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quote:
Originally posted by Opossum:
I have to agree with PHPBB, and would throw in http://www.postgresql.org/ for the database. While MySQL is very fast, PostgreSQL has many powerful features of a true database (like rollback). I *might* even be able to donate some time, but that is very dependant on what projects I’m working on.
Thanks for the info Opossum. PHPbb is set up to support a number of databases including PostgreSQL, so I’ll look into it. Later versions of MySQL (>4.0) address some of the shortcomings you mentioned, specifically transactions, while remaining relatively fast.
(FYI: The current WGA site is using MySQL for storing various things including the membership list and COTM and, knock on wood, we haven’t had any major problems.)
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Originally posted by TeamLotsacache:
Does phpBB have RSS support?
RSS support is not built into phpBB, but there are several add-ons for it that can provide this capability. If others want it, I will look into using one of these add-ons… though this is probably something that would wait until the rest of the new site is completed.
There will be an RSS feed for the content on main WGA page (the “homepage”). Basically, any official announcements from the Board, “news” type items posted, Articles of the Month, etc. will be available through this RSS feed.
[This message has been edited by jvechinski (edited 05-28-2005).]
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Originally posted by Cathunter:
The “links” page is a great asset when I remember that it’s there.It might be even better if there was simple way to submit new links without first having to find out who to contact and then submitting via private e-mail.
Good ideas Russ.
The “new” links section is already in place on the revised website. It does allow members to submit links for consideration. If a link is approved, the name of the member who submitted it is listed along with the link, basically giving them credit for contributing to the site.
There is also a “Quick Links” block with links to the most popular external sites, like geocaching.com, Wisconsin geocache map, Brew’s stats, etc. This block will always be present on the left hand side of all WGA pages so you don’t have to go looking for these links.
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Originally posted by Cathunter:
I don’t know how many other people would be interested, but I always thought it would be cool to have a “[email protected]” e-mail address.
The Board members already have these addresses… mail coming to them is simply forwarded to another email address/account. (No mail is actually stored on the WGA server.) First, Alan would have to agree to allow this, since the forwarded mail goes through the ElkNet mail servers and could impact their performance. Second, the Board would have to vote to allow it… using a @wi-geocaching.com address may make someone seem “official” or seem as if they are speaking for the organization.
I forgot to mention this important point:
Don’t hesitate to ask for new web site features or improvements by posting them in this forum.
This is especially relevant right now. As I mentioned, many of the features have to be reworked anyway… it is often easy to add features while we are in there performing updates.
For example, we’ve always wanted to give people the ability to “delete” their vote for Cache of the Month and vote for some other cache. While restructuring Cache of the Month to work with the new single user registration system, I was able to add this feature in less than an hour.
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Originally posted by Docapi:
Will the new board have some of the funtions like member profiles, PMs, not having to enter your name and password to make a post, etc?
Yes to all of the above, plus the feature that was originally requested where the last time you visited is stored on the server, so you always see the posts that are new to you, regardless of the number computers you use to view the forums. A complete list of features in the latest version of phpBB can be found here:
http://www.phpbb.com/features.phpI will confirm the rumor that we are planning to switch over to PHPbb for the WGA forums. We’ve actually successfully converted all the WGA forums, the 17000 or so messages posted here since 2002, and all forum user accounts to PHPbb.
So why aren’t we switched over the PHPbb yet? Well, we are in the process of performing a major website overhaul, not just a change to the forum software used. The big thing that we want to do is consolidate the two user registration systems we currently have… one for the forums and photo album, and one for WGA membership and everything else, into a single system. New members will only have to sign up ONCE to be WGA members and have access to the forums. Existing members will have a single username and password to access everything on the WGA site. To pull this off for the existing members, someone has to untangle the accounts in the two systems, decide which ones “match”, and combine the data from the two systems… Ray Handley (aka The Beast) has volunteered to perform this thankless task and is examining spreadsheets of data as we speak.
Because of this consolidation of user registration systems, many of website features we have (Cache of the Month, Membership List, etc.) need to be reworked. This is the part of the website revamp that I’m working on. We are also going to take this opportunity to revise a lot of static web pages we have, like “Hiding a Cache”, “About Us”, etc. The Board will be working on revising the contents of these pages over the next few months.
