Paperless Caching and PDA's

[Dik:]

No need to do them one at a time if you file them right.

Here's a more detailed process of how I work.

1. Identify a caching target I want to do.
If this is a series it's pretty obvious.
If it is an area I will use Google Earth to pick a central one and then search on GC for caches in a radius. Maybe repeating this process and picking a number of key caches if the area is long and narrow, such as a mountain range or valley.
If it is a route I will generally follow the route on Google Earth picking caches that are appropriate.
If it is a competition that scores on difficulty & terrain such as River Deep Mountain High I will sort by terrain, then by difficulty on GCA to identify target caches.

2. Create a folder on the PC and name it accordingly.
I have individual folders for series, areas, highways, competitions etc.

3. Review each cache page to check for suitability and any additional information I may need to collect, such as linked photos, diagrams, research from other web sites etc.

4. Once I have reviewed the cache I click on Save_As and put it in the appropriate folder. I also put any additional information, photos, research, puzzle solutions etc. into that folder. If the information for an individual cache is substantial, or there are a few caches with additional information that needs to be separated out then just create a sub folder.
NB: I need to choose 5 logs or all logs, but hints can be decoded on the PDA after download.

5. Connect the PDA to the PC and download the folder as a single drag and drop onto the PDA. I keep all the folders as sub folders under "Caches" on the SD memory card.

6. I have my PDA buttons set up so that when viewing a cache page it is a single button opperation to go back to the folder and look up the next cache.

This has been working for me with great success. I hope it helps others.

[Mr Router]

I still don't get it.

As I detailed on P1 of this thread, you don't need any special software.

On the cache page choose "save as" and save to your hard drive. Then copy the file and folder of the same name (or the folder containing all the cache pages) to the ipaq. As long as you get your file structure right it's easy to find on the ipaq.

What, for EVERY page?! One at a time!? No, thanks!

I'm with the Bear!

[Team Falling Numerals]

...

3. Review each cache page to check for suitability and any additional information I may need to collect, such as linked photos, diagrams, research from other web sites etc.

4. Once I have reviewed the cache I click on Save_As and put it in the appropriate folder. I also put any additional information, photos, research, puzzle solutions etc. into that folder. If the information for an individual cache is substantial, or there are a few caches with additional information that needs to be separated out then just create a sub folder.
NB: I need to choose 5 logs or all logs, but hints can be decoded on the PDA after download....

does this mean that you review each page before saving? How long does this take for perhaps 20-30 caches?

[Papa Bear_Left]

does this mean that you review each page before saving? How long does this take for perhaps 20-30 caches?

Mind you, you need to do this regardless of how else you get the data. GSAK's macros are becoming scary, but I don't think there's one that'll go off and solve off-listing puzzles for you! (yet...)


GSAK's macros can make the process quite painless:

hit the button and it'll download the GPX(es) from your mail account, filter them (e.g. I remove found and non-real caches), go off and grab the spoiler photos (probably violating your TOU agreement, but whatever), then export them in several formats (e.g. I export to TomTom, Magellan, Cachemate, GPX with smartnames, and html)
My macro does a few passes, one for all of WA and one each for all Perth caches and one for only unfound caches.

Once you've got it set up, it's very convenient. It only takes a couple of minutes, so your GPS and PDA and PC can all be made as up to date as your latest PQ while you're getting your boots on.

[Bronze]

For the tech heads and bluetools.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6634195.stm


Enjoy

[Dik:]

...

3. Review each cache page to check for suitability and any additional information I may need to collect, such as linked photos, diagrams, research from other web sites etc.

4. Once I have reviewed the cache I click on Save_As and put it in the appropriate folder. I also put any additional information, photos, research, puzzle solutions etc. into that folder. If the information for an individual cache is substantial, or there are a few caches with additional information that needs to be separated out then just create a sub folder.
NB: I need to choose 5 logs or all logs, but hints can be decoded on the PDA after download....

does this mean that you review each page before saving? How long does this take for perhaps 20-30 caches?

Of course I do. There's nothing worse than just following the arrow only to find you approached from the wrong side of the river/mountain/canyon, left critical information or equipment at home, are faced with a 5 hour hike and it's 2 hours before sunset etc etc etc.

A couple of minutes reviewing the notes before heading out could save a 100Km round trip for nothing.

A find yesterday required two downloaded photo as a clues. The last 2 seekers had DNFs and both logged that they wished they had the photos. I had them on my PDA. Looking at a cache today and the logs indicate a waypoint is gone, but email the hider before setting out for the information.

Everyone to their own, but I plan my caching trips and make sure I am prepared for what lies ahead.

[Dik:]

So thinking on this topic overnight, lets agree, or at least agree to disagree, that whether on the PC, PDA or paper you do need to read the notes at some stage, and that you can either read the cache notes directly through the HTML page saved from the GA webasite and copied directly to the PDA or through some additional software.

So, having reviewed this topic, there are a lot of my software is better than your software posts but no one actually says why.

So going back to the topic:
What software do you use on your PDA?
What does it offer over and above a basic cache page?
Where did you get it?

