New Geocaching Magazine

January 10, 2004

Want to know what’s new in the geocaching world? Curious about the movers and shakers involved with it? Interested in finding out more about the organizations that make up the hobby? If you have questions, or just want to hear interesting stories, read the new Geocaching Magazine, Today's Cacher!

January 10, 2004

wow thats cool, we have a magazine, but will I ever see it in walmart or any grocery store "near you"??

January 10, 2004

LOL! We can only hope Geocaching would be that widespread. There is the possibility that you could get it delivered to your door sometime in the future, but for right now it is an Ezine.

1.6k · January 10, 2004

This is great...

Edit: Question, where are the articles? Every page is just sort of a teaser...

Edited January 10, 2004 by TeamK-9

1.2k · January 10, 2004

Looking good, can't wait to read some of the articles as they come online.

2.1k · January 10, 2004

Looking good, can't wait to read some of the articles as they come online.

Was just wondering where the articles were at....

1.7k · January 10, 2004

Check the page for the date of the first issue. Wasn't it around Feb 29th ?

See:

"The first exciting issue will appear on February 29, 2004."

Edited January 10, 2004 by DustyJacket

January 10, 2004

This is fantastic!!!!

Thank you for putting this together. I am looking forward to further issues!!!!!

Great Job!!!

3k · January 10, 2004

Very cool, way to go team! :tongue:

2.1k · January 10, 2004

Check the page for the date of the first issue. Wasn't it around Feb 29th ?

See:

"The first exciting issue will appear on February 29, 2004."

You're right, it does say that...didn't read that the first time...from the posting about it, I assumed that it was completed as it said to read the new magazine. My bad..

January 10, 2004

High tech treasure hunt??? is this really the message to convey?

It also appears that the website is flat html that was created using some lame online editor.

Edited January 10, 2004 by av8tors32

3k · January 10, 2004

High tech treasure hunt??? is this really the message to convey?

I call it a high tech treasure hunt to describe geocaching to people all of the time. I don't see the problem with it?

It also appears that the website is flat html that was created using some lame online editor.

Nice positive feedback...

3.8k · January 10, 2004

...the website is flat html that was created using some lame online editor...

AV8tors32, we appreciate your input and welcome any other advice you may offer.

January 10, 2004

Advice?

1. If your starting a new venture make sure you website is up to speed prior to releasing the URL. Lame sites that offer nothing actually drive people away.

2. If you are going to run an online magazine you really should use some dynamic web publishing solution. The are tons of free solutions that run in different script languages, on different platforms and with different DB backend.

Edited January 10, 2004 by av8tors32

January 10, 2004

LOL! We can only hope Geocaching would be that widespread.

Why? Geocaching will be long dead it if ever gets even CLOSE to being well-known enough to reach that level. You think there is a problem with bad trades, vandalism and pirating now? :tongue:

Edited January 10, 2004 by SamLowrey

January 10, 2004

Considering the first issue hasn't even been published yet I suggest you give them a little time to get their feet wet before you start dissing the site. I am aware that a tremendous amount of time and effort have gone into this project and I'm certain you will see the site grow in many different ways. If you have some positive feedback, I'm sure they would love to hear it. However, it's a bit to early to be so critical.

Scoob

2k · January 10, 2004

While this seems like an interesting venture, and I'll definitely check it out when available, what could a magazine provide that we don't have in the forums?

6.4k · January 10, 2004

Advice?

1. If your starting a new venture make sure you website is up to speed prior to releasing the URL. Lame sites that offer nothing actually drive people away.

2. If you are going to run an online magazine you really should use some dynamic web publishing solution. The are tons of free solutions that run in different script languages, on different platforms and with different DB backend.

Actually, flashy websites that will only run on one, propriatary browser, using buggy, bloated plugins, wasting gobs of bandwidth drive me away.

I would much rather see a site with "lame html" that loads on every browser/OS combo I use, at every connect speed, then some flashy site that I have to go to a certain PC to use, and godforbid I'm one of the 75% that still uses dialup.

Why turn away potential users of your site because they won't or can't run IE6 and a broadband connection. Fast loading, with decent content will bring me back every time.

2.1k · January 10, 2004

Fast loading, with decent content will bring me back every time.

It's not completed either, so that is left to be determined.

BTW Mopar, didn't I see a posting by you lately about Navicache and it's hard on the eyes or something?

January 10, 2004

First off all.... KUDOS for the idea of the ezine site!!

Personally and I hope I say this in a tactful manner compared to others... the site is a little bland. I'm not an expert by any means and I would be willing to offer graphic and html help if the owner/creator so desired.

