Cache details on your mobile phone

June 2, 2003

I am pleased to announce that, thanks to the talents of westonwanderers, you can now get lists of nearby caches, and details of individual caches, wherever you are in the country, using your mobile phone!

The service only works on the new java compatible mobiles so if, like me, your mobile is somewhat reminiscent of a house brick, you've now got an excuse to upgrade!

Basically, you point the phone at a URL on GeocacheUK, enter your current location, and the phone will give you a list of nearby caches with basic info such as terrain and difficulty. You select the cache you want to do and full details are downloaded to your phone. Optionally you can specify your GC.com user id, to ensure that caches you have already found are not listed.

To find out more, see the instructions.

Have fun!

GeocacheUK - resources for the UK Geocaching community.

June 2, 2003

Teasel and Westonwanderers: - That is pretty neat stuff! Well done"

Now, if only you could get the phone to find the cache and log it on your behalf, that would make it even better.....

Cheers,

Neil

June 2, 2003

A text message?

For me?

Who's it from?

Lassie!

"2 mn fl dwn adnd mne, abt 2 mi pasd old brdg.

N54 6.123 W4 7.890"

Good dog Lassie! We're on our way!

It's dark and we're wearing sunglasses.

June 2, 2003

Wow!

We are gobsmacked.

We had seen all that "stuff" between you & WestonW on the G:UK forum, but we never thought It would be working this quickly!!

Cool.

(& thankyou!)

We take our children everywhere, but they always find their way back home...

June 2, 2003

Just tried this on my Nokia 6310i

One comment to make... absolutely brilliant!

Thanks chaps for this fantastic new service!

Steve

If you can see the 'light at the end of the tunnel', it's usually a train coming !

3.8k · June 3, 2003

Works OK on my Nokia 3510i

I do get some funny groups of characters in place of some of the symbols and punctuation marks used in cache descriptions but I can live with that.

John

Age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

June 3, 2003

Works fine on my Nokia 3650, certainly beats trying to browse around the Geocaching.com site over the GPRS link on a small screen. Being able to get a cache description and clue on the phone is great.

One question - how long does it keep cache data locally? The reason I ask thinking about how it would cope with changes to locations, details etc.

Couple of wish list items here, it would be great if it could search from your current location, although I know that will be pretty complicated as you'd have to map cell ID's onto lat/lon locations.

On a somewhat more doable level it would be nice to be able to have a local my target geocaches folder (or something along those lines), where you could download the cache details and keep them separate from the location based searches. I could then select caches I was going to do on a particular caching trip and have all the details to hand without having to print off pages of cache details on the off chance.

Anyway, thanks for your hard work, a really excellent tool.

Richard

June 3, 2003

Hi Richard,

It keeps the data for one cache at a time; the data is erased when you retrieve the details for another cache. It wouldn't cope too well with changes to cache details if you viewed the details some time after you retrieved them. I could put a refresh function after the 'Description' and 'Clue' option.

Ahh wish lists... There is no pleasing some! . I'm pretty sure that finding your current location by cell id is nigh impossible, I don't have access to this info from Java, let alone trying to calculate lng/lat from it . I can put an option in to retrieve nearby caches, based on the cache details you are looking at though.

The local 'Target' cache area is a good idea, though I'd have to limit it to say 5 caches, due to memory requirements.. ( I have a paltry 20K's worth of NVRam to work with!, The more I use for niceties, the less I have for the Description & Clue, which maybe priority in some cases.)

Cheers.

Tony.

June 3, 2003

Tony,

I wasn't aware of the limitations of the Java Midlets, which I guess are the only way to go in order to reach a large range of users.

I've come across a thing called miniGPS for the Symbian/Nokia Series 60 phones which pulls off Cell ID's, but that is specifically targeted at a specific platform. I guess as smartphones become more prevelant it might be possible to do something with cell ID's, but it's then into the age old problems of different platforms - two different Symbian platforms already, plus Microsoft and Palm producing stuff. I was just going for the ultimate wish list.

Richard

June 3, 2003

It's not actually a limitation of the midlet, but rather, the limitation of the Nokia 6310i (That I'm making as the lowest common denominator, for the time been).

1.6k · June 3, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Richard & Beth:
Tony,

I wasn't aware of the limitations of the Java Midlets, which I guess are the only way to go in order to reach a large range of users.

I've come across a thing called miniGPS for the Symbian/Nokia Series 60 phones which pulls off Cell ID's, but that is specifically targeted at a specific platform. I guess as smartphones become more prevelant it might be possible to do something with cell ID's, but it's then into the age old problems of different platforms - two different Symbian platforms already, plus Microsoft and Palm producing stuff. I was just going for the ultimate wish list.

