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MobiPocket Support (or lack therof)


Jeremy

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The end result should create a .mobi file. If you wound up with a .opf file the macro ended before it was complete

 

Yes - I am getting this error: Error in Macro Line 101: FILEREAD File="$filDirList" ERROR=file not found

That's happening to me, too. I was hoping I could use the macro to generate a file for my Palm PDA, so I decided to try it. Every time I run the macro, it terminates with this error.

 

--Larry

 

P.S. I mostly rely on GSAK + CacheMate, but it is nice to also have the MobiPocket version of the information available.

I saw another post on the GSAK forum that mentions a problem with security writing to certain folders. I re-tried this and sent the file to the C:/mobigen directory. SUCCESS! This is a pretty good substitute for GC's failure Mobipockets continued lack of response to GC.com's request for a solution to the problem!

I fixed that post for you.

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Thisis not good news at all - it was so nice to get my files mailed to me with the pocket query and to use my Black Berry and Mobipocet to do paperless caching - it is suppose to be part of my Premium Membership and the excuse sounds a bit lame and it does not look like a lot of effort has been put into resolving this????

 

very dissapointed .....

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Thisis not good news at all - it was so nice to get my files mailed to me with the pocket query and to use my Black Berry and Mobipocet to do paperless caching - it is suppose to be part of my Premium Membership and the excuse sounds a bit lame and it does not look like a lot of effort has been put into resolving this????

 

very dissapointed .....

NotBlonde: Careful, or mtn-man will edit your post to say you, "never liked getting the files e-mailed, GC.com has done a wonderful job of resolving this challenge, and you are so glad to have paid for a premium membership." :)

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Na, you can be bummed. I understand that. Like I say, I was bummed when Mobi crashed on me down in the Florida Keys. Maybe there could be a way to consolidate tutorials some how. I know geocacher-u has one and we have a cachemate tutorial on our GGA web site. It seems the biggest hole is Mac and Blackberry. Palm and Pocket PC users have good solutions.

 

For an assist, here is our Cachemate tutorial on our GGA site. I need to check the latest version to see if it still works the same way. There are a few screenshots of the program on a Palm Zire 71.

http://www.ggaonline.org/resources/paperle.../cachemate.html

 

Geocacher-U and Spinner/Plucker.

http://www.geocacher-u.com/resources/paperless.html

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#%!#*!!! Hey, wait.....nothing's ever as bad (or as good) as first reported! We got in on this way late. Guess like many of the commenters, we tried to do a PQ today and found our "get eBook" option missing. We've been using Mobi on our iQue for quite some time and while it's a little cumbersome, we love not schlepping paper around. After reading through most of the posts, we dashed off our $8 and loaded CacheMate. Wow. We'll not be going back to Mobi any time soon. Thanks to all who are offering solutions. It made what started out as a really bad caching day, just another normal, fun experience.

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..GC's failure Mobipockets continued lack of response to GC.com's request for a solution to the problem!

I fixed that post for you.

Well it appears that mobipocket has now provided a solution. I assume that since the original PQ server is old that it was set up to use PRCGen to produce the Mobipocket eBooks. I don't know of any other tool that could have been used. Well mobipocket now provides Mobigen which is "Command line tool to build Mobipocket eBooks" and should be all the PQ server needs to produce the e-books. It runs on modern Windows systems. Per the Internet Archive WaybackMachine, Mobigen was placed on the website about Nov 8, 2006. I guess Mobipocket hasn't posted anything about it nor directly email gc.com but it is there. So unless the GC programmers say they tried to replace PRCGen with Mobigen and it didn't work, I don't think Mobipocket can be blamed any more.

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Hmmm .... Jeremy going on the forums of some company and asking that they change how they do things because it would work better for some segment of users. And then just getting blown off or ignored.

 

How friggin' ironic.

 

There are probably a bunch of people on those forums asking why would you want to do it that way. And another group saying here is a convoluted work around you can do. And maybe another group who just say TPTB have spoken, if you don't like it then leave.

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So unless the GC programmers say they tried to replace PRCGen with Mobigen and it didn't work, I don't think Mobipocket can be blamed any more.

