not to know about it yet. it's so useful that it surprises me that its not a members-only feature, to be honest.

 

Toooo inaccurate, imho.

 

PQ fed into GPSVisualizer and the output fed into google earth. Now THERE'S a tool!

 

Hi Adrenalynn,

 

I agree with the Google Earth plugin inaccuracy. You can actually drag the PQ results file (the uncompressed .gpx file) directly directly into the google earth window and Google Earth will read it. One less step than using GPSVisualizer first :o.

 

-40-

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You can bookmark the preview webpage of your pocket queries so you can view them quicker.

 

For example, I have a PQ for unfound caches within 120 miles of my home coordinates. If I'm in the mood for some FTF's, I click the bookmark for the Unfound PQ webpage and, on average, I usually get 3-4 pages of potential FTFs to go hunt. I find this quicker and easier to use than the notifications.

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GOOGLE EARTH PLUGIN!

i can't get over how convenient and useful of a tool this is, and when i encounter other cachers many seem not to know about it yet. it's so useful that it surprises me that its not a members-only feature, to be honest.

 

Toooo inaccurate, imho.

 

PQ fed into GPSVisualizer and the output fed into google earth. Now THERE'S a tool!

 

Hi Adrenalynn,

 

I agree with the Google Earth plugin inaccuracy. You can actually drag the PQ results file (the uncompressed .gpx file) directly directly into the google earth window and Google Earth will read it. One less step than using GPSVisualizer first :o.

 

-40-

 

Cool!

 

Doesn't let me mass-change the markers on the page, though, for example. Red for everything in the last 7 days, pink for everything I haven't found, black for those I have, green for those I've placed. At least, if so, it's not so obvious to me. Good to know that it'll read PQ directly though! Thanks!

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WHY have all respondents so far beaten politely about the bush and revealed only silly and trivial little website features? WHY has no one told the OP of the secret society -- often called the "Inner Circle of Premium and Charter Members" -- within the GC organization, and the many benefits available to initiated members of the secret inner circle? Do I have to be the one to blab it all again? Huh? :o:o:lol:

 

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh :o

 

Okay, time to take off the kid gloves. . .

Unless someone from GC.COM headquarters deposits lots of money in my bank account in the Grand Cayman Islands quickly, I AM gonna go ahead and publicly disclose here -- on this forum thread -- most of the secret benefits of being in the Inner Circle of Premium and Charter Members of this organization. Even death threats will not stop me!

 

In the meanwhile, if you are dying to know some of these secret "insider" benefits and cannot wait for me to reveal them, a hint: I already revealed many of them in another thread several months ago. You might wanna use the Search feature. . .

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Well, no one from geocaching.com administration has seen fit to ahem, donate, funds to our offshore bank account, and so, henceforth and herewith and forthwith, I shall reveal herein some of the secret benefits available to the Geo Inner Circle of Premium and Charter Members at geocaching.com:

  • we have a secret handshake and a secret smile.
     
  • we have access to listings for very high-quality caches which are not available to regular members.
     
  • our GPS receivers have an added module that tells us when any other Geo Inner Circle Member is within five miles of our location, and the screen displays their name(s) and maps their location(s).
     
  • there are top-secret (and very wild) parties held every Friday night and Sunday night for Geo Inner Circle members; attendance is free for us.
     
  • our specially-modified GPS receivers work even in downtown areas of cities when shielded by tall buildings, and even inside steel and concrete buildings, and even underground.
     
  • we have access to special satellite signals which allow us to get within four inches of a cache location, rather than the normal error margin of seven to thirty feet.
     
  • we are invited to special dinner functions every Wednesday evening, aand all the food and drink is free.
     
  • we are invited to screenings of major feature movies two months before they are released to the movies.
     
  • due to a special engine gadget which we are given, our cars get 40% better gas mileage than those of regular members.
     
  • we are able to purchase gasoline for 30% of the going price anywhere in the world (except for Croatia.)
     
  • we are entitled to free charter use of one of the 4,000 Bell Jet helicopters owned by geocaching.com for one hour per week (or 4.4 hours per month) for geocaching outings to remote cache sites.
     
  • we have free use of any Lear jets in the fleet of 290 Geo Lear jets, with two charter pilots on each craft ready and waiting.
     
  • we are given 48 hours advance notice of all new caches about to be approved.
     
  • The privilege of a private audience with, and private dinner with, Signal the Frog once per year.
     
  • if we get stuck finding a well-hidden cache, we pull out our remote cache sensor unit, press the "A" button, and the cache we are hunting immediately emits a loud beeping sound for one minute, while flashing a 400,000 lumen strobe light to enable us to find it immediately.
     
  • when out in the field cache-hunting, we have a special device attached to our GPSr which contains the phone number, cell phone number and email address of every cache hider and every geocacher in the world, so that at the push of a button we can call a cache hider or past finder and ask for some hints on how to find the cache.
     
  • If we truly cannot find a cache or it has gone missing, we are entitled to claim a find on it anyway due to our Premium member perks.
     
  • As Geo Inner Circle members, we are able to get caches approved in locations which are blatantly dangerous, insane and illegal, such as in abandoned nuclear reactors (i.e., GCTA5E), in toxic waste dumps, or in sewage lagoons.
     
  • We get free instant bail service worldwide whenever we get arrested while retrieving a cache.
     
  • We get free use of a Russian Mir mini depth-exploring submarine and its service tender boat anywhere in the Atlantic Ocean for retrieval of deep sea underwater caches from depths ranging from 1 mile to 2.6 miles beneath the surface of the sea.

To the other Geo Inner Circle members: Folks, sorry for giving away so many of our secret perks, but you all knew that the breach of secrecy was gonna happen someday anyway!

 

B)

Edited by Vinny & Sue Team
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When you run a pocket query using the online "preview" feature, did you know that you can view a gallery of all the images from every cache in the pocket query? This is a great way to get a true visual picture of an area you're thinking of visiting. It also helps separate the good caches from the so-so ones. Caches with nice scenery have more pictures in their gallery. Seeing all the caches at once spares you from searching the caches one at a time. See a view that you like, or a pretty waterfall picture? Put that cache on your to-do list.

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When you run a pocket query using the online "preview" feature

 

I think you could have stopped there. Many people don't seem to realize that you can preview the results of a PQ without ever running the PQ. This can be used for making a customized query, or for checking the results before you actually get them mailed to you.

 

I guess the other thing is that many people hear "Pocket Query" and assume that this is for Handheld Palm-ish devices only. <_<

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