Richard

Ahh yes finally someone else with the god of phones- the 3650 ! I'm pretty chuffed with it espcially as I won it in Nokia Game this year.

Something you may like is WebViewer.

http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=1&jid=EA7FFE4XCA27FD4AXBA26X686FX8XD8B&productId=34116&optionId=1_4_2&productType=2&catalog=20&txtSearch=webviewer&sectionId=0&platformId=4

Sorry for the big URL This amazing prgram allows you to go on the normal internet- including of course the geocaching website Marginally better than the geocaching Java app (perhaps a symbian version could be made) because you can view the logs and pictures too. Best £15 (roughly) I have spent. You can also get this for the P800 although it isn't as good.

Let me know what you think,

MarcB

Took Log Book, Left Nothing

1.6k · June 3, 2003

Eww I've screwed up the page :S

MarcB

Took Log Book, Left Nothing

June 4, 2003

Hi Mark,

It's pritty unlikely that I will be doing a symbian version, sorry (it's not a platform I own, or know!). There may be the facility to view pictures through the midlet oneday, (on phones that have a compatable screen, my 6210i dosen't ). If anyone wants to have a go, I can let you have the source code...

On another note, I was first to find one of your caches yesterday evening, 'The Chase'.... I log it in a minute!

Cheers.

Tony

June 4, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by MarcB:

Ahh yes finally someone else with the god of phones- the 3650 ! I'm pretty chuffed with it

Yes, I only got mine at the weekend. Persuaded my project manager that he wanted to update to one too, although he's only just starting to realise that he's basically got a pretty powerful PDA/Smartphone for £80. Considering the amount they were charging for similar phones even a few months ago it's pretty impressive.

I was considering getting a copy of Opera, guess I'll have to see if someone has a comparison of the two. The other wish list applications for it would be if TomTom port their Nokia 9210 version of Citymaps and Route Planner over to it, especially as they are now doing a Bluetooth GPS.

Richard

1.6k · June 5, 2003

Go for Opera- seems much better (I'm getting it )

MarcB

Took Log Book, Left Nothing

1.1k · July 10, 2003

I just got a 3510i. I've tried to downlaod the application without any joy. The screen shows it to be downloading and then half way thru' it comes back as 'invalid file'.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Shall we just decrypt the clue?

3.8k · July 10, 2003

Mmmm.... I've had it running on my 3510i for some time but I just checked the version and it seems to be different (Is there a new version?). Trying to download the new(?) version gives me the same result, Invalid File. Fortunately, the older version has remained intact and still works.

John

Age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability

July 13, 2003

I've just upgraded to a 3510i mainly to use this new facility. I too kept getting 'invalid file' for about four or five attempts to download the aplet but on the last attempt it downloaded and is working fine. I wonder if westonwanderers have changed the file or if gprs file transfer can be a bit dodgy at times.

Now I've got it it's great. Thanks to westonwanderers and GCUK for this very useful tool.

1.4k · July 24, 2003

Get 'something wrong with page' when I try to download using Sony Ericsson T68i.

Bob....

http://www.bobh.co.uk

July 25, 2003

Hi Bob,

The T68i does not support Java, as far as I can tell.... BUT, before you rush out and buy a Java supporting Sony P800, there appears to be certain issues with entering numerics (Such as long/lats) on these phones. I posted a message to the Sony Ericsson developer board , but have no answers yet...

(best get a nokia!)

Tony.

1.4k · July 25, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Weston Wanderers:
Hi Bob,

The T68i does not support Java, as far as I can tell.... _BUT_, before you rush out and buy a Java supporting Sony P800, there appears to be certain issues with entering numerics (Such as long/lats) on these phones. I posted a message to the Sony Ericsson developer board , but have no answers yet...

(best get a nokia!)

Tony.

Nah!! Can't do that. Just got rid of troublesome 5210. Kept shutting down.

Bob....

http://www.bobh.co.uk

July 25, 2003

I tried the midlet on my Sharp GX10i and gave myself a fright when it locked up and crashed.

I'll try again but read the instructions properly next time.

July 25, 2003

Works fine on my Nokia 7650

August 1, 2003

Has anyone managed to successfully download the application to a Sony Ericsson T610?

I get 'Item not supported - cannot be downloaded' when I try .

"Fear is temporary, regret is permanent!"

motley. adj. varied in appearance or character.

crew. n. group of people.

1.4k · August 1, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Motley Crew:
Has anyone managed to successfully download the application to a Sony Ericsson T610?

