What Is A Pda

[phern47]

Ok....what started out simple has now turned more difficult. What is a PDA. What is a "palm"? What is "plucker". I only got part of one answer about what is better "waypoint+ or Easygps". The person had never heard of "waypoint+". All I want is a free software program to store coordinates (trip) into my computer and then transfer those trips to appropriate maps. Converting, modifying, sorting.....I can do myself. So far "easygps" seems to have some unacceptable glitches like mangling files. I would like only those people who have not spent a fortune on electronic equipement to answer. I only have a Garmin 45. There surely are people here who use older gps units and do not use complicated or expensive software and hardware.

[+briansnat]

PDA=Personal Digital Assistant I think. Palm is a very popular brand. You can get a new Palm, suitable for geocaching, for under $100 new...or on e-bay for a lot less.

 

Most people use the Palm to download cache pages to. Plucker is a program that runs on the Palm and allows you to read the pages. For instance, I have the nearest 500 cache pages on my Palm. No need to print out dozens of cache pages. They're all there for me. It even automatically decrypts the hint for me.

 

Here is an example of a Palm.

 

BTW, I've never had a problem with EasyGPS mangling files. Not sure what you mean by that.

Edited January 20, 2004 by briansnat

[+planetrobert]

I have a palm m515 and the Magellan GPS Companion. This is a bit of a woop deee doooo setup at first but add some apps and you are ready to go.

 

For the Palm:

 

Cache Mate $7, thi program is a gpx file reader for the palm. it talks to your gps for figuring out which caches are closest to your current location, bearing and distance... etc You can sort your caches out into catagories read others log entries, hints are decryptable, and you can record you log there so you dont forget what you took/left etc... VERY USEFULL APP for the palm

 

Nav Campanion Free w/GPS basic gps appp for the palm and GPS Companion. It works well enough but the most GLARING missing features are UTM, a digital compass with the sun(like they have on the GPS 315) and Projections.

 

I have remapped my hard buttons to jump between these two apps.

 

CetusGPS just started playing with this one and it has some plusses and minuses... for the way i cache the negatives outweigh the plusses. A GREAT Program though I WILL be keeping it loaded for some features and for non caching GPS activities(bet you didn't know they existed did you?)

 

For the Mac:

 

GPS Babel... A gps file format tool... A MUST HAVE converts gpx to palm capabl files for different types of recievers and gps apps

 

MacCMConvert... Yes i use a mac. there is CMConvert for everybody else. this app takes your pocket query GPX files and makes them work for cachemate on the palm and makes them a palm type file. a MUST HAVE if you use cachemate.

 

bmgpx to gather gpx files on benchmarks from the NGS website. not as cool as maybe a pocket querry but still cool.

 

--this would be my suggestion as to what to do... and I HIGHLY recomend either a full laptop for maps or print them

[phern47]

There are only 3 geo caches within 4 hours from my home. There are only 10 geo caches in all of the province of quebec. I think that complicated software to sort them all out is a bit "overkill". I may be adding some caches of my own here in Quebec and I am talking to people about "geo-caching". Most are "french only" so "geo-caching" is not known here. 2 of the caches in my area have french language description and I have a feeling that the people who installed the caches do not speak or write in english. I don't know how they got accepted.

[+briansnat]

There are only 3 geo caches within 4 hours from my home. There are only 10 geo caches in all of the province of quebec. I think that complicated software to sort them all out is a bit "overkill"

 

I guess it would be at this point. I have 200 caches within 20 miles of my house and over 2,000 within 100 miles, so all this stuff really helps.

 

Maybe you can get a local newspaper to report on the sport. This is what jumpstarts it in many areas.... Or plant a "seed cache" A large cache with a number of smaller, ready made caches inside (logbook, pencil, ziploc, geocaching letter and maybe even a few trinkets if you are inclined. The finders of the seed cache will take one and plant it elsewhere, which can get things going.

[+Imajika]

I use EasyGPS and have never had any trouble at all. Maybe uninstall it and try to install it again?

