Further Improvents

There wasn't a lot of fanfare nor any web service shutdowns, but Groundspeak made some nice improvements to the geocaching.com website this week. A couple that I noticed, and really appreciate are:

• The addition of pocket queries to the Maps Beta page:

Now your pocket queries are accessible in the left side panel. If you click on one, the map zooms you to a view of all the caches in your query, and distinguishes them from other caches in the same area with a special icon. Click on the query again, and it disappears from view. Nice.

• Quicker access to more features from Your Profile drop down menu:

Previously, you had to navigate your way through the website to get to features such as your Pocket Queries, Field Notes, List of Finds, etc. Now, all of these pages are quickly available with one click from the, "Your Profile" drop down.

Enjoy the changes, and the extra caching time available on this long holiday weekend (even if the weather calls for more rain and a foot-and-a-half of snow in the Sierras).

Cache On!

Geocaching Bucket List

It was nice to wake up on this judgement day morning and find myself still here. And as far as I can tell, most people I know are still around, as is planet Earth. Although I understand that doom's day is supposed to begin in New Zealand and work it's way west, so theoretically, there's still a chance that the end is near.

All this rapture talk got me thinking about what caches I'd really like to find if I knew I only had a few hours left on the planet (assuming I'd even want to spend my last day on Earth caching - which I'm pretty sure I would). Given the limited time frame, I wouldn't, unfortunately, be able to complete those long-term challenge cache projects I've been working on; like, The 555 Club, the Fizzy Challenge, or the California County and DeLorme Challenges.

What I would do, however, to figure out the best caches within the shortest distance would be as follows:
(1) Fire up geocaching.com on my web browser;
(2) Go to "Hide and Seek a Cache" under the "Play" menu;
(3) Scroll down to and click on the link to "Advanced Search Options";
(4) Search for all caches, by postal code, and check the "Exclude your owned or found items from results" box:

(5) When the list pops up, click on the blue ribbon icon to sort the list by the highest ranked caches:

And now you have a quick and dirty bucket list to focus on before it all disappears.

Happy Armageddon, and Cache On!

Ask And Ye Shall Receive

Jeremy Irish, president and CEO of Groundspeak, posted the following tweet yesterday:  

We did some map changes before the weekend, including the biggest request: smilies on by default.

That's right. If you haven't noticed yet, the Geocaching Maps Beta service now shows all of your finds on the map page without you having to tell it to do so, as before. And if that's enough, coming soon to the Geocaching Maps:

• Pocket Query integration
• Caches along a route
• Trackables support
• Real-time chat

It just gets better and better. If you'd like to follow Jeremy on Twitter, you can do so here: http://twitter.com/#!/locuslingua


Cache On!

Extreme Makeover

I'm sure by now you've noticed quite a few changes to the geocaching.com website since it was shut down for retooling last Wednesday. The response to the newly designed site has been pretty positive for the most part, at least from what I've seen in the forums and in the Twitterverse.

I'm pretty impressed as well. In general, the site seems faster and more responsive. And I really like how the menus have been moved from the left side of the screen to the top, allowing more room for the all important caching information:

My biggest complaint: the site does not seem to be entirely Chrome-compatible. Google Chrome is my default browser, and I've had some issues. The biggest problem so far is that I cannot "log my visit" from a cache page. If I click on the link, the site takes me to a blank page with an ad on it, like this:

So for now, I have to switch browsers anytime I want to post a log. I've also noticed some strange text placements in Chrome that I don't see in Firefox. Hopefully, these issues will be corrected soon. Other than that, the improvements are much welcomed.

Cache On!

Cache (Site) Maintenance

In case you haven't heard, geocaching.com will be off-line for about 4 - 6 hours on Wednesday, May 4th, starting at 9:00 AM (PDT). So make sure you get all your pocket queries downloaded, and anything else you might need, before then.

Groundspeak promises the website will have an updated look, and site performance will be improved, after the maintenance has been completed. Hopefully this work will also resolve some of the issues we've all had to deal with recently.

If you find yourself a nervous wreck during the downtime, you can at least follow the progress of the upgrade on Groundspeak's Facebook and/or Twitter sites.

Cache On!

Is It Just Me?

I've been noticing some oddities with the geocaching.com mapping feature recently. I've been seeing a message in the upper right-hand corner letting me know that, "Personalization of the map is currently unavailable", which means I can't display the caches I've found or hidden. And often times the tool just hangs up with a message saying, "parsing geocaches", but it never completes the operation.

I'm not sure if this means that the beta maps tool is finally about to come out of beta and permanently replace the standard mapping tool, or if it's just an anomaly that needs fixin'. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

In other news, I hope you all had a nice Earth Day weekend, and had an opportunity to either participate in a geocaching earth day event, or at minimum, practiced a little CITO.

Cache On!

FindStatGen Beta

For those of you with GSAK who love the FindStatGen macro, there's a beta version release available. You can get a copy, and read a good discussion, here.

Cache On!