yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] HellSassa69:
to sum it up:

currently GcZII isnt working as it should?

I was caching 2 days ago, we got the list of caches but we cant view every cache listed :(

Is there an other program around which works on wm atm?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] mistm:
I guess that the blog is here: http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Gzh/
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] gotgrip_com:
If someone does get in touch with him, see if he'd be willing to go open source. I'm sure there'll always be people running WM, so having a few extra programmers (even if they're constantly changing, and even if he approves all the changes) would help. (I'd certainly brush up on my programming to chip in.)

And ditto on HellSassa's post: anything out there that even comes close to use in the meantime?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Titus_Andronicus:
Can anyone figure out how to contact Tom from that Blog?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] gotgrip_com:
I sent an e-mail to the address at the bottom of nicque.com/PQz/index.htm mentioning that it wasn't working, but I'm just a guy out the blue...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] hdpsytes:
tom. please help us.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ZzetT:
Can somebody post an old cache description (html page)? (before the site was updated) I think I have an idea how we could fix the problem in the case that tom doesn't have time for that.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Paulloft:
Managed to have a good days caching yesterday despite the problems, by loading up a gpx file before we went out.

BUT, as usual, we ended the day stopping off for some 'extras' on the way home and of course they weren't on my device and I couldn't download them.

The other problem was we struggled with a couple of caches and I really could have done with more previous logs to see if they held clues. Only had the ones in the GPX file, and couldn't download any more.

But I did find the ones on my list and it was possible to log the finds and inventory drops on the go, thanks the a previous poster's hint that the logs post ok despite the 'cache not found' message that pops up.

Hope it can be sorted soon. Given the amount of work involved in maintaining this app and Tom's other work, maybe it might be time to open things up in a controlled way for other clever people to help keep it going.

Was out yesterday with someone using Trimble on a Nokia, and while it was good, it wasn't anywhere near GCz in terms of functionality.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] acejavelin:
I don't know how close it is, but GateCacher works, see their website here: http://www.gateway.dds.nl/gatecacher/

It is another scraper-type program, but seems to get updated very quickly after changes to GC, typically withing a few hours of GC making changes. Last update was 4/2/2010.

It is not as feature rich or "polished" as GCzII, but it does work in a pinch and will allow you to continue to caching until Tom can find the time to make a fix.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] pdafuzzi:
If you download and import the Caches via GPX-Files GCzII works fine :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Pixiewave:
seems i'm not the only one who's having problems with the 'cache not found' error.

As i am new to this app (and any kind of cache tracking device) i thought i dit something wrong in my settings or something.

But its proppably the app itself thats having problems.

bummer though:(, as i was looking forward to learn to go geocaching.

i hope it will be resolved soon
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Titus_Andronicus:
You know you can actualy look at the web page for the cache right? If you have loaded the cache from the GPX, then you can get GCzII can send you to the web page
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] gotgrip_com:
Sadly, some of us (not going to mention any names... but it's me) don't have premium accounts to get at the GPX files, so us freeloaders (or "casual geocachers," as I prefer to be called) are stuck.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] khaytsus:
And I, as a Premium Member, also can be stuck if you're out in the field and can't just generate a GPX for "at my hotel for the night".

That said, one can always go to the WAP or full page and do it manually, write down the coordinates, plug those into GCzII, etc.. But that's a pain, we're used to this being all magic ;)

I'd really love to see GCzII using the GC.com API, but I bet that isn't going to happen if it hasn't happened yet.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] -Mr. X-:
I don't think they will approve it as an official app because it steps on the toes of there premium features. GCzII offers all the advantages of a GPX file in theory. GC.com wants you to pay for premium to get GPX advantages, GCzII gathers all the info a GPX would give you with out the need to pay... From what i understand anyways, im not a PM.