 

A PDA is a Personal Digital Assistant...such as a Palm Pilot. A PDA and a Palm are the same thing. A lot of people call them 'Palm' because the Palm Pilot seems to be the most popular brand of PDA but there are MANY other brands out there.

 

GPX Spinner is a freeware program. You can learn all about it here.

 

Plucker is also free. You can learn about it here. Thet also have a desktop version here.

 

I am currently using an Etrex Legend and I have never used your model of GPS before. I don't know much about your particular model so I can't recommend software but I hope I answered some of your questions.

[+Bush Babies]

There are only 10 geo caches in all of the province of quebec.

 

Actually there are 211 caches in your province. I'm jealous. We've only got 185.

[+bons]

There are only 3 geo caches within 4 hours from my home. There are only 10 geo caches in all of the province of quebec.

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?country_id=5

 

select Quebec in the drop down box that says alberta.

 

Not knowing where in Quebec you are, I'm not sure I can help more.

[+Renegade Knight]

Pocket PC's are the other kinds of PDA's. Great for what they do. No need to spin and pluck just load up the GPX and jump in the truck.

 

The two main Pocket PC programs read the GPX file's directly.

 

These are GPXsonar and GPXview.

[+GeckoGeek]

BTW, I've never had a problem with EasyGPS mangling files.  Not sure what you mean by that.

I'm probably the one that put that idea in his head, so I'll explain. If all you do is look at the file and use it to upload to your GPS, you're probably OK. But make any change to that file and the following will happen:

 

- If it's a GPX file it will be gutted of all fields that EasyGPS doesn't use. This includes logs and descriptions. Periodically you'll see someone ask why their GPX file is suddenly 1/5th the size it used to be. EasyGPS is the culprit.

 

- If the file is a LOC file, it will save it in a binary format which most other programs can't deal with.

 

Now if the only software you have is EasyGPS, this isn't a problem. But if you want to use that file to feed some other program such as CacheMate or Spinner, you'll quickly find out what's wrong. Bottom line is that while EasyGPS has editing abilities, you'll probably find it's worthless as an editor if you use any other software.

 

So "mangle" may be an overly strong statement, but it doesn't "play well with others".

Edited January 20, 2004 by GeckoGeek

[+Renegade Knight]

EasyGPS as I understand it follows standards. Groundspeak though adds it's own extensions to GPX files. Those extension are why we have cache descriptions etc. It just so happens that a lot of 3rd party software supports the Groundspeak extensions.

[phern47]

Ok...thanks. I got some great answers. I did a search of Quebec and there are 211 caches. My original search was done by using my postal code. I only got 10 responses but now I see that I get all the caches withing a 100 mile radius. Yes, planting seed caches sounds good. However, in my area, there are close to 300,000 people and it is 99.% french speaking only. I may add a little something in french about "geo-caching" to my web site and see if I get any response before planting seed caches.

[+CompassCollector]

So "mangle" may be an overly strong statement, but it doesn't "play well with others".

As another poster pointed out, EasyGPS doesn't support all of the Groundspeak extensions. It also has a broken XML parser so that it can't read files written by Watcher (gpsbabel helps here). I pretty much use EasyGPS *only* to put waypoints into the GPSr, I use Watcher to edit and merge the files before processing with EasyGPS, CMConvert or GPX2HTML. Since I have found out that gpsbabel will download the waypoints to the GPSr just as well as EasyGPS, I'm gradually moving over to using it instead.

[boreal jeff & sons]

However, in my area, there are close to 300,000 people and it is 99.% french speaking only. I may add a little something in french about "geo-caching" to my web site and see if I get any response before planting seed caches.

I don't understand what you're complaining about. If you live in an area 99% of the people speak french, and you don't, what are you doing there? How do you exist?

 

Are you saying that french speaking people don't geocache? None of them speak any english and don't know how to use the translator sites on the internet.

I find that hard to believe.