I've avoided participating in this fracas until now, but I have to say I agree 100% with AllenLacy. I'd really like to hear from a Groundspeak person as to if they tried mobigen and if it worked or not.

 

FWIW, gc.com is still advertising mobipocket support here http://www.geocaching.com/waypoints/ where they say: "eBook - As a Premium Member you can also choose to have a list of waypoints compiled into MobiPocket eBook format. This format contains all the information from the cache details page."

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Just joining the chorus of voices saying they are really frustrated about the loss of e-books.

 

That was the ONLY reason we joined as Premium members. My Palm Treo was purchased with this in mind.

 

I suppose well see what happens before our membership renewal comes up to see if we’ll stay. Right now – not feeling the love…

:anicute:

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It was so great disappointed, I am using Symbian UIQ phone for the past two years, eBook with waypoints files just loaded into my SE P910i and Go. Now without the eBook at least you have to creaded a text form of eBook for us. We just need to read the cache log etc.

If without this feature I will not continue my membership this coming Oct 07. Please don't expected we carry multiple device for our hunt.

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After the test weekend with cachemate, 17 caches in 2 days... I won't be going back to MobiPocket unless there are some significant improvements... the easy way is not always the best way! I love the versatility of cachemate and the ease of having the description and hints in the same place, not having to jump between the appendix and the table of contents. I wish I had known about this before I upgraded my palm to one that would easily run Mobipocket :anicute:

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I saw another post on the GSAK forum that mentions a problem with security writing to certain folders. I re-tried this and sent the file to the C:/mobigen directory. SUCCESS! This is a pretty good substitute for GC's failure Mobipockets continued lack of response to GC.com's request for a solution to the problem!

I fixed that post for you.

 

That's not very professional. Neither is pointing a finger at another company and blaming them for the problem. Instead of playing the blame game, perhaps more effort should be put in to finding a solution for people who like to cache with a Blackberry. Furthermore, those who depended on MobiPocket files should have been warned ahead of time instead of just pulling the rug out from under them. I fully understand that Groundspeak guarantees nothing (see Terms of Use, clause 10: NO WARRANTIES). However, exploiting that clause to get out of something that people expect from Groundspeak is still obnoxious.

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It looks like MobiPocket is willing to speak to GC... they are asking for a contact at GC:

 

http://www.mobipocket.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=32284#32284

 

mobi_hoa

 

Joined: 11 Jun 2007

Posts: 254

Location: mobipocket

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 4:30 pm

 

By the way, if someone can send me a contact to geocaching.com (by private message), that would be useful.

 

Thanks,

 

 

Hopefully we'll get this resolved as I love Mobipocket and would like to keep using it.

 

-EricsBrat

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I've spoken with Mobipocket and they have officially confirmed that the SDK we were using has been discontinued. Unfortunately, the tools they currently offer are in no way similar to the tool we've been relying on for the last 5+ years so there's no reasonable way for us to continue to support the Mobipocket ebook format.

 

We know many in the community have been enjoying and relying on the Mobipocket ebooks for their paperless caching experience and this news is disappointing. It is for us too; and frankly we've been lucky that we've been able to use an unsupported SDK from 2001 for this long.

 

The good news is that the Geocaching developer community has produced a number of great tools over the years which can convert the contents of a GPX file into something that can be used on nearly any device. As you can see from the many posts in this thread, people are finding that using tools such as GPX Spinner, Cachemate, GPX Sonar, GPX View, etc... are finding that those tools provide a better solution than the Mobipocket ebook format. Just in the last few days, stipman has created a macro to create Mobipocket ebooks directly from GSAK, and it probably won't be long until someone combines GPSBabel and Mobipocket's Mobigen tool to create a new application that converts our GPX files directly to Mobipocket ebook format in one shot.

 

These workarounds may not be as convenient as our emailed ebooks were, but there's just no reasonable way for us to continue to support the Mobipocket ebooks without an up-to-date and fully supported SDK.

 

:D Elias

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I've spoken with Mobipocket and they have officially confirmed that the SDK we were using has been discontinued. Unfortunately, the tools they currently offer are in no way similar to the tool we've been relying on for the last 5+ years so there's no reasonable way for us to continue to support the Mobipocket ebook format.