I will stand by and wait for the update.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Dogpack:
Since Tom has insisted on not accepting donations, he could take a hybrid approach and make it usable by premium members only. This should benefit geocaching.com to gain subscription as well as users of GCz since we could probably become an approved app. GCz would still be free, but would simply require premium membership to be fully functional.

It's minimal amount to pay for a great website and a great companion software.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] gotgrip_com:
Ditto on that. Just spent some time out with it. Biggest thing I noticed about it is that there's no option to turn the gps on/off like in GCz, so it uses a little more battery, since the gps is always on. Past that, it definitely gets the job done!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] SdKfz.171:
Hi, what file do you need? I have some cache description pages on my storage card downloaded two weeks ago, so probably can send you the file you want.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jake Bullit:
Could this be part of the problem?

http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=245813&st=0

GS are throttling automated tools.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Jake Bullit:
Maybe reducing the amount of cached downloaded to say 5 would help.Currently the lowest option available is 20.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] amelsfort:
Nice program! I use it all the time for GeoCaching.

Only two things which could be better:

1. the scrolling on the description-page only works using a scrollbar (which is quite small). Scrolling by moving the page itself would be great!

2. I would like the distance on the GPS-monitor to show the 'exact' distance. Not it shows 250m, then 100m, then 50m, but nothing in between. It would be nice to know the exact distance.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] R@V3N:
Hi

to 1.) This is a bug in my opinion. In the past versions, normal scrolling worked for me. So, I think Tom will fix in in the next version(s).

to 2.) At my Device (Touch HD), all works fine. It shows the correct distance (not only 50m-steps). Could it be a setting, you've made in your GCzII?

greetz

Markus
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Titus_Andronicus:
2. you are probably looking at the range, not the distance. Distance is in the top left, the bottom left is the current 'radar' range.

PS Tom Please Help Up. We are dieing in Geocaching purgatory!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] mistm:
Actually the finger scrolling worked on Windows Mobile 6.1 with Manila 2.1. When I went to WM6.5 it stopped. However the text is selectable so you can extract GPS coordinates directly from the text. You were not able to do this with finger friendly scrolling. This has been discussed already.

That because you are looking at wrong number. Watch the number in left upper corner. There is distance from the stage. The number jumping by 50m or so is scale of your radar. If you use automatic scaling the number changes by getting for shorter distance from the cache :-)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] SdKfz.171:
Here is reply to my request from Groundspeak. I wrote to them that I was just about to buy a premium membership (I am just a geocacher-beginner - 19 chaches found so far), but due to denial o GCzII I am confused, because it is only way for Windows Mobile users to go geocaching paperless.

So this is what they wrote:

Hello Jaroslav,

Thank you for writing to us.

The GZCII application is using Groundspeak's registered Trademarks and other intellectual property without consent. The GCZII application is an automated tool that scrapes data from the geocaching.com website without authorization in violation of the Geocaching.com Terms of Use Agreement.

You might try looking into the Trimble navigation.

More info can be found here: http://www.geocaching.com/waypoints/default.aspx

We do have iPhone apps and are in the process of developing an app for the new Android phone sometime before the end of the month.

Hope this helps!

Happy caching.

Best Regards, Sara

Community Relations Representative
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] iggy097:
any word on this?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] shaggyguitarist:
I remember Tom Saying A while ago that he was planning on developing the app for android.

Do we think that the talks with groundspeak earlier this year were to ask Tom to develop the app for them?

If so, where does that leave us as windows users? will Tom forget all the effort he has put into this app, and not support us? I don't believe he will.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] gotgrip_com:
Here's section 5 of the terms of use.

Is anyone brave enough to ask Groundspeak for express written permission to use GCz? ;) (And I think they call it "automated" because it uses the site without you actually touching the site yourself. Debatable, but it's a "their game - their rules" situation.)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] SecretAgentMan:
About a week ago, Groundspeak made a few changes to their site. Not a big deal, probably not malicious, probably just tweaking to make the site run better. One of the tweaks changed the code so that the page did not have to be reloaded when you decrypt a hint. In the process, the code for how pages are requested probably got changed. This is why you can retrieve a list of caches via a data connection, but not retrieve a specific page. Basically, GCZ's request for the cache pages became malformed after the changes, and this is why it doesn't work.

