Newbie Questions about Pocket Query and Data Formats

[+Cloudchaser]

Hello:

 

I'm very new to Geocaching, in fact, so new that I haven't been out yet. I'm hoping to find my first ones tomorrow if the weather clears up.

 

I have a borrowed Garmin GPS III Pro, unfortunately without the serial cable, so I'll have to enter waypoints manually.

 

I joined the site and would like to download a list of nearby caches that I could carry on my handheld.

 

I'm a Linux user and my handheld is a Linux handheld. I have a doc reader that will read Plucker type documents, so I'll have to convert to that format. Can any of you Linux Geocachers out there give me any pointers/advice that might help me? (I'm not any sort of programmer).

 

I'm about to set up a Pocket Query and I'm not quite sure which format to download it to. I know I'll need to translate it into Plucker format somehow. If I do this, will it show the cache information as well as the location and waypoint information/descriptions? What I would like is to be able to read through the cache information then I'll have to manually input the coordinates into the GPS.

 

I'd also like to set up a GeoCache DB for my handheld, so having info in CSV would be helpful. I've read about some really nice software for Palm and CE, but of course, nothing for Embedded Linux or Linux so I'll have to create my own. I have a great DB frontend application that works on both my desktop and my handheld and it will import from CSV files.

 

Hopefully soon I can buy my own and have a cable so I can automate the addition of waypoints. Still researching which GPS I will buy.

 

I've done so much reading on the Geocaching website the last few days that I'm a bit overwhelmed.

 

Any hints/tips would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you,

 

Cloudchaser

[+DBleess]

If you get really desperate, this is how it's done on windows:

 

http://members.cox.net/dmbleess/geocache/benchmarks.htm

 

SA / PP-ASEL-I / Yahoo "SphinxXXVII" / ICQ 1916574

[+Cloudchaser]

I got desperate last night and used the GPX Spinner on my Pocket query GPX file. Tranfered it to my Zaurus in html form and it worked great for me today on our very first day of geo caching. Didn't have to print out the descriptions for the caches.

 

Found 3 out of 4 caches we went to. The one we didn't find was a difficult one and we're a bit inexperienced so we'll try it again another day.

 

All in all we had a great time! My husband and son loved it too and are looking forward to going out caching again.

 

Thank you for your link. There's alot of good information there.