Paperless Caching

[mm_dancer]

i am thinking of asking for an ipod for my birthday next month and have heard that i can do paperless caching on it. i was just wondering if i had to be a premium member in order to do paperless caching? is there a way that i can do it for free, or is there going to be some cost involved?
thanks,
mm_dancer

[swimmrguy]

mm_dancer,

The short answer: you really need to be a Premium member to do Paperless caching. When you are a Premium member, you have access to GPX files for each cache. These files have all the information that you need--Cache name, GC#, co-ordinates, description, hints and recent logs. If you are a not a Premium member, you can only access LOC files. These contain the minimum information--Cache name, GC# and co-ordinates. They do allow you to use your computer to send the coordinates to your GPS, but don't have the info that you really want to have on hand--description and hints.

I know that you can get the cache information onto an iPod, and there is a macro for GSAK that does this. I don't use this method though, because I think CacheMate on a PDA is a lot better.

-B.

[hamburking]

Since seeing this topic, I have been simmering the idea of snagging Mrs Hamburking's ipod nano for paperless caching. I've been looking into it, and agree that I'll need premium membership to create the file containing my selected cache data. Then the data must be moved to the ipod. For this I've been looking at GSAK, and it sure looks good...but like it's name says, it does EVERYTHING. I've also noticed a product called CacheMagnet which is a much simpler package specifically for downloading the data file to PDA/PALM/IPOD. It looks much simpler and easier to setup and use.

Does anyone out there use CacheMagnet or an ipod for paperless caching?

FYI, CacheMagnet is totally free.

I understand there is another product called CacheMate, which costs $8, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't support ipods???

Here's a demo of cachemagnet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsHYQweqgJw

[swimmrguy]

Dave,

I had just drafted an intro article on Paperless Caching last week, but hadn't published it yet. The article was just a brief introduction on some of the methods that one can use, but didn't have any detailed instructions. I still have to work on those. But given that you brought the subject up, I will post the article with a promise to put some specific details on the subjects that I can.

CacheMate is only for the Palm and Windows Mobile. It's clear advantage over the iPod is the ability to write notes (eg. logs) for caches while in the field.

I didn't have CacheMagnet on my list, so I will add it now. It does look good but doesn't appear to be for Palm or Windows Mobile PDAs/smartphones. It handles the cache descriptions slightly different than how the GSAK macro does. It appears that the GSAK macro puts the entire description (co-ordinates, description, past logs) into one note, and not subdivided in categories. Although I don't plan on using an iPod for caching, I might play around with it to see how it looks.

I'd love to hear about your experience with it.

--B.

[SigsPig]

I've been paperless for several months however, one problem I seem to keep having is duplicate entries in cachemate(CM). I don't know if I'm making a mistake within GSAK or if I should delete all entries in CM first before exporting from GSAK.

[swimmrguy]

SigsPig--I recognize you from the CCC board. Welcome to the KAG Site!

SigsPig wrote:

I've been paperless for several months however, one problem I seem to keep having is duplicate entries in cachemate(CM). I don't know if I'm making a mistake within GSAK or if I should delete all entries in CM first before exporting from GSAK.

I can't say for sure what might be causing duplicates in CacheMate. I was having lots of trouble with duplicates on my GPSr so I now routinely wipe all entries in CM and on my GPSr and then reload them. It keeps things neater.

One thought...you might have different PDB files (I am assuming you are using the Palm version, and not the PPC version) that have the same Geocaches in them. That *might* be causing the duplicates. I always try to use the same file name whenever I export from GSAK, and haven't run into duplicates. However, I try to clean out the old entries before loading in a new one (but not always.)

Again, welcome. Hope you come and cache in our fair city sometime. I am actually in Ottawa right now, and about to log some of the great caches I was able to do today!

[ace862]

Welcome to the KAG board SigsPig.
I thought I remembered reading something about duplicate records in CM before, so I did a little looking.
Would this help your problem at all?

CM FAQs

So if you go to to Option > Preferences and then make sure Merge import file records is checked.
Hope that helps some.
Cheers!:)

[SigsPig]

Sorry fellas, for some reason I wasn't getting notices telling me of the replies.
1/2 of the problem I was having was using a different code setup in GSAK from what my caching partners were using. They all use %name and I was using the drop GC & add terrain/rating
I've made sure of that option ace862 suggested so we'll see.

[SuperDave_GPS]

Sigs:

I've been using CacheMate for about 2 years now. Prior to loading in new/updated .gpx files, I completely delete all existing caches in that area's database first so everything starts fresh.

I have several databases in my Palm for use with CacheMate - Ottawa, Montreal, Kingston, Cambridge, and even a "Caches Along a Route" from Ottawa to Cambridge. My weekly Pocket Queries that I have e-mailed to my home are only the Ottawa caches. So, I will load up my Ottawa database in CacheMate and have it delete all of the files within that database. Then, I will load in all the new/updated caches from my most recent Ottawa .gpx file.

Not that it makes any difference to useability, but all of my Pocket Queries are generated using 3 criteria:
- Send me all caches that meet these 3 conditions:
1) Caches that I do not own
2) Caches that I have not found
3) Caches that are active (not disabled or archived).

[SigsPig]

Superdave:
Will pick you brain some more if we ever connect at a monthly. At least I'm not getting the duplication problem anymore