AbsoCachinlutely

GSAK stats update

I updated my profile on Geocaching.com this morning using the new Stats macro. There is now a cool feature to add statistics on placed caches. However, as some of my caches in the UK have been adopted, I needed to edit the database to reset the owner back to me as per this post on the forums.
The macros needed can be found on the GSAK macro forum and I used the All Purpose Statistics Generator for the output and the Manage Waypoints macro to load in the logs from my adopted caches.
The end result can be found at my Geocaching.com profile page

Ohio Delorme Challenge

The Ohio Delorme geocache requires a visit to each cache in the Delorme atlas for Ohio but only visits after the cache was placed will count towards the cache find. Once a cache has been found on each page you then get the co-ordinates for the final cache hidden somewhere in Ohio.

With the aid of a KML file, the recent finds pocket query, GSAK and Google earth it is quite easy to work out which pages you need to do.

First download the Ohio Delorme KML file from the main cache page, GCZ554. Next download Google Earth (if you don't already have it already. Finally  you want a .loc file of all your finds since the 2nd of December 2006 when the cache was placed.  The easiest way to do this is to download your latest finds into GSAK, then using the filters set State=Ohio, Found=Yes, Date=On or After 12/2/2006.  I saved the filter as Delorme so I can run this whenever I need to check my status.

In Google earth open the KML file and then open the loc file  to see the caches appear in gridlines for each page. You may want to turn off extra options and layers such as road names, community uploaded content etc. This will give you a cleaner picture.

The picture above shows the gridlines and the picture below shows my found caches so far. I've actually found quite a few other pages but unfortunately they were before the cache was placed so they don't count.

So far I've found pages 45-48,55-59,65 and 67-69

Meanwhile TeamJNLe4 completed all the pages yesterday and now just has to go for the final cache - congrats Jonathan!

GSAK 7 beta and stats

I ran a test installation of gsak 7 on my pc this week. The main reason for this was to install the statistics macro to generate the stats for my geocaching finds. There were a few prerequisites below - links point to the download page rather than the actual file to ensure new updates get downloaded.
First download the cutting edge, most feature packed aka beta version of Gsak 7.
Install the latest patch to bring you up to 7.1 build 64
Finally download the
FindstatGenv3 and whilst you are at it, I would highly recommend the Google Maps export macro too that produces a very cool google maps interfaces to caches.
Once you have downloaded and run the Stats macro, I recommend you download your "My finds" pocket query from Geocaching.com and save the results into a temporary GSAK database. This means the macro has less work to do as it only has to look through one log - yours. Even if you don't do this the results are outstanding. The stats generation used to take 4 minutes to run in version2 of the macro - it now takes 20 seconds! The output can be seen at my Geocaching.com profile (although this is using the old version stats -I've not uploaded the new ones yet)

New caching map tool

I discovered myGME this evening whilst doing some gsak work/experimentation. This gsak macro allows you to get a google map of all the caches in your currently defined filter set with a radius circle predefined to show you the caches within that area. If you want to move the area, you select the red marker icons and move them to the center of the circle and the distance away from the center. It works great. Takes a while to load if you have a lot of caches mind.
The graphic below shows the initial output for the geocaches near Hocking Hills.

Cache planning along a route in Autoroute

If you export your gsak caches into Streets & Trips/Autoroute, create a route and then use the Show or Hide places option you can get a list of caches along your trip. I've made a rough tutorial online

Keyhole and caching.

Wow - by using the google keyhole software and gsak it is possible to extract data from gsak and create a kml file to import and see a satellite overview of all the caches.
You just need to save the custom export field as
"C:\Program Files\GSAK\GPSBabel.exe" -i gpx -f "c:\program files\gsak\temp\babel.gpx" -o kml -F c:\temp\25.kml

First day caching

After the dismal weekends weather of snow and rain, today was gloriously sunny so I put on some sunscreen (yes it was that hot and sunny) and Kristen chauffeured me around Dublin as I went and did 6 or 7 caches in the area that I had not done yet. Had a great time and saw some really nice areas and artwork. Pictures will follow on the geocaching website when I upload them from the camera. It was quite amusing to see that people had been to a lot of the caches after I had been and at one cache, 3 sets of cachers had been unable to find it. However, the coordinates were quite a way out and I had a lot more experience than they had (put together). Some of the caches were in (huge) ammo boxes which meant I was able to pass on some of the travel bugs I had brought over from the states and others were in micro caches.
Had a great time and got over the withdrawal symptoms of going a week without caching.

I now have to get my hard disk installed in the computer so I can get my gsak database onto the computer I currently have access to. Speaking of which, GSAK got updated today and this new version fixes a bug I reported in the debug processing in the macros AND it also allows you to check a pop account for gpx files and process them automatically - that is an awesome feature.

Satellite photos from a cache point

After someone posted the link to satellite photos in america from GSAK, someone else mentioned it only worked in the states. However by adding the following lines to the gsak html options you get the locations for the uk too.

UKSatView+++=http://uk.multimap.com/map/photo.cgi?lat=%lat&lon=%lon&icon=x&scale=5000
UKSatView++=http://uk.multimap.com/map/photo.cgi?lat=%lat&lon=%lon&icon=x&scale=10000
UKSatView+=http://uk.multimap.com/map/photo.cgi?lat=%lat&lon=%lon&icon=x&scale=25000
UKSatView-=http://uk.multimap.com/map/photo.cgi?lat=%lat&lon=%lon&icon=x&scale=50000
UKSatView--=http://uk.multimap.com/map/photo.cgi?lat=%lat&lon=%lon&icon=x&scale=100000
UKSatView---=http://uk.multimap.com/map/photo.cgi?lat=%lat&lon=%lon&icon=x&scale=200000

using spoilersync with gsak

I had a brainwave this morning and was eager to test my new theory. I've been out in the field looking for caches and using gpxsonar for my gpx management and to give me offline cache details, logs and hints. I also have the spoilers downloaded onto my SD card using spoilersync however navigating to the spoilers in the list of jpg and html files is a bit of a cumbersome process (especially whilst walking on uneven ground and holding a gps in the other hand). However by creating a custom url in gsak for the spoiler location and then exporting to html the filtered caches, I now have a list of caches sorted by name,distance or whatever and when I click on the cache itself I get the details, logs, hints and a link to the spoiler html with the pictures in it.

All you need to do is include the line !spoiler=file://\sd card\my documents\spoilers\%code.html in your custom url's from the Tools menu, options, html tab. Note the ! in front of spoiler tells gsak to use this url in the export. The location of the html file can be obtained by using file explorer to browse to the file on the pocketpc and then double clicking on it. This will load the file into pocketie and you will then see the url string that you need to replace (as it might be different to my example)

Now all I need is way of logging data on each cache and I can almost do away with gpxsonar. The advantage of gpxsonar is that i can keep an entire db of uk caches on the pda in a reduced amount of disk space - html would take up a lot more and would take a long time to generate and upload onto the pda.

GSAK UK Motorway Locations

Copy the contents of gsakloc.txt into your locations (Tools Menu, Options, location tab) in gsak at the end of what you already have and then you will be able to select motorway junctions and service stations in filters and in arc/polygon exports. Very handy for those caching jobs at the end of a work visit :-)
Thanks to the files at Mark C's page for the initial data.

GSAK 2 beta out

GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) beta 2 is out and looks good - downloading it now to try out.