This happens all the time with applications that scrape a site. Ebay is a typical example. There are lots of apps that give you an interface to Ebay. Ebay changes something and the apps break. The developers figure out the changes and release a patch. It's not malicious, its just the way it is. You really can't expect Ebay or other site ops to notify scrapers that they are changing something. Why should they?

I'm sure that in time, Tom will release a patch if the issue is patchable. In the mean time, be patient. It's not like you have purchased a product and therefore can expect an immediate fix. Tom has busted his butt developing a product that doesn't cost you a dime. Give him a break!

In the meantime, the LAST thing you want to do (IMHO) is whine to Groundspeak. They already know about GCz, and other scrapers. For now, they're tolerating it, I assume. I'm sure they don't want to start fielding a bunch of complaints about a program that isn't theirs and shouldn't be hitting their site anyway. Why should they have to burn time responding to an app they haven't even authorized? Their changes haven't been too frequent, I don't think. But if they get pissed off, there are certainly coding solutions that can be implemented that can wreak havoc on the unauthorized applications, and then you're hosed!

And for those that don't understand why Groundspeak hasn't given Tom an API, well, I don't understand either, maybe. BTW, an API isn't just a "thing" you give to someone and magic happens. It a framework of interfaces that has to be developed by Groundspeak to allow access to their databases. It just doesn't "appear", it has to be developed.

It wouldn't surprise me if Groundspeak has no intentions of developing a Windows mobile API. If you are a "mobile" programmer, you'll understand why. If they do have one, they're not going to just give it away. Why would they? They'll either sell the API, or buy the application and bring it in house so they can sell it. That's just good business sense. Either way, it means your going to pay for something that is now free. That doesn't bother me, but it may bother others.

So, as my daughter would say (in a nice way) . . . chill! I'm sure things will get worked out.

Just my thoughts. Hope I haven't hacked anybody off!

S.A.M.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] rk25:
Might want to try this and it works h ttp://live.geocaching.com/
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] khaytsus:
Is that the java app? It's absolutely horrid..
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] rk25:
Yes I know, but it still works
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] sandro2204:
To write an API for communication between website and WindowsApplication is not that hard. You just do a HTMLrequest and filtering the code by tags for the information you need. Therefore geocaching.com have to provide two or three pages/files which not changes monthly. Such files already exist! ..for the iPhone-app. But they don't want that we use it, because for iPhone-app you have to pay.

I can imagine it's really disappointing for Tom to constantly caring about changes on the main site.

Does GCzII really crawl information you normally do not get as a not-paying member? (It never worked for me ^^)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] amelsfort:
Damn, that was very stupid from my. :o

The selecting of the coordinates is nice indeed, but maybe it's possible to have a contextmenu with an option 'select'. Like it's done in the messaging-apps. That way is possible to have both options.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] nicco66:
Hey folks! Just cool down...

Hey folks!

Just cool down and enjoy some cacheless days! It's neither helpful to cry for an update nor useful to write in large letters. Just read SecretAgentMans post (few postings earlier) and lean back for a while...

Regards Nicco
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] SdKfz.171:
2 S.A.M.:

Well man,

I understand your standpoint, but mine is a little bit different. That's why I replied to GS, that maybe it should be a good plan to make GCzII available only to premium members. In fact I'd rather pay $ 30 a year to go paperless, than $ 25 a month for mobile internet connection (really, it's the price for mobile internet here in Czech Republic). This way even Tom should have some profit for his efforts he put in that app.