I don't believe as said by an earlier post that you have to have dynamic html in order for the site to be pleasing. Sure, flash is nice (which I don't know)... sure .dhtml is nice but you can have a "flat" html site and still have it visually appealling.

I have a feeling that the site of the ezine is the creators first attempt and dadgum good for their first try if you ask me!!! I remember my first site..... ugghhhhh LOL.. am glad it's no longer out there for people to see;) LOL

Keep up the good work and don't take the negative comments to heart and personally.... some people just feel better about themselves when they run others down.

1.1k · January 10, 2004

While this seems like an interesting venture, and I'll definitely check it out when available, what could a magazine provide that we don't have in the forums?

Focused content? :tongue:

Edited to say that I agree with Mopar. I don't really care for all the flash, content will take precedent over downloading every plug-in and applet known to man just so I can see some silly pop-up of a satellite riding frog opening an ammo box with his magic GPSr on a stick. There is also a lot to say for readability IMHO. I don't need to see every color of the rainbow geometrically arranged by a graphic designer to symbolize all the elements of the universe in an attempt to lend abstract meaning to something as simple as a scavenger hunt. Please just give us pics we can see and stories we want to read.

Edited January 10, 2004 by Johnnie Stalkers

4.8k · January 10, 2004

My understanding from the last meeting about the magazine is that the site is only in a very basic form at the moment. It will look different as it gets developed more.

Edited January 10, 2004 by carleenp

3k · January 10, 2004

While this seems like an interesting venture, and I'll definitely check it out when available, what could a magazine provide that we don't have in the forums?

Focused content?

HaHa

I almost just posted a LoL and nothing else. :tongue: Good one JS.

Anyway, I don't think a magazine needs to be all that flashy, its about the content after all isn't it?

3.9k · January 10, 2004

Advice?

1. If your starting a new venture make sure you website is up to speed prior to releasing the URL. Lame sites that offer nothing actually drive people away.

I believe it does have something to offer. It will offer interesting and entertaining articles on Geocaching and Geocachers. I also don't believe it will drive people away because of the lack of useless web site graffiti.

Of course that's just my opinon, and I appreciate yours.

El Diablo

January 10, 2004

It seems that people confuse a proper content management system with "flashy" applications. This shows an incrediable lack of understanding of how websites are managed. Monthly ezines are the type of sites that demand a strong content management system that allows a variety of editors to post content in tandem with others. Simple content mangement systems are easy to install and the majority of them are not "buggy"

Lets suppose you wanted to keep cost low.

Find a web server service that offers a Unix/Linux Server with PHP and mySQL. The is fairly easy since this is the cheapest way to go with a server set up. The find a free php CMS that makes you happy.

PHP CMS

Check the URL for some free to low cost solutions. Or just make it easy and use PHPNuke which is probably one of the best and most developed open sourced CMS solutions.

Content Management is NOT flashy and has nothing to do with the "look" of the site. That is all determined by how the basic templates are laid out.

3k · January 10, 2004

av8tors32,

It sounds like you have a lot of experience in this field, would you be willing to lend a hand to the folks who are putting this new "ezine" together? Might be a great partnership.

January 10, 2004

That is quite possible. IMHO, they appear to be a tad disorganized and unsure of direction but I since I am not "in-the-loop" that could be an appearance problem.

24.7k · January 10, 2004

Content Managment takes time to learn. It's easy if you already know what you are doing. It's not easy if you are looking at it for the first time and don't have the background that would make it all clear as a bell.

That they have anything up this fast tells me they do know where they want to go with things and they have some of the help they need to do it.

Kudos.

January 10, 2004

I'm sorry, but I can't help but chastise you, av8tors32, for such a rude initial post. Weren't you ever taught any manners?

I think the online magazine is a great idea. Good luck!

January 10, 2004

I liked it so far - hope the final feature will be good too. Where were the pictures taken? They both look interesting.

January 10, 2004

Actually, flashy websites that will only run on one, propriatary browser, using buggy, bloated plugins, wasting gobs of bandwidth drive me away.
I would much rather see a site with "lame html" that loads on every browser/OS combo I use, at every connect speed, then some flashy site that I have to go to a certain PC to use, and godforbid I'm one of the 75% that still uses dialup.

Why turn away potential users of your site because they won't or can't run IE6 and a broadband connection. Fast loading, with decent content will bring me back every time.

Mopar - having come from a design background, I will be the first to tell you that it is always a balance of technologies. The final solution is to design for the majority of your potential viewers platforms as well as their access speed. Very often I will design a site the has 2 or even 3 ways into the site. Low or high-bandwidth users, and flash or no flash users. On my caching site I opted to design for people using IE5 or higher, dial-up, and I made sure to use minimal Flash as most people have MMF installed. Remember, that the idea is to convey the message in the most memorable way, not the most anoying. To my eye, layouts like what we are talking about drive me away. My impression is that they threw it together... my 2c worth.