[+ZingerHead]

I've found the best bet for using .gpx files that I receive from Groundspeak is to save the latest Pocket Query email, but save a copy of the attachment to my local EasyGPS folder. That way if I inadvertently "save" the .gpx file from within EasyGPS and "mangle" it, I still have the original .gpx to use with Watcher and GPXSpinner. I also use EasyGPS solely for transferring the waypoints from Groundspeak to my GPS. After that I upload them to Mapsource to plot driving routes.

 

FWIW, I used nothing but paper printouts of caches for the first year and half of my caching career. I now use GPXSpinner and Plucker with a PDA and I wish I'd made the switch a long time ago. First off, with this setup I ALWAYS have EVERY local cache at my fingertips. That's several hundred caches in my pocket - try stuffing even a dozen sheets of paper in your pocket and then try to find the one page you're after. Second, once you've made the initial outlay for the PDA, you are finished. How much ink do you figure you're going to use printing out all of these cache pages? Ink cartridges cost me $25, and a PDA can be had for $50. I will grant you that it's difficult to set up initially if you aren't particularly "geeky", but if you use CYBret's step by step instructions you should be up and running in no time.

 

Here's my not-so-expert understanding of how the software works:

GPXSpinner - takes the gpx file from Groundspeak and creates "web pages" of information, plus an extensive index. With this index you can search the caches in your PDA by name or waypoint, and it also indicates which caches you've already found, assuming you've loaded them into memory.

Plucker - Takes the "web pages" and index created by GPXSpinner and formats the info for use with the PDA. Plucker downloads images from the GC.com website so that the PDA display looks and feels a lot like the website itself. This is a two part program - one part resides on your PC and collects information on the web. The second part resides on the PDA.

[phern47]

However, in my area, there are close to 300,000 people and it is 99.% french speaking only.  I may add a little something in french about "geo-caching" to my web site and see if I get any response before planting seed caches.

I don't understand what you're complaining about. If you live in an area 99% of the people speak french, and you don't, what are you doing there? How do you exist?

 

Are you saying that french speaking people don't geocache? None of them speak any english and don't know how to use the translator sites on the internet.

I find that hard to believe.

I am bilingual. Not many up here can also speak and write english. I used to live in Ontario and went to school there. When I joined the armed forces I asked to be sent to where I am now.

Yes.....there are few people who know about geo caching here in my area. Otherwise, there would be more caches. I would guess that there may be 1 or 2 people. I am one of them and I just learned about it a couple of days ago. I have had a gps less than a week. The 3 caches that are within a 100 miles from me were all made by one person from an other area of Quebec where the population has a higher percentage of english speaking people.

Here in Quebec, english is not the official language. French is the official language. The official language in the work place is French. Have you ever tried to use the translator sites? They do not work. Ex. post office box translate into just that a post, and boxing. Imagine trying to translate instructions and ideas. The word "cache" is french for the verb "hide" or the noun "hiding place". This word is often used by woodsmen. Was frequently used by trappers. It meant a place to hide (supplies, food, fur etc). If you spoke another language and tried out the translators to see how well they worked, you would know that they don't. Right? (not the one that means opposite of left) (Left....not the one the word that means "no longer there") (means.....pluriel of mean)

[+GeckoGeek]

As another poster pointed out, EasyGPS doesn't support all of the Groundspeak extensions. It also has a broken XML parser so that it can't read files written by Watcher (gpsbabel helps here).

Thought I saw a post in a different section that said that the most recent version of EasyGPS would parse OK. (1.2.5) Note that the version GC points to is NOT the newest version. (1.2.2)

[+javaman123]

If you are looking for more caches, you can go look for one of the 294 location-less caches. Those can usually be found anywhere in the world. See

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.asp...2E-225A0D2ADF9D

[+Team DaSH]

I thought PDA stood for "Public Display of Affection". I was wondering why everyone used their PDA while caching. It all makes sense now!

[gm100guy]

I thought PDA stood for "Public Display of Affection"

 

I forgot about that one.

 

I could see the log now " well out looking for this cache in the park all I could see was PDA in the parked cars"

 

[+Limax]

To my wife, PDA is a piece of medical equipment that she works with as a respiratory therapist. So, I really throw her every time I talk about my PDA.