 

Elias,

You mentioned mobigen (a command line tool for creating ebooks) in your post. Could you comment on if it would be possible for you to use this as part of your batch processes to generate & email ebooks similar to how they were done in the past? While it may be a different API, it seems like it would be straightforward to turn GPX files into ebooks at the source and include them with the PQ email.

Thanks!

Edited by Jam Clam
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You mentioned mobigen (a command line tool for creating ebooks) in your post. Could you comment on if it would be possible for you to use this as part of your batch processes to generate & email ebooks similar to how they were done in the past? While it may be a different API, it seems like it would be straightforward to turn GPX files into ebooks at the source and include them with the PQ email.

It is certainly possible, but would take a significant amount of work to convert our code from using the native SDK to the Mobigen tool. Mobigen is also a seperate application, so that alone takes a lot more work to integrate with and test to make sure we properly trap any errors it reports. Using it instead of the SDK is less efficient and would add several seconds to the generation of each PQ, which given the number of PQs we process each day, would be detrimental to the performance of the PQ Generator.

 

Mobigen wants a series of HTML files that it "compiles" into an ebook. Many of the tools already developed by the community convert our PQs into HTML files, so this work has mostly been done. That's why as I mentioned, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone take GPS Babel and Mobigen and create a tool to do this. I'm guessing, but I bet that's how the GSAK macro works.

 

;) Elias

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Mobigen wants a series of HTML files that it "compiles" into an ebook. Many of the tools already developed by the community convert our PQs into HTML files, so this work has mostly been done. That's why as I mentioned, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone take GPS Babel and Mobigen and create a tool to do this. I'm guessing, but I bet that's how the GSAK macro works.

 

 

Yes the mobipocket macro I created for GSAK actually creates HTML files first and then "compiles" them into a mobipocket format. While this is a great solution for individuals, it's really not very efficient and wouldn't work in an environment where there are thousands of ebooks that need to be created. Im sure that shortly a small utility can and will be created by some of the creative and industrious geocachers out there. I don't see any technical problems that would prevent a small utility from being created and distributed so that individuals can create their own ebooks.

Edited by stipman
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So they had an actual SDK. By using the internet wayback machine it appears that it went away a long time ago. So should all the people that would like to have mobipocket e-books come in their PQ, go to Mobipocket and ask them to bring back support for the SDK?

 

As for me, I quit using Mobipocket as soon as I wrote a Perl Program to convert GPX to HTML, then had the command line distiller convert it for Plucker.

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I went out today with the old fashioned sheaf of paper and was not happy. Thank goodness that the MobiPocket queries lasted long enough for my summer holidays. I do not pretend to understand the politics of this as on the MobiPocket forum they say:

 

'The news is that a solution has been provided to geocaching to keep the support of mobipocket file format using the tools that are distributed through the developer website of mobipocket.com.

But they don't want to spend time on implementing the solution.

Sorry.

 

As you can imagine from reading this on the MobiPocket site I am not very happy!

Maybe Caching for me will have to go on the back burner for a while until a sensible solution is found to get my Sony Ericsson mobile phone going again as the thought of having to buy another gadget to carry around is even more depressing!

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Just copied this from the Mobipocket Forum and they say the problem is on the geocaching end:

 

'The news is that a solution has been provided to geocaching to keep the support of mobipocket file format using the tools that are distributed through the developer website of mobipocket.com.

But they don't want to spend time on implementing the solution.

Sorry.'

 

As you can imagine from reading this on the MobiPocket site I am not very happy! I have been GeoCaching for some time and loved the ease of using my MobiPocket software on my SonyEricsson mobile phone. The loss of this service has really upset my day.

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So they had an actual SDK. By using the internet wayback machine it appears that it went away a long time ago. So should all the people that would like to have mobipocket e-books come in their PQ, go to Mobipocket and ask them to bring back support for the SDK?
No, I wouldn't do this. They discontinued support for their SDK a long time ago and aren't going to bring it back.