[Team Falling Numerals]

So thinking on this topic overnight, lets agree, or at least agree to disagree, that whether on the PC, PDA or paper you do need to read the notes at some stage, and that you can either read the cache notes directly through the HTML page saved from the GA webasite and copied directly to the PDA or through some additional software.

I had the same thought - different situations will call for a different MO.

So, having reviewed this topic, there are a lot of my software is better than your software posts but no one actually says why.

So going back to the topic:
What software do you use on your PDA?
What does it offer over and above a basic cache page?
Where did you get it?

We have GPXSonar on our PDA - This program allows us to load hundreds of cache pages onto our PDA via GSAK which is the program that we also use to load waypoints into our GPSr. We like it because it is very easy to use via the sync function and it allows us to make up our mind what caches to tackle (if any) when we get to a particular region when we travel.

The appearance of the cache pages is very similar to what we view online and hints are available but hidden from initial view but are easily discovered if needed.

We also have a companion program called Spoiler Sync that searches for all the spoiler photos and loads them up. I am not so familiar with that program as I handed the PDA over to Robert when we got it so that I did not have a monopoly on the techno knowledge.

We found the program by googling GPXSonar and while you can get it for free I do recall that we spent USD$8.00 as a contribution to the developer.

We are in a regional area and the PDA really becomes helpful when we are away from home. For our last trip we downloaded waypoints and cache pages for three different regions in Sydney where we knew we would be visiting. We were then able to chose which caches to do (if any) as time and circumstances allowed.

[Dooghan]

G'Day Dik

Here is something that might be a help to you http://www.httrack.com/page/1/en/index.html

Dooghan

[Grank]

Yey! Got my iPaq 1950 today. Used my exiting filters in GSAK and just selected Export>HTML files ... straight to the PDA. It creates a nice little index that does all I need for now - my main aim was not to have to print out all the paper and not get caught short when I wanted to go for "just one more" (but unplanned) cache.

Thanks for all the tips.

[crew 153]

Yey! Got my iPaq 1950 today. Used my exiting filters in GSAK and just selected Export>HTML files ... straight to the PDA. It creates a nice little index that does all I need for now - my main aim was not to have to print out all the paper and not get caught short when I wanted to go for "just one more" (but unplanned) cache.

Thanks for all the tips.

Yep! Thats all I do too...

[Mr Router]

Yey! Got my iPaq 1950 today. Used my exiting filters in GSAK and just selected Export>HTML files ... straight to the PDA. It creates a nice little index that does all I need for now - my main aim was not to have to print out all the paper and not get caught short when I wanted to go for "just one more" (but unplanned) cache.

Thanks for all the tips.

Well done Grank on the start of a long techno addiction Once you master the basics the world of PDA is YOURS, well done. there is a few little programs that you will really like but get the hang first.
Then there will be NO unplanned caches, hehe.

[Mr Router]

So thinking on this topic overnight, lets agree, or at least agree to disagree, that whether on the PC, PDA or paper you do need to read the notes at some stage, and that you can either read the cache notes directly through the HTML page saved from the GA webasite and copied directly to the PDA or through some additional software.

I had the same thought - different situations will call for a different MO.

So, having reviewed this topic, there are a lot of my software is better than your software posts but no one actually says why.

So going back to the topic:
What software do you use on your PDA?
What does it offer over and above a basic cache page?
Where did you get it?

We have GPXSonar on our PDA - This program allows us to load hundreds of cache pages onto our PDA via GSAK which is the program that we also use to load waypoints into our GPSr. We like it because it is very easy to use via the sync function and it allows us to make up our mind what caches to tackle (if any) when we get to a particular region when we travel.

The appearance of the cache pages is very similar to what we view online and hints are available but hidden from initial view but are easily discovered if needed.

We also have a companion program called Spoiler Sync that searches for all the spoiler photos and loads them up. I am not so familiar with that program as I handed the PDA over to Robert when we got it so that I did not have a monopoly on the techno knowledge.

We found the program by googling GPXSonar and while you can get it for free I do recall that we spent USD$8.00 as a contribution to the developer.

We are in a regional area and the PDA really becomes helpful when we are away from home. For our last trip we downloaded waypoints and cache pages for three different regions in Sydney where we knew we would be visiting. We were then able to chose which caches to do (if any) as time and circumstances allowed.

One program you you must have is Ozi CE which marry's to sonar for the package! Exporting ozi waypoints from sonar is cool, the only draw back is it only gives the GC code number on the waypoint plot name!Now forget I said that as there is no drawback to GPXSonar,hehe.

[Team Falling Numerals]

One program you you must have is Ozi CE which marry's to sonar for the package! Exporting ozi waypoints from sonar is cool, the only draw back is it only gives the GC code number on the waypoint plot name!Now forget I said that as there is no drawback to GPXSonar,hehe.

I had a look at this and correct me if I am wrong - its a companion software for Oziexplorer, right? It would give the functionality of Ozi on the PDA?

We haven't used any mapping software to date - as time permits over the next few weeks I will have a play with this.

[Grank]

I have had to reset my IPAQ a few times and was thinking that maybe it didn't like the 1gb of data on it.

I have played around with HTML files exported from GSAK to the PDA and tonight I loaded GPXsonar (after finally finding where to download it from!).

One thing I'll say is that the file transfer is soooo much faster. Now to play with functionality ......