The plan is to be switched over to the new system around the time of the WGA Geo-Picnic (sometime in August). Before that, the site will be in beta test for a few weeks to make sure all of the bugs are worked out. We will be contacting some folks to help us with the beta testing, probably in late July or early August… if you want to get a sneak peek at the site and help us with development by being a beta tester, you can contact me (jeremy at vechinski dot com).
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Originally posted by GrouseTales:
Does anyone know of a method, or free tool to convert a .pdf file to a .jpg or .bmp???
Screen capture works unless you need a high resolution image from the PDF. I for a high resolution conversion, I use the free PDF viewer GSview. This program requires that you also have the free Ghostscript PDF/PS interpreter installed (install this one first).
Both can be downloaded here:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/Options include converting to JPG, BMP, TIF images at up to 600 dpi. For a REALLY high resolution image (billboard size ), you can convert to an EPS and then use Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator to blow it up to any size.
Send me an email if you need more help on this Brian…
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Originally posted by geodawn:
that made me giggle…….except for the part where the woman should be the last one searching. that didn’t make me giggle. (well, maybe a little).
I just got a call from my friend in Hollywood who said that this particular scene was rewritten to better reflect the realities of geocaching (and society in general). Here’s how it goes now:
This time the female detective is the first to find the cache and makes her way to the finder’s tree. After looking for about fifteen more minutes (all the while cursing at his GPS, blaming it for his inability to find the cache), the male detective becomes convinced that the cache is somewhere else in the park and the female detective is just bluffing.
He gets in the squad car and starts to drive to where his GPS is pointing… but gets lost and ends up going around in circles. After several hours of aimless driving (because of course, he refuses to ask anyone for directions) he manages to find his way back to the footbridge.
At that point, he realizes that in his rush to find the cache he improperly entered the coordinates into his super fancy, high-end, top of the line, latest and greatest, feature laden, technologically superior GPS. After spending an hour trying to get the coordinates put in right (because of course, he refuses to read the instruction manual that came with the GPS), he resumes his search.
[Cut to darkness.] The male detective is frustrated… he mumbles something under his breath, leaves briefly, and returns with giant spotlights (think Batman’s “bat symbol”) and a massive, souped up bulldozer (ala Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor). “I’m going to find this cache or no one else will!”
After digging up about an acre without seeing any sign of the cache, the bulldozer runs out of fuel and the male detective starts to cry. “OK I give up… you’re the better cacher… so where was it at anyway?” he sobs. The female detective pulls the cache container from under her coat… she cleverly (and inconspicuously) removed it from its hiding spot before she went to the finder’s tree. She says, “All you had to do was ask me nice and I would have told you where it was at!!!”
Happy with the rewrite ladies?
After watching the episode twice, I’ve got to say I’m somewhat disappointed by the inaccurate way geocaching was portrayed. In particular:
1) It was amazing how the lead detective found the cache in like 30 seconds even though it was very well hidden under a pile of leaves… it is never this easy, right. (Maybe this makes sense as he was the only one with a GPS?) They should have shown all the law enforcement personnel present scouring the area looking in obvious locations under, on, and around the footbridge… then comparing GPS readings, checking the hints, performing a “grid search”, cursing the foliage and GPS gods for poor signal strength, etc.
2) It was a group hunt, yet a “finder’s tree” was not employed. After finding it, the male detective should have stepped aside… and eventually he would start laughing at/taunting the others. The female detective should have been the last one searching, and finally she’d lose it… “just show me where the darn box is!”
Seriously, I thought what little they showed of geocaching was positive, with the exception of the initial scene where it appeared the girl was burying the cache container. They resisted the urge to stereotype geocachers as “techno-geeks”, even though there may be some (just a tiny bit ) of evidence to support applying such a label to us.
Man, I didn’t think we had so many “old” people going.
I’m really tempted to say something like “You guys must be excited to finally get a day out of the nursing home.” Or “Be sure to charge up your amphibious Rascal scooters, and we can stop at Denny’s and get the Seniors discount (just show your AARP card).” However, I’m afraid you’d rap me on the head with your cane (sorry, you’re calling it a walking stick ) and say “mind your manners sonny”.