 

:laughing: Elias

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Just copied this from the Mobipocket Forum and they say the problem is on the geocaching end:

 

'The news is that a solution has been provided to geocaching to keep the support of mobipocket file format using the tools that are distributed through the developer website of mobipocket.com.

But they don't want to spend time on implementing the solution.'

This is partially true but isn't the whole story. As I posted above, the tool they now offer just isn't suitable for how we create PQs.

 

:laughing: Elias

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Per Elias's note, I think I've come up with the simplest method yet to generate mobi ebooks from GPX files:

 

1. Use gpsbabel; use the gpx file as the source and use HTML as the output format

2. Use mobigen to convert the single HTML file into .mobi ebook format

 

I could probably combine these into a two line .bat file if I wanted to automate the process :laughing:

 

Granted, the HTML isn't as pretty as the HTML generated by GSAK or some of the other tools, but this method has the advantage of putting all the data in a single HTML file, which makes the mobigen post-processing much simpler (and faster!)

 

That being said, I'll have to take Elias at his word that it "would take a significant amount of work" to use this as a method to replace the no-longer-functioning SDK. But I will point out that we are the paying subscribers to this site and I guess we expect that Groundspeak will put in the "lots of work" required to replace the lost functionality. :/

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1. Use gpsbabel; use the gpx file as the source and use HTML as the output format

2. Use mobigen to convert the single HTML file into .mobi ebook format

 

I could probably combine these into a two line .bat file if I wanted to automate the process :)

 

I just tested this, using the output from GeoToad - as (HTML output with hints decrypted). Then ran through MobiGen, and emailed the output to my Dash... It works fantastic! I do lose the last several logs, but that's okay - at least I get the basics of the cache, along with decrypted hints.

 

This'll work 'til GC works out a replacement...

 

ShadowHawk

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Per Elias's note, I think I've come up with the simplest method yet to generate mobi ebooks from GPX files:

 

1. Use gpsbabel; use the gpx file as the source and use HTML as the output format

2. Use mobigen to convert the single HTML file into .mobi ebook format

 

I could probably combine these into a two line .bat file if I wanted to automate the process :)

 

Granted, the HTML isn't as pretty as the HTML generated by GSAK or some of the other tools, but this method has the advantage of putting all the data in a single HTML file, which makes the mobigen post-processing

 

I have no doubt that GSAK, a tool specializing in this (hint: it's the "G" in "GSAK), or other specialized tools can do better. If you have specific requests to improve the HTML output of PQs from GPSBabel (splitting files would be reasonable, anything that wecks our cross-platform nature wouldn't be) send them to the GPSBabel list.

 

It's a tough balance. On one hand, ultra simple HTML that works well in everything from Ipod to Mobi to Plucker to the various PDA browsers is tempting, but it's kind of ugly. Primping it generally breaks something on that scale. The CSS option was meant to give you a balance, but if you have material suggestions to improve it, bring 'em on.

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Well, this could be my first post.

I was a bit unsure of what was happening with the mobipocket files I received by email daily to my symbian phone, now I know. I was really annoyed (mildly put!) at this feature being removed as it let me know of new caches in the area in a readable format. Like others I feel it was a definate benefit of premium membership. Not a regular forum user it would have been nice for an email to let us know what had happened and the service was a gonner, especially to those who used that particular service :)

 

I would like to thank Murre&Mirre for letting me know about smartgpx. I surfed to their website from my phone and installed it to my Nokia 6630 without any problems, and now I can make easy sense of those gpx files. :)

 

Looks like I will have to visit the forums a bit more :)

 

We are really dissappointed to here this news! For us as well eBook support was the reason for Premium Membership.

 

We are using a Symbian device and all quick fixes like HTML or PDFs are troublesome and have downfalls. For example when opening HTML pages the browser (at least with Nokia N73) wants to connect to the internet! And there's no way adding e.g. highlights to mark visited caches to HTML documents. PDFs on the other hand can become enourmous in kilobytes wise.

 

By the way, GPX2HTML would be so much better if it could make one single HTML file..!

