[Jeremy]

@CB&MB wrote:

@Jeremy wrote:

We will be introducing an online donation system on the WGA site soon (by the end of September for sure… trust me :roll:) that allows people to make voluntary donations to the WGA via PayPal or by sending in a check. This system is meant to supplement (or be a high tech replacement for) the ol’ ammo can donation box we have at events, not raise huge sums of money.

We do think it’s a good idea to have this system online, but please don’t stop taking the can to the events? Scenario: Someone goes to a WGA event but isn’t a WGA member, has a great time and wants to give a little cash to the association. The ammo box is missing from the table. Where are they going to drop their doantion? I seriously doubt that they will go home, get online, join the WGA and make a PayPal donation to the association.

This was a bad choice of words on my part MB. The online system certainly won’t replace the ammo can donation box… we should always have a way for people to make anonymous cash donations at events. Thanks to the generosity of our members we have always collected enough money via the ammo can at our events to at least cover expenses.

@CB&MB wrote:

@Jeremy wrote:

The donation system will include a list of donors to recognize folks that have given to the WGA in the past 12 months (maybe this is an acceptable substitute for recognizing donors instead of giving them a “premium membership”?)… the donor list will also include people who donate “gifts in kind” (goods and services… water, charcoal, etc.) to future WGA events.

I have HUGE issue with this!!! No one needs to know who is donating money. They only need to know that it’s being done! The ones dropping the cash, and/or sending the funds via electronic methods will know who they are! Those donating time, goods and /or services at events will know who they are. They shouldn’t need to be “stroked” individually in public. If the BOD wishes to thank them one by one instead of as has been done in the past (“Thanks to all who have helped with hide placement, set-up, tear-down,” etc.), it should send e-mails to those who have helped. In the past this has always been enough. Is the BOD going to cough up some cash to buy little envelopes to sit beside the ammo box so that each person dropping something in can write their name on it? Or should someone donate those too and get their name on the list of donors?

Not sure what to say about this one. I knew including a list of donors was possibly going to be a contentious issue with the Board (and the membership). There were a couple proposals floated, including having a list with donation levels (listing people by how much they give) and having no donor list at all.

In the end, it was decided that a simple list would give well deserved recognition without turning the donation system into some sort of competition or unnecessarily forcing people to make a donation when they really did not want to. But if others have opinions on the donor list, don’t hesitate to speak up… nothing is set in stone yet.

With the online system there will be a way for people to mark their donation as anonymous, so they are not put into the donor list. But if they want to be publicly listed (or “stroked”), there is that option too.

My personal opinion is that most people want to be recognized for their contributions. I see the individual members as “sponsors” of our events and other activities. If a business were to provide money or goods to the WGA, they would almost certainly demand public recognition, an ad or link on our site, etc… so why not give the same to our individual donors if they so desire?

[Jeremy]

@LightningBugs Mum wrote:

Maybe it’s a guy thing? ❓

No, it is not a guy thing… isn’t naming and then talking to inanimate objects the first sign of insanity? 🙂

I went 3 years and 25000 miles with my nameless caching companion until Marc came up with a name for it while using it this weekend. I can kill “Sabrina” whenever I want (by turning off the power) and ignore her yapping at will so I have never found it necessary to yell or talk to her, and certainly not call her by name.

[Jeremy]

A late congratulations to the GOJeepers… I was with Sara when the 200th milestone was hit on Saturday while we were driving (well flying with Marc behind the wheel :D) around the northwoods. After spending the day with you it is clear that you are obsessed too (but trust me, that’s a good thing :)), and that this is going to be just one of many future milestones.

[Jeremy]

At Dave’s request, I split this topic from the one about putting WGA logo graphics on cache pages and put it in the Suggestion Box forum.

@Jeremy wrote:

And I’m not sure if it would look better or worse with a connecting green line at the top of the big ‘G’… I would want to see it both ways.

After seeing it both ways, I agree that your original idea (no connecting lines on the ‘G’) looks the best. Sorry for doubting it. 🙂

RE: Vector vs. Raster. Not sure if having a vector version of the graphic buys us much when it comes to creating a small version of the logo for the web… you have to convert it to a JPG or GIF at some point. A GIF may look cleaner and be smaller in size than a JPG in this case. But whatever logo we decide on we will want/need a vector version (Encapsulated PostScript, Adobe Illustrator, etc.) for another reason… having this will allow us to print arbitrarily large versions of the logo, such as on a t-shirt, banner, billboard (:roll:), etc.