I get 'Item not supported - cannot be downloaded' when I try .

"Fear is temporary, regret is permanent!"

motley. adj. varied in appearance or character.

crew. n. group of people.

May be something to do with lack of JAVa. Just like my T68i :-(

Bob....

http://www.bobh.co.uk

August 1, 2003

Me too, we just bought a Sony Ericcson T610 today and the first thing I tried was downloading this utility. I got the same error that Motley Crew received. The T610 definitely has Java support, there are some Java games pre-installed on it that display a large Java logo when you fire them up. I believe that the T610 has MIDP2.0 support and I think OTA provisioning is one of the things that changed between MIDP 1.0 and MIDP 2.0.

Martin

August 2, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Freak Enterprises:
Me too, we just bought a Sony Ericcson T610 today and the first thing I tried was downloading this utility. I got the same error that Motley Crew received. The T610 definitely has Java support, there are some Java games pre-installed on it that display a large Java logo when you fire them up. I believe that the T610 has MIDP2.0 support and I think OTA provisioning is one of the things that changed between MIDP 1.0 and MIDP 2.0.

Martin

I hope the developers of this might look into this SE T610 problem as one of the reasons I upgraded to the T610 was to be able to use this utility . (I managed to blag mine out of my phone company for free ). I'm also hoping to be able to surf the GC.COM site via GPRS when away from home - still working on that.

"Fear is temporary, regret is permanent!"

motley. adj. varied in appearance or character.

crew. n. group of people.

August 4, 2003

Hi,

I've been searching around the web for info and issues with the T610, but as it is a brand new model, there is little to be found (yet).. I can only say it works fine through the T610 emulator (not that this fact will help you)...

Does the ‘…Cannot be downloaded’ error message appear within seconds of requesting the URL, or after about 30 seconds….. I’m wondering if the problem could be to do with the hosting web-servers config, rather than the midlet itself; if the error appears quickly then the phone wouldn’t have even attempted to download the main .Jar file.

I did find that the amount of non-volatile space on the phone, which is used to store cache details when the app isn’t running, is limited to 10K, which is only half of that of my Nokia 6310i (A inferior phone by far). I imagine that this might be a problem for caches with long descriptions and/or clue, if the midlet was able to run at all.

If anyone wants a go at finding out the problem, I can let you have the source code, or post it here..

Thanks

Tony

August 4, 2003

doesnt work on my 3210

August 4, 2003

The 3210 Doesn't support Java... The list here shows compatable devices....

http://wireless.java.sun.com/device/

There have been some issues with the sony Sony Ericsson models (p800, and the T610 as mentioned above). Also, the Sharp GX10i has some restrictions for Midlets that may prevent it from working at the mo, but there might just be a way of getting around them, but dont bank on it []

Tony.

August 4, 2003

quote:
<snip>

Does the ‘…Cannot be downloaded’ error message appear within seconds of requesting the URL, or after about 30 seconds….. I’m wondering if the problem could be to do with the hosting web-servers config, rather than the midlet itself; if the error appears quickly then the phone wouldn’t have even attempted to download the main .Jar file.

<snip>

Hi Tony

I've just tried it and the 'Item not supported - cannot be downloaded' message comes up about 4 or 5 seconds after trying to access the wap site. I am using GPRS WAP. The other day I couldn't download it via dial-up WAP either - (I think I got the same message).

HTH

Rgds

Keith

"Fear is temporary, regret is permanent!"

motley. adj. varied in appearance or character.

crew. n. group of people.

August 5, 2003

This sounds like a possible problem with the way the files are been served, 4 or 5 seconds is no way long enough to download the midlet....

The file accessed at http://mobile.guk2.com referes to a different file on a (virtually) different host. Your phone may be getting confused..

try using this address instead: (it will take a bit to type in....)

http://stats.guk2.com/caches/mobile_midlet.jad

Thanks.

Tony.

August 5, 2003

Try conecting to the site without using WAP the midlet is not on a wap server and does not need to be just connect with GPRS

Mark (TheCat)

www.geocacheuk.com

August 5, 2003

Hi Mark,

There is no difference between a wap and web server, They are both connected to the internet, and are simalarly configured. It is only the the files they host that differ; Web servers serve HTML, Wap servers serve WML... The actual server software is the same, indeed you can serve both web and wap from the same box (you may need to add a few more MIME types however see http://www.devarticles.com/art/1/85/2 )

There is a wap tutorial here:

http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/pages/Authoring/WAPTutorial/HelloWorld/

So, how soon can we expect a Wap presence from GCUK??

Tony.

