[Team Deejay]

@Chznschnapps wrote:

@Team Deejay wrote:

1. “Challenge caches based on a specific list of caches, such as caches placed by a specific person or group, will generally not be published.” (Point 3a We have restricted “specific lists” for a while, but until now, we only restricted “owner challenges” of a person’s own caches, not someone elses.)

So, I was thinking of placing a series of caches in which each one has a clue to the coordinates of a final cache. Do I now need to do this as an multi-cache instead of separate caches since this would be a specific list of caches placed by a specific person?

Thx,
Chz

No, this only applies to challenge caches. What you are describing is a regular type of mystery cache.

[Team Deejay]

I guess I don’t understand why you can’t do any of this. Are you running on a public computer or something similar? Are using an old Mac which isn’t suitable for doing Windows emulation?

Anyway, even THEY would not call this an upgrade. It was a downgrade required by a change to their business situation. You weren’t around when we had the really bad maps (ca. 2006). I remember running into people in the field in those days with their car stuffed full of papers (cache sheets, maps, photos, etc.) Today, I have all that stuff in my GPS and phone. Back then, I tried to use a Palm, but even that was not very reliable.

[Team Deejay]

We have a nuvi 40 for car navigation. It works well and you can load caches to it. That said, it isn’t designed to use for geocaching, so using it as a backup would be pretty tough. To give you an idea, we did the Horicon Parkway multi after the WGA Chili event last Saturday. This is one of those long driving multis with virtual waypoints until the final. We only used the Nuvi for the virtual waypoints, without issue, but used the real GPS for the final. Not only is there no compass screen or even a good “text” screen showing distance and bearing, but it also it is really oriented toward road navigation. You could geocache with it, but it would be painful.

[Team Deejay]

I’m not sure I understand what you are asking about printing. The macro creates an HTML file and launches your browser. Then you just use the browser commands to print the view. (Don’t forget to select Landscape!) Note that you have to be zoomed in enough to not have clusters or else the clusters print as a white square with a number.

I’m guessing you are actually asking me something completely different. I just don’t know what that something is.

[Team Deejay]

With regard to doing mapping with GSAK, I have recently changed macros for this task, but this new one is fully supported and apparently used by a lot of people, so here is the link.

http://gsak.net/board/index.php?showtopic=17505

This macro is blazingly fast, and uses a Google feature (clusters) to make it fast. I ran it on my LCG database (17000+ caches) and it mapped it in about 3 seconds.) If you want to zoom in quickly to a clustered area, just click one of the “balls” and it will instantly zoom in. For maps, you have Google, OSM, My TOPO, Bing, Mapquest and some others. If you want to play with the small number of options, hold the shift key when you run the macro. Otherwise, it is self explanatory.

I don’t have time to write a tutorial for running macros in GSAK right now, but if someone asks, I will do it later. I would attach a file of a screenshot, but apparently we don’t have that functionality anymore without uploading the picture to a server.

[Team Deejay]

Well, if you want to screw things up, it looks like the date for the March April list will be around 5/21/2011.

[Team Deejay]

I load my Nuvi 40 using GSAK, selecting the “Nuvi (Generic)” setting. It loads into the “Favorites” area.

[Team Deejay]

@Walkingadventure wrote:

Something to work on.

I think you meant to add at the end “Void where prohibited, consumer assumes all resposibilities, blah blah blah”

Actually no. I try to be helpful where I can.

I use Greasemonkey scripts a lot for my reviewing, but that is only because we have a few very talented guys in the reviewer corps that build these scripts for us to use. Most of the added functionality involves checking things in the background while we are doing other things in the foreground. Simple things to speed up the review process.

My real opinion is that anyone who is an advanced geocacher should be using GSAK as their everyday interface, which has all the tools anyone could conceive of. And if you somehow could think of something not currently available, you can easily program your own with an intuitive programming language. Much simpler than trying to gather or write scripts and addons to try to make someone else’s website do what you want.

[Team Deejay]

OK, I am probably going to REALLY regret writing this up, but here goes. For all steps, just take the default choices for installation dialogs.