Let’s see some other WGA logo ideas!

[Jeremy]

@Cheesehead Dave wrote:

I wouldn’t use it as an “official” WGA logo, but if you want to scrutinize it, here it is in a few sizes

I like it a lot… could this be the new WGA logo we’ve been talking about for some time? 🙂 It would take a Board vote to change the current logo to this one… so for now this logo will only be available from Dave’s site.

The only issue I have with it is the readability of the “Wisconsin Geocaching Association” text at the medium size and smaller. Maybe with a different, less bold and condensed font (or somehow splitting the text onto multiple lines) we could make it more clear at a small size that would be suitable for the upper left of the website.

And I’m not sure if it would look better or worse with a connecting green line at the top of the big ‘G’… I would want to see it both ways.

[Jeremy]

The Cow is still having intermittent problems… sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. So until they get their act together I have disabled auto spell checking for the 75 or so folks who had this feature enabled.

It looks like there is a new version of Spelling Cow that will spell check as you type right in the text box on the WGA site… it doesn’t have to pop up another window like the old version. I will look into getting the new version installed next week (and hopefully the new version is working)…

[Jeremy]

It seems like just yesterday (or was it April?) you were excited about grabbing your 100th find. Now you have tripled your finds and have experienced some of the most difficult and most fun caches in the state. Geesh, geocachers grow up so fast nowadays… 😀

Congrats and keep on caching Bob!

[Jeremy]

I like Marc’s ideas about special WGA member only coins that have their own icon, can be worn on a necklace, etc. But I don’t like the idea of charging an exorbitant amount for the coins and some how tying them in with a lifetime “premium” membership. My reasons against a lifetime premium membership:

– We have nothing special to offer our premium members other than the coins.
– I don’t like the idea of a lifetime membership… does that mean people never give to the WGA again? Are we supposed to invest the money in some sort of annuity so it is available in perpetuity?
– We really don’t need lots of money for any projects or equipment at the moment.

We will be introducing an online donation system on the WGA site soon (by the end of September for sure… trust me :roll:) that allows people to make voluntary donations to the WGA via PayPal or by sending in a check. This system is meant to supplement (or be a high tech replacement for) the ol’ ammo can donation box we have at events, not raise huge sums of money.

The donation system will include a list of donors to recognize folks that have given to the WGA in the past 12 months (maybe this is an acceptable substitute for recognizing donors instead of giving them a “premium membership”?)… the donor list will also include people who donate “gifts in kind” (goods and services… water, charcoal, etc.) to future WGA events.

In the past, the Board has discussed coming up with 1, 3, and 5 year preliminary budgets… these would outline the expenses that were anticipated in the short, medium, and long term and the funds that would have to be raised to cover the expenses. Some of the things in the long range budget could be “dreams” like purchasing loaner GPS units for training classes. These budgets would hopefully be revised by the Board annually. Sounds like coming up with these budgets would be a good project for the Board to pursue in the next couple months…

[Jeremy]

@marc_54140 wrote:

How do you go in and add to a Poll that is already established on the forums?

If the poll has NOT been voted on, you can edit it by editing the post that created the poll (typically the first one in a topic).

But once someone has voted, the “options” for a poll cannot be changed. (This makes sense… you wouldn’t want the candidates changing in the middle of a presidental election, right? 😀 Same reasoning here…) The poll can be deleted or replaced by an entirely new one (erasing all votes) at any time… at least admins can do this, I’m not sure about regular users.

[Jeremy]

@PCFrog wrote:

If anyone knows why there ended up being such a large difference please let me know. I thought might be from caches that were archived but that seems like a lot since I only started using GSAK about 5-6 months ago.

Paul, I’d say you are probably right when you suggested the difference was due to caches that got archived. It could also be from caches that “dropped off the radar”… if you are getting say the 500 nearest to some zip code or cache, as newer caches are placed the circle in which the 500 exist shrinks, and you end up with a slightly different set of caches each time the PQ runs.