August 5, 2003

Have you got the mime types set correctly on the machine that is actually serving the midlet files ?

[Extract from java.sun.com]

... eventually you'll need to test provisioning of actual devices from an actual web server. You'll need to deploy your application on a public server, one that is accessible to the general Internet population, and the server will need to be configured with the following MIME type mappings: the .jad file extension must map to the text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor type and the .jar extension to the application/java-archive type. Note that versions 4.0 and higher of the Tomcat server already include these mappings in their conf/web.xml files.

Regards

Martin

August 5, 2003

The mime types are set up as described. So, I guess either:

a) The .jad file is getting messed up on it's way to your phone, In which case Your telephone company's Wap Gateway may be doing somthing strange, who are you with? Have you tried downloading any other Java games? ( point your mobile at http://wap.spruce.jp )

There is an element within the .jad file that your phone isn't happy with, causing it to error. Again, if you can find a game you can download, I can have a look at the .jad file to see the differences between it and the one for this midlet.

Tony

August 5, 2003

I successfully managed to download and run the Alarm Clock and the Spruce HTTPgetter from wap.spruce.jp on the T610, so network and handset must be OK. Perhaps you are right about there being a problem with your jad file...

Martin

August 5, 2003

I just tried accessing the http://stats.guk2.com/caches/mobile_midlet.jad URL directly and guess what - it works. So I take back my comment in my last post about the jad file. How exactly are you doing the redirect from stats.guk2.com/caches/mobile_midlet.jad to mobile.guk2.com ? Are these separate servers ? If so, are the mime types set on both servers ?

Regards

Martin

August 5, 2003

Hi there, I'm happy it works.... (I was getting a little disillusioned after the P800/Sharp phones not working!). The two files needed for the midlet are at

http://stats.guk2.com/caches/mobile_midlet.jad

and

http://stats.guk2.com/caches/mobile_midlet.jar

Now , these names are a little long to enter, as you have gathered, so Teasil set up a virtual host of http://mobile.guk2.com that points directly to the .jad file..

The problem is that the mobile phone retrieves the .jad file from host mobile.guk2.com, and this .jad points to the .jar file at host stats.guk2.com. It seams it doesn't like the fact that the two files are at different hosts....

The Cat / Teasil... Can you help??

Chears

Tony

August 5, 2003

Hi Tony

I was about to try the 'direct' URL but it seems GPRS is down at the moment (B****y T-Mobile!). I'll have a go tomorrow with my 610 - thanks to you & Freak Ent for the info and of course GeocacheUK for hosting the midlet.

Rgds

Keith

"Fear is temporary, regret is permanent!"

motley. adj. varied in appearance or character.

crew. n. group of people.

August 6, 2003

I've successfully downloaded the midlet to my T610 this morning using the 'long' URL. Will try it later. VMT all

"Fear is temporary, regret is permanent!"

motley. adj. varied in appearance or character.

crew. n. group of people.

3.8k · August 7, 2003

There may be people out there thinking of 'up-grading' their mobile phone so that they can take advantage of this excellent service.

In view of the trouble some folks have had getting the midlet thingy to work, is there anyway you could post a list of phones that you know are compatible, or perhaps better, a list of the phones that you know there will be a problem with?

John

Age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability

August 14, 2003

Further info on trying to use the midlet on the SE T610.

After numerous attempts I've still not successfully downloaded any cache details .

I end up with 2 scenarios:

1. The phone shows a bar graph with a 10% marker then asks if web access is allowed. I select yes and it shows 'Wait. Downloading caches' & nothing further occurs. I can exit the midlet application using the appropriate button.

2. The phone shows a bar graph with a 10% marker then asks if web access is allowed. I select yes and it shows 'Wait. Downloading caches' , the bar graph increases to 100% and then nothing. At this point the phone is 'locked up' and all I can do is turn it off. The shutdown sequence takes a lot longer than usual (approx 1 min 10 secs). On turning the phone back on it sometimes takes a while (hourglass symbol shown) to get to the user PIN screen.

I've tried this from Fareham, Southampton and Plymouth with the same result each time.

"Fear is temporary, regret is permanent!"

motley. adj. varied in appearance or character.

crew. n. group of people.

August 15, 2003

I had the same problem as you described in scenario 1 (not 2, thank heavens). My theory is that it's using the wrong GPRS connection. Our phone from O2 has two sets of GPRS settings, one for O2 WAP and one for Internet (can't remember exactly how they named it). The WAP GPRS settings are on CID 1 and the Internet on CID 2. The convention is that the internet connection should always be on CID 1. I'm not sure why there should be a difference between the wap settings and the internet ones, but since there are two sets of settings I guess there must be a good reason. I'm guessing too that the J2ME engine in the phone will bring up the connection on CID 1. Unfortunately you can't just edit the settings and change the CID number, you have to delete them both and re-enter the details - pain. I haven't had a chance to test my theory as it's my wife's phone.