 

Has anyone tried this with Symbian:

 

http://www.smartcaching.de/smartgpx.html

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I was a bit unsure of what was happening with the mobipocket files I received by email daily to my symbian phone, now I know. I was really annoyed (mildly put!) at this feature being removed as it let me know of new caches in the area in a readable format. Like others I feel it was a definate benefit of premium membership. Not a regular forum user it would have been nice for an email to let us know what had happened and the service was a gonner, especially to those who used that particular service
You're right, we should have handled this better. It had been so long since we had touched the Mobipocket SDK, we just didn't anticipate this problem.

 

I would like to thank Murre&Mirre for letting me know about smartgpx. I surfed to their website from my phone and installed it to my Nokia 6630 without any problems, and now I can make easy sense of those gpx files.
Thanks for letting people know that SmartGPX worked for you. I know there are others here in the forums with Symbian-based smartphones that are also looking for a solution.

 

:) Elias

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Has anyone got an opf file (and the associated html pages) that builds into a mobi file that they could let me have a copy of.

 

I'm using xslt to manipulate the gpx file both into a better gpx file (for my app) and into html to be passed through mobigen. However I haven't got the mobigen bit to work yet, but as we're running it under wine it's hard to know whether the problem is the input or the environment, so anyone with guaranteed good input would be invaluable.

 

Thanks!

 

(I started with gpsbabel, but xslt is infinitely quicker and more configurable).

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Has anyone got an opf file (and the associated html pages) that builds into a mobi file that they could let me have a copy of.

 

I'm using xslt to manipulate the gpx file both into a better gpx file (for my app) and into html to be passed through mobigen. However I haven't got the mobigen bit to work yet, but as we're running it under wine it's hard to know whether the problem is the input or the environment, so anyone with guaranteed good input would be invaluable.

 

Thanks!

 

(I started with gpsbabel, but xslt is infinitely quicker and more configurable).

 

Using an XSLT? I was trying to do that part but I'm not very XML "fluent". I do however, have an opf that you can use. How can I get it to you?

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I think I've come up with the simplest method yet to generate mobi ebooks from GPX files:

 

1. Use gpsbabel; use the gpx file as the source and use HTML as the output format

2. Use mobigen to convert the single HTML file into .mobi ebook format

 

I was thinking about this; in fact, this could really be a one step process.

 

1. Use gpsbabel (or perhaps an XSLT as others are in the process of developing) to convert the gpx file to a single HTML file

 

Now simply drag the HTML file into Mobipocket Reader; it will load the single HTML file and allow you to send it to your handheld (e.g, in my case, my blackberry) as an ebook. No need for mobigen or any other conversion process.

 

So in fact, if Groundspeak was willing and able to send an HTML file along with the GPX file in your PQ, there would be no reason for anyone to complain any more :(

 

(Please understand I'm not implying that the one step above is too hard or too much work to run on one's local PC; I'm simply pointing out that we are at a point where it seems there is a solution whereby Groundspeak could provide essentially the same functionality as they used to)

Edited by Jam Clam
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Hi there,

 

we use to use a Sharp Zaurus as our reader of Mobi-files, but of course this has now ended. we have tried a number of different readers to try and show the pocket queries on the Zaurus, but with no luck.

 

does anyone else out there use a Zaurus and have they managed to get the pocket queries in a format that can be used? If so how, and using what software?

 

We to are a bit narked as we also upgraded our membership to premium to enable this facility, and really dont wish to have to purchase a new PDA so that we can view files while out caching, as the zaurus fulfilled all our needs.

 

Cheers

 

Hexy

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I have been using my BlackBerry as my Geocaching PDA. While it's not as good as a locally stored file, I used GPS Babel to generate an HTML file and uploaded it to my web server. I just nav to that file with the browser on the BB. As long as I have cell service I can load it, and as long as I don't close the browser, I have it even w/o service.

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Just wanted to add my 2 cents worth to the queue.

I am having a hard time without the ebook file, for my Treo650 pda (Palm o/s).

I tend to hunt for caches by driving around an area an seeing what catches my eye, then I look up the details in the ebook, since invariabley I am out of range for the internet connection to use wap.geocaching.com, which isn't perfect but does help fill the void.