I’ve accidentally put “stale” cache information for archived caches into my Palm and GPS and then hunted these caches. 😳 This is why I like to just delete out all the waypoints from a database from time to time. There is an option in GSAK when you import a PQ called “Clear database before loading” that makes this pretty simple.

[Jeremy]

@Sean Connery wrote:

So again, any help you can give will be greatly appreciated. Thank you again. I guess I’ll owe you a geocoin when this is all over.

Moving the cache information over using your GPS (doing an upload) was a creative workaround to the problem you were having with the USB flash drive… but since your GPS does store all the information that GSAK has for a cache, this is why you no longer have the cache owner, cache type, etc. in GSAK. Bottom line is that you have to move the backup file (or the database files) from the old machine to the new machine somehow to get all the information… if the USB flash drive just won’t work, the backup file may even be small enough to email to yourself or you could upload it some website.

Or you could take Team Deejay or myself up on our offers to help. Send me a private message to set up a time to call or an in-house visit. Don’t be ashamed to ask for help… even several WGA Board members (I won’t name names :)) have needed some technical assistance on occasion ;).

[Jeremy]

@Sean Connery wrote:

Any further tips or suggestions? Thank you for your help so far. It is much appreciated.

Getting it registered is easy. In GSAK go to Help (menu)->Register, then click Register Now. Enter the name and serial number from the email you got when you registered. You did save this important email, right? 🙂 If not, Clyde had you covered with a way to retrieve your missing serial number:

http://www.gsak.net/lost.php

I’m not sure what you mean by “wildcard matches”. Do you have some sort of filter set so that it is only showing certain caches? If so, going to Search->Cancel Filter should get rid of it. If this doesn’t work, describe the symptoms in greater detail. (It sounds like maybe some settings got messed up when they were moved from the old PC to the new one.)

[Jeremy]

If there is interest, we could also create region specific forums on the WGA website (assuming the Board also approves ;)). Does anyone this is needed or would be a good idea?

I guess most things we discuss in the forums are universal to the entire state, but maybe there is some value to having regional forums… it could be a place where people could ask for local/in-person help with problems, and where regional events or local geocaching outings could be planned.

[Jeremy]

@Sean Connery wrote:

🙁 Well, Thanks anyway but I’ve tried for the last hour and can’t get it to work. Team Deajay, I have no idea what paths or programs are. Understand I know very very little about computers and even less about GSAK. Even though GSAK has told me it has backed up onto my flash drive, it apparently hasn’t as I cant find it on the drive and the amount of free memory on the flashdrive is the same.

Maybe try creating the backup file on the Windows desktop (so you know where it is), then moving it to the flash drive manually? Once you have it (the backup file, or the GSAK databases or the entire GSAK program directory if using the other approaches) on the flash drive you should be home free…

– Open the backup dialog in GSAK
– Hit the little folder icon
– “Look in” set to Desktop, type backup.zip into File name box
– Hit Open button, hit Backup button
– Go to Windows desktop, open My Computer
– Drag backup.zip file onto the flash drive to copy it

It looks like you live close enough for a house call if necessary… but I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually. PM me with any more questions.

[Jeremy]

@Sean Connery wrote:

😕 Now, who can help an old, non-techno person like myself? I bought a new computer and would like to pull my GSAK database off the old one with a USB2.0 flashdrive, but I don’t know how. Can anyone give me simple step by step instructions on how to do this.

Since I kind of sorta mentioned this was possible to you at the picnic but didn’t give you the specifics, I figure I might as well finish the job. It is actually pretty easy:

– Insert USB flash drive into old PC
– Open GSAK on the old PC
– Go to File menu, then Backup
– In the screen that appears, hit the “Select all Databases” button. You probably also want to check the box that says Save GSAK Settings.
– Save backup file somewhere on the USB flash drive
– Insert USB flash drive into new PC
– Open GSAK on the new PC
– Go to File menu, then Restore
– Find the .zip backup file you saved on the USB flash drive
– Hit the “Select all Databases” button, and probably check the Restore all GSAK Settings box
– Hit the Restore button and you should be done!

Note that I’d recommend putting the same version of GSAK on the new machine if you are moving the settings in addition to the databases. I’m not sure how well things work when moving settings from a really old version of GSAK to a newer version. But I’ve never had a problem with moving just the database content between different versions using this mechanism.

[Author]

Posts