Step 0 – You MUST be running Firefox for this to work, and it would be beneficial to be running at least version 10 or higher. I believe there is a solution out there for Chrome, but I won’t cover that here. You can pick up Firefox at

http://www.firefox.com

Step 1 – Once you get Firefox up and running, you need to install Greasemonkey. Greasemonkey is an addon that lets you run various scripts that use Javascript to “modify” webpages. Actually it just modifies what you see. The underlying website is not affected. You get this at

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/

Note that you must have Javascript enabled in Firefox for this to work, so if you are one of those paranoid folks who have all scripts disabled, it won’t function properly. After you have installed the addon, you should see a little monkey icon on the navigation tool bar, and it should be BROWN. If it is GRAY, GM is disabled. Just click the monkey to enable if needed.

Step 2 – Click the following link, which should install the map modification script

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/125949

This should install itself. Hit the INSTALL button near the top of the page.

Step 3 – If you want the distance legend, this is a second script

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/126456

Hit the INSTALL button near the top of the page.

And don’t forget that you still have many other options. The regular Google Maps links are still on the cache pages, and GSAK has several macros for exporting to Google maps. Just use what works for you.

[Team Deejay]

Or, just place the cache and submit it. If there is a problem, we will let you know. The only reason to precheck would be if you were making a complicated puzzle, creating a container which would only fit in a specific location, or placing a container somewhere that you wouldn’t want to go back to right away.

[Team Deejay]

Its easier than you think, although you will have to do it in multiple steps, as the queries are limited to a 500 mile distance.

1. Go to the pocket query page.
2. Click on Caches along a route.
3. Click on Create New Route.
4. Enter a name for your route, then click create route.
5. Enter the start and end of your route. You can just type the cities or you can enter coordinates or street addresses. Press search and the route will draw on the map. Press Save Route Changes.
6. Hit Create Pocket Query.
7. Change any settings you want in the PQ, including checking the day you want the query to run, then hit Submit Information.
8. Download your query and open it in Google Earth.

Note that for very long routes like this, you will need to use a short search radius, as there will be LOTS of caches.

[Team Deejay]

You can also change what data is displayed on the map or compass pages. For instance, on my map page, I show distance and time to the next turn. On the compass page, I show distance and time and date (which saves me a lot of time looking at a calendar when signing logs!)

[Team Deejay]

@CodeJunkie wrote:

I bought mine from Cabelas (Outfitter Pro Series) a few years ago and love them. They’re actually made by Atlas and private labeled for Cablelas. I bought the “package” which was shoes, poles, and carry bag. Definately lightweight and I’ve walked a variety of terrain (woods, open fields, packed trails, marshes, etc.) with them. Here’s a link to Cabela’s site.
http://www.cabelas.com/product/CABELAS-OUTFITTER-PRO-MENS-SNOWSHOES/927444.uts?WTz_l=CQO

I have these same shoes. They have really good float. I’d recommend them for larger hikers (>180 lbs).

[Team Deejay]

@froggerz wrote:

@spd2662 wrote:

One thing I don’t like with this unit is that any cache loaded from GSAK can’t be edited on the device. That’s frustrating when solving puzzles cause I used to just go in and edit the coords in my GPS, now I have to edit them in GSAK first or forget it.

If it is just one cache, you can go into the geocache menu, scroll down to “Enter Next Stage”. It will hold those coords as next stage until you change another set of coords. This is also useful for doing multis.

Or, just mark a new waypoint and edit it to the new coordinates.

[Team Deejay]

@huffinpuffin2 wrote:

@beccaday wrote:

Ugh, I take it back. It’s taking forever for these satellite maps to load. I didn’t have this problem yesterday. Boo!

Had the problem yesterday, but looks worse today. Using FireFox 10.0.1, navigated to a cache with Mapquest, and then kicked into Aerial. No load….so brought up the cache page, loaded Bing and Google maps, zoomed in on Birdseye and hybrid, got the views I needed from each, and then peeked back at Mapquest aerial….only 2 tiles loaded by then. Even after refreshing, same result. Still have a speed curve to overcome. :no:

Still plan to run it through Android, and have a host of browsers to try there, (Dolphin is normal preference, btw, even over FF) but as long as the old method is still available, all is still good…..but would prefer GREAT! 🙂

By the way, I just heard that this is actually a technical issue with the Mapquest connection that they are working on. (I thought it was just everybody trying to run the maps at the same time…) Hopefully they will get the bugs worked out soon.

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