When I am more organized I have found that the new PDF creater tool works good, since I can create the PDF on my laptop, then email it to my Treo, and view the PDF there.

Hope you can find some solution to this.

vanGO--> Rob

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does anyone else out there use a Zaurus and have they managed to get the pocket queries in a format that can be used? If so how, and using what software?

@Hexy,

in the past two pages of this thread there are a bunch of methods listed that describe how you can generate a mobi ebook like before. I'll summarize them below (see the individual posts for detailed instructions):

 

1. If you are a GSAK user, there is a great macro that will turn your GSAK database into a mobi ebook in one click

2. You can use a tool called GPX2HTML to turn your gpx PQ file into a set of HTML files; these can then be turned into an ebook using either Mobicreator or Mobigen; both available from the Mobipocket site

3. Use gpsbabel to turn your gpx QA file into a single HTML file; you can drag this html file into Mobipocket reader and transfer it to your device (it will get converted into an ebook automagically in the background)

 

Note to Groundspeak: Can we put these instructions somewhere on the geocaching website or in a wiki somewhere? I think this would help people rather than forcing them to dig through this thread for instructions.

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I am disappointed as well as with the loss of the mobipocket files, and I also do not want to try time consuming workaround fixes. I paid for the premium service for both the .loc and the .prc files.

 

Yes I will find and use a workaround but I may also cancel my premium service as well. Why would I pay for something if I can get a workaround to work for free, or if I have to pay for the workaround then why would I want to pay for a service that isn't working for me????

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Hmmm....

Not happy.

It was actually the ebook that was a bigger selling point for me than the PQ's. I don't pay Premium for ME to have to go find a workaround.

I don't care how "easy" it is to work around it. My time is very scarce, so I pay for the info I need to arrive in a form I can use basically straight away.

If it's any work on my part, well i don't need any extra work, I work insane hours as it is.

Will be watching with great interest.

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OK.

Four pages and I'm really none the wiser.

I want a copy of the cache page for each cache in my PQ.

What is now the easiest solution to accomplish this?

 

I've found ONE screenshot of cachemate that tells me nothing except it can list the names of the caches, which is no use to me.

DOES this program have the info from the cache page? How do I give it this information? Is it just getting it to open the gpx file, or is there more to it than that?

Basically, What's the least involved method for me to get the information from the cache pages, onto a Mobile 5.0 based JasJam Mobile Phone/PDA ?

Thanks in advance

Trent

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Yes, you see everything. From our GGA site showing a cachemate tutorial...

 

"Tapping on a cache (page) will give you 5 options. "I" gives you the info about the cache (shown at left). "D" gives the description from the cache page. "H" gives you the hint decrypted. "L" gives you a page to make notes regarding your log (date, time, notes, took, left, tbugs). "P" shows the past 5 logs from the cache page."

If you look at the upper right on the photo of the PDA, you will see the letters in boxes. You tap those letters to get the different detail pages.

Edited by mtn-man
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Yet another EASY alternative for anyone who has an ipod:

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=170430

 

Cache Magnet, which has a number of great options, including a menu option to send your .gpx file to your Ipod's notes section. You can browse in your Ipod by waypoint or cache name.

 

I say, if Mobi is not being user friendly we should all find something else, and let them know about it.

 

I can sympathize with TPTB on this--some application providers don't seem to care if they orphan users or product lines.

 

Dave_W6DPS

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Yes, you see everything. From our GGA site showing a cachemate tutorial...

 

Well, that makes it harder than it is...

I don't know about your pda's but I simply loaded cachemate onto the pda, then copied the gpx file over to the pda, and opened the gpx file directly with cachemate on the pda itself.

I didn't need cmcconvert or any other hassles.

Just cachemate on the pda, and the gpx file on the pda too, and then open the gpx file from within cachemate. Nice and simple, nice and easy, and the gpx file may even already be on the pda if it synchronised the email across to the pda.

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Oh cool, neither then. You have a "smart phone" device. Very cool that it works so easily on that device. Hopefully that will inspire those who have that type of device to use that tool to help them with paperless caching. It isn't quite as easy on a Palm or PocketPC, hence the more detailed instructions that I have linked above.

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