BTW: my site is Vacman's Geocaching Page

Feel free to tell me how ugly it is :tongue:

Edited January 10, 2004 by Vacman

January 10, 2004

I guess one of my questions would be is, will the mag discuss other sites besides GC.com? Right now it seems to be focused only on this site. If it is just going to be an extension of the kool-aid drinkers from this site I am not sure I would be interested.

I will take it at face value that this is just a start. But yea you guys do need to do a lot of work with layout and to get a similiar look and feel on all the pages. You may want to use stylesheets to at least take care of that. A nice looking layout does not really create much more bandwidth than a poor one does.

I am somewhere between basic straight up HTML from what 8 or 9 years ago and using a lot of flash and those types of things. As long as one is supporting current standards then it is the browsers problem if it can't display the page. I have grown tired of having to always deal with catering to the lowest common denominator. Why should I not have a chance to get the full content that can be delivered to me just because others don't keep their software up to date or because they don't have a fast connection? Pages can be made to degrade or options to select a slow connection style page.

6.4k · January 10, 2004

I guess one of my questions would be is, will the mag discuss other sites besides GC.com? Right now it seems to be focused only on this site. If it is just going to be an extension of the kool-aid drinkers from this site I am not sure I would be interested.

I will take it at face value that this is just a start. But yea you guys do need to do a lot of work with layout and to get a similiar look and feel on all the pages. You may want to use stylesheets to at least take care of that. A nice looking layout does not really create much more bandwidth than a poor one does.

I am somewhere between basic straight up HTML from what 8 or 9 years ago and using a lot of flash and those types of things. As long as one is supporting current standards then it is the browsers problem if it can't display the page. I have grown tired of having to always deal with catering to the lowest common denominator. Why should I not have a chance to get the full content that can be delivered to me just because others don't keep their software up to date or because they don't have a fast connection? Pages can be made to degrade or options to select a slow connection style page.

Funny, when on one hand you refer to followers of this site as "koolaid drinkers", yet on the other, you seem to support wesite design that focuses on one particular brand of browser, or one partictular plugin. If you want to stick to standards, you are pretty much limited to what can be displayed on a version 4.x browser. All the fancy or easy to code IE specific tags out.

1.4k · January 10, 2004

Great idea! I've bookmarked it and am looking forward to the first articles!

Regarding design, in the web design classes I've taken, it was stressed that the initial pages of a website need to load quickly. Research shows that very few web surfers will wait more than 10 seconds for a website they haven't previously visited to load. We had points taken off of our grades if our pages were over a certain size. The key is to have a bit of eye-catching flair without adding very much bandwidth.

If you want to add flash graphics and such, you'll lose most of the dial-up users, unless dial-up users can bypass it.

Geocachers USED TO be mostly computer geeks, but now we have a much broader base. A lot of geocachers still use dial-up. These newer users are the ones that will benefit most from a magazine like this. Keep the bandwidth small!

2.1k · January 10, 2004

If you want to add flash graphics and such, you'll lose most of the dial-up users, unless dial-up users can bypass it.

Geocachers USED TO be mostly computer geeks, but now we have a much broader base. A lot of geocachers still use dial-up. These newer users are the ones that will benefit most from a magazine like this. Keep the bandwidth small!

I'm somewhat of a computer geek and i'm on dial up. Not by choice, but because that is all I can get without going through our satellite company and paying a hefty price. I'm all for "less is more". A nice looking website does not have to be load intensive. It also doesn not have to require flashy applets or the like. My opinion is that a site should be clean and neat in appearance with an acceptable download time. From previous experience and research over 90% of users that I have had, have newer software and browsers. So they are capable mostly of the new things offered on sites today. Pictures are nice, but they need proportionate to the layout and should be offered at a smaller size with an option of viewing it in a larger format. That helps with load time. But you can have nice looking and fluid sites without the expense of a lot of load time. You need t oknow what you are doing or have someone that does.

I think it also depends on the image you want to portray. I've been raised and taught that if you look professional then people first think of you as professional. Then after that you have to continue to convince them that you are professional underneath the exterior. You don't have to wear flashy clothes, but just be neat in appearance.

January 10, 2004

I'm really looking forward to the first issue. Thanks for the coming attractions. Since I have a very limited tech background, I can't really add to the constructive (and destructive) criticism concerning format. However, in regard to content, how about a signature item of the month? It looks like you're covering that indirectly in the upcoming edition when you do the profile on Moun10Bike, creator of the first geocoin. Good luck with the e-zine.