I just want GS to realize that there is a lot of WM users who needs to (even as a premium members) either print cache descriptions or save them as HTML pages. If they would allow to save (even limited amount - let's say 50 caches a week) automatically and only for premium members, what harm will this do them?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] djstern:
I've discussed this before. Jerimy can try to totally control EVERYTHING geocaching and make us pay for Tremble or the Iphone app or he can get more memberships. Considering that many phones today have GPS built in we no longer need to spend a couple hundred or more to buy a receive. If Jerimy would simply realize that and provide proper API support to applications and list them on GC then he'd stand to sell a lot more premium memberships. The problem with trying to get everything, is that you usually end up with less. He just don't get that. He needs to make GS as accissable and user friendly as possible. The way he's going about it makes it much less user friendly and accessable and that discourages people from purchasing premimum memberships. I've got a number of friends that gave up on Geocaching because messing with GPX files and being out of the limited area their GPX files did cover was more trouble than it was worth. Programs like GCzII allow for impromptued caching without concern as to how old their GPS file is or if they are out of the limited area that their GPX file would cover. That convienance does nothing but sell more premium memberships.

Bottom line, GCzII and other programs like this promote geocaching and do so at no charge to Grouncspeak. Unfortunately, Jeremy not only doesn't recognize that, but doesn't even care. If he had half a brain, he'd be thankful for it instead of fighting it.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Mephistoathell:
Help will come on Weekend

If you look at toms blog you can read this:

derlbear 2010/04/05 04:02

Hey Gech, could you please look at the GCzII page at xda :-) ? We're all waiting for our personal hero, Tom Hiro! Not only because loading caches from gc.com doesn't work any more.

Cheers,

derlbear

Gzh 2010/04/05 11:34

GCのサーバー側に修正が入ったのかもしれませんね～　（＞＜　時間の都合で週末になってしまいますが、確認してみますね。

Hi derlbear, might be changed something on GC.com server. I will check it on weekend. sorry for the inconvenience.

So we must only wait a few days more :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] SecretAgentMan:
Yep, I agree with you . I don't mind paying for added functionality either. That's why I'm was a bit puzzled about why Groundspeak didn't seem to want to capitalize on the Windows Mobile market. After my post, I saw the link to the Geocaching live beta, which IS a Windows mobile app. This might explain why they might not be responsive to an outside developer's app.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] khaytsus:
At work I also have this issue; "We wrote XYZ program to do that, we don't need anything else" regardless of the fact that XYZ is horrible and only works for a subset of things. The Live app is like that; it's total crap yet as you suggest, GS offers it as the only Windows Mobile option.

I'd really like to see Tom pull the templates out of the exe and put them in the install path somewhere so that we could have some sort of chance of fixing them ourselves when this happens.

Someone mentioned a few posts back about the throttling they are doing on the site.. This could certainly cause problems for "Load all" but I suspect that "Load nearby" and then loading a single cache is causing this throttling, but we might all have to be very careful or avoid "Load all" going forward... Have to see when GCzII is fixed if it's a problem or not.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Titus_Andronicus:
Good. That is what we are looking for, some positive acnoladgement that the problem will be looked at. Exelent. Now we just need to wait.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Sebo2000:
I Have a little workaround for Premium Users.

You can make a pocket querie on geocaching.com

then you get an zipped GPX File, this can you import in GCZII under menu->cache lists->gpx import

Start a search within gczii with the same parameters as in the pocket querie and save this list.

Now you can use GCZII.

This workaroung doesn't work for Coins/TB und Pictures.

Happy Hunting.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] derlbear:
That's why I posted a message on his blog :-) Stay calm and relax. Now we know that Tom will have a look at this and maybe he finds a way so that we can help ourselves :)

Cheers,

derlbear
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] w84100:
Good to hear.

I use GCZII since a while because there is nothign out there which has nearly the same features combined with this easy to use GUI. From my point of view it would be prbably a good idea to support not only gc. At least in Germany the opencaching side is also good enough to be supported and on opencaching there is a much smaller risk that we run into trouble