I think I’m younger than all of you… but it really doesn’t matter, because as Indiana would say, “it’s not the years, it’s the mileage”…
quote:
Originally posted by GrouseTales:
So if anyone has a Garmin 2610, 2610, c320, c330, or Lawrance Iway 500c, please let me know. I’d like to ask you some questions by email
I have the 2610 and recommend it for people wanting an “in car” GPS that can provide the same features as the built in (and big bucks) “satellite navigation” systems. Biggest advantage over the previous autorouting GPS I had (GPS V) is speed… autorouting, finds, scrolling, are all lighting quick.
Again I stress that the 2610 is not an all-round unit, as it is huge (relatively speaking) and you need 12V power. A friend of mine recently bought a Garmin c320 for motorcycle use… I played with it for a little bit and it seems to have most of the same features in a slightly smaller package with a rechargeable battery. Screen on the c320 looks better indoors (more colors, higher res), but it supposedly doesn’t hold up as well in the sun. The c320 is also a little cheaper.
Don’t go with the 2620 because a) it is cheaper to buy a 2610 and a large memory card and b) the internal hard drive in the 2620 has been known to crash if you use it on a motorcycle (and I know you’ll try Brian ).
Of course you can enter coordinates… hold down the “Page” key for 2 seconds to perform a “Mark”. Or you can just download them with Mapsource like any other Garmin unit.
If you ask nice , I might drop it off at your place and let you try it for a couple days. Contact me with any questions via email.
quote:
Originally posted by Geotrippers:
I now see that it has picked up an episode of Law and Order that is scheduled for May 8th at 8:00pm on NBC.
This would be one of the Law and Order spin-offs, Law and Order: Criminal Intent… which currently one of my favorite shows so I’ve already got it set to record. (Maybe it won’t be anymore if they portray geocachers as mass murders. )
Criminal Intent is more of a “thinking” or “mystery” type show than the original Law & Order… in each episode you have a smart pair of detectives trying to outwit the criminals. I can just imagine what crass comment the detectives will make about geocaching… “bunch of geeks in woods” or something.
Anyway, thanks for the heads up!
quote:
Originally posted by Digital_Dan:
I’ll be leaving from the Waukesha area around 7AM on Sunday. I have room for (2) people if anyone would like to car pool.
OK, I just saw this… I will contact you via email Dan.
After canceling a motorcycle trip to Duluth this past weekend because of the cold weather, I’m having second thoughts about making this weekend a motorcycle camping weekend. So Digital_Dan, do you have any room for me in your vehicle? Or alternatively, I could pick up/take anyone else interested in going from the Milwaukee area. I definitely don’t have a problem with driving there by myself… I just don’t want to have an unreasonable number of vehicles out there.
Sounds like we are going to meet at the trailhead at 9:30am on Sunday? There appears to be a parking area and boat landing/canoe launch (?) very near the site of the first cache. It is at the end of Norway Drive at coordinates N43 34.998 W89 43.623. Fu, can you communicate this information to Lil Otter to see if she wants to meet us there…
As far as equipment, from the logs it seems like some sort of waders/high boots could be useful. I plan to bring both hiking boots and waders, as scrambling up rocks in waders is probably not a good idea.
Also, it would be nice if people could wait (please ) to start the cache hunt until everyone gets there (with the first group going out at 10am as Fu suggested)…
Brian, is there a cut off date for campout registrations?
I’m guessing people are waiting so they can make sure they are free, etc. before committing to camping and paying the fees. But if the cut off date is a week or more before the event, it is not like you can wait to see if the weather will be nice that weekend… so make it easy on our Board and other volunteers and register as early as you can.
Is this going to be on Saturday, April 30th or Sunday, May 1st? Saturday the 30th is the date of The Secrets of Stonehaven Event (GCMC7T), so I’m guessing most cachers are going to want to go there instead of attacking the Gauntlet.
Heck, maybe we could launch a “second assault” on Sunday for those who couldn’t come on Saturday. I would just want to make sure at least one other person was there so someone could point the authorities to my body . It might be tough going after this one following all the hiking that we’ll be sure to do at Stonehaven (40 temps!)… but I’m up for a challenge.
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