I think O2 haven't provisioned the phone as well as they could have done. I already had to provide the correct dns settings just to be able to download the midlet in the first place...

Martin

August 15, 2003

Hi there,

This doesn't look good. It should not be possible to create a midlet to 'lock up' a phone (as in case 2), as they are run in a 'sandbox' environment. The fact that it is, suggests that the Java runtime on your phone is crashing badly, rather than an error within the midlet.

The bar chart is increasing to 100%. The cache details must be downloaded to your phone for this to happen.

So I guess there is a problem with displaying the details afterwoods. I've looked through this part of code, and there seams nothing obvious that could be causing the problem.... Indeed it is the same code that runs on the Nokias.

I'll hit the developer groups again, to see if there is anyone else with these similar problems. Without having access to one of these phones, it is quite difficult to figure out what is going on though.

Tony.

August 15, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Freak Enterprises:
I had the same problem as you described in scenario 1 (not 2, thank heavens). My theory is that it's using the wrong GPRS connection. Our phone from O2 has two sets of GPRS settings, one for O2 WAP and one for Internet (can't remember exactly how they named it). The WAP GPRS settings are on CID 1 and the Internet on CID 2. The convention is that the internet connection should always be on CID 1. I'm not sure why there should be a difference between the wap settings and the internet ones, but since there are two sets of settings I guess there must be a good reason. I'm guessing too that the J2ME engine in the phone will bring up the connection on CID 1. Unfortunately you can't just edit the settings and change the CID number, you have to delete them both and re-enter the details - pain. I haven't had a chance to test my theory as it's my wife's phone.

I think O2 haven't provisioned the phone as well as they could have done. I already had to provide the correct dns settings just to be able to download the midlet in the first place...

Martin

Hi Martin

Humm! Bit too technical for me. But for info I have the following CID's set up on my phone:

CID=1 T-Mobile GPRS

CID=2 Picture Message

CID=3 NTL GPRS

The last one I set up myself to access my email account 'on the road'.

I'm assuming that the T-Mobile one is the internet access which if your theory about the J2ME engine is correct may explain why I get the 100% caches bar graph.

Keith

"Fear is temporary, regret is permanent!"

motley. adj. varied in appearance or character.

crew. n. group of people.

August 15, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Weston Wanderers:
Hi there,

This doesn't look good. It should not be possible to create a midlet to 'lock up' a phone (as in case 2), as they are run in a 'sandbox' environment. The fact that it is, suggests that the Java runtime on your phone is crashing badly, rather than an error within the midlet.

The bar chart is increasing to 100%. The cache details must be downloaded to your phone for this to happen.

So I guess there is a problem with displaying the details afterwoods. I've looked through this part of code, and there seams nothing obvious that could be causing the problem.... Indeed it is the same code that runs on the Nokias.

I'll hit the developer groups again, to see if there is anyone else with these similar problems. Without having access to one of these phones, it is quite difficult to figure out what is going on though.

Tony.

Hi Tony

Thanks for your comments. This is indeed a strange one. The version of your software I'm running is 2.4.4 and I'm afraid it does somehow lock up the phone after the 100% bar graph. I wondered if it might have been a memory problem so I deleted all but one of the games in the 'Games & more' folder(?) leaving just the Geo midlet at 26KB, the total free now being 1353KB. Could that be a problem? The midlet it automatically stored in that folder - there is another called 'Other Games'. (This probably isn't much help to you but you never know).

"Fear is temporary, regret is permanent!"

motley. adj. varied in appearance or character.

crew. n. group of people.

August 20, 2003

Using Nokia 6310i, provider Vodaphone. Can't seem to download any of these applets (Geocache or any of the spruce files) without getting an "Invalid File" message.

My phone will connect then start to download but then I get the message.

Any ideas?

August 20, 2003

Simple, the 6310i doesn't have Java support.

Martin

August 21, 2003

Hi There...

The 6310i does support java! I developed it for this model in particular.... So I know it does for sure.

So, I guess there may be something preventing Vodaphone users from accessing any midlet apart from the ones they host .... Or, maybe you have an older less compatable 6310i... (argh... bigging to hate J2ME!

By any chance, do you have access to a bluetooth or infrared equiped computer?.... you could transfer the midlet to the phone using this instead.

Cache details on your mobile phone

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