FISUR

January 10, 2004

Woodster:

Couldn't agree more. No matter what CMS solution is applied it should be neat, clean, present a professional appearance and load quickly. This of course would all be determined by the templates applied to the CMS.

January 10, 2004

Funny, when on one hand you refer to followers of this site as "koolaid drinkers", yet on the other, you seem to support wesite design that focuses on one particular brand of browser, or one partictular plugin. If you want to stick to standards, you are pretty much limited to what can be displayed on a version 4.x browser. All the fancy or easy to code IE specific tags out.

No I did not say the followers of this site are kool aid drinkers. I said the kool aid drinkers of this site.

What part of my post said anything about a particular brand of browser. I mentioned flash but as an example. I also said I am somewhere between straight HTML and a lot of flash type stuff. But are CSS, DOM, XML, XSL, XSLT, XPATH and the ability to handle plugins not standards? What "fancy or easy to code IE specific tags" did I mention?

The point is that one can create a very well designed site using standards. But if they decide to use something that has not made it through the painful and unnecessary long process of W3C standards, I say go ahead. If a person keeps their browser up to date no matter what brand they are likely going to be able to see it. And what brand of 4.X version browser would that be?

January 10, 2004

despite the finesseful attempts to do brain surgery with a hatchet by some people, I hope you'll continue to keep us all posted as to the progression of the e-zine.

Looks to be a great endeavour, and I've bookmarked it already.

Thank You for your initiative.

January 10, 2004

Woo doggies... according to my calendar, February 29th is over a MONTH away and yet some folks already have this site tried, convicted and HUNG! I think anytime someone is going to all this trouble to give us addicts another place to browse, it is a positive thing! Man-o-man, with friends like these.....

January 10, 2004

Woo doggies... according to my calendar, February 29th is over a MONTH away and yet some folks already have this site tried, convicted and HUNG! I think anytime someone is going to all this trouble to give us addicts another place to browse, it is a positive thing! Man-o-man, with friends like these.....

YEA ! What she said..........

Nicely stated and point made.

24.7k · January 10, 2004

Woo doggies... according to my calendar, February 29th is over a MONTH away and yet some folks already have this site tried, convicted and HUNG! I think anytime someone is going to all this trouble to give us addicts another place to browse, it is a positive thing! Man-o-man, with friends like these.....

I love it when a forum newbie gets in a good slam. Hooah!

January 10, 2004

I'm not sure who is involved with Todays Cacher, but I applaud your effort in creating it, and hopefully it will be a valuable asset to the geocaching community. In the end it will be the stories told and the connections that are made to the readers that will make it a success.

January 10, 2004

I too, would like to add my "attaboy" to your endeavor. I've bookmarked it, and am waiting for the final product.

As others have mentioned, helpful, constructive criticism is almost always appreciated. Some of the criticism here has been less than helpful or constructive.

:tongue:

3.8k · January 10, 2004

Never judge a e-zine by it's cover :tongue: . I will look out for the 1st issue at the end of Feb. Will it be US based material or will it cover World wide info?

Edited January 10, 2004 by Deego

January 10, 2004

I'm not sure who is involved with Todays Cacher,

I'm kinda new here but by looking at the about us section and reading other threads on this , I have a good idea who at least two are.

but I applaud your effort in creating it,

I agree wholeheartedly

2.6k · January 11, 2004

Will it be US based material or will it cover World wide info?

Well, it does say The Magazine for Geocachers Everywhere...

January 11, 2004

hehehe. . . I can't believe how many people have fallen for this. :tongue:

I'll be expecting the first issue sometime around, oh, April 1st.

3.9k · January 11, 2004

To answer some questions that have been asked here.

The team members are...

El Diablo...Publisher

sept1c_tank...Exec Editor

Huntnlady... Editor

Carleenp... Editor

Will we report from other sites? Yes. However our main focus will be Geocaching.com, after all that is where the main base of users are.

Will we cover international? Yes. We are all Geocachers no matter where we are located.

As far as the layout of the current web site. This is a work in progress and our main focus has been on content not layout. I think you will see a big difference from now until the first issue.

Someone stated that it looked like it was just thrown together. There has been a lot of devotion to this project for weeks now. Once again our focus has been on content, to bring you the most entertaining and informational articles. We have just started focusing on putting it on the web site.

This magazine will give you a chance to voice your opinons, tell your story. We want you involved in this. We need you involved in this. Our content will come soley from you.

We appreciate the positive and the negative comments made in this thread. If you want to help or have ideas, please contact me or one of the other team members. I assure you we are open to suggestions.

El Diablo

January 11, 2004

Thanks El Diablo

I was right about two of the team members.

It looks like there will be some good stuff there and look forward to seeing it when done.

And like this site I'm sure there will be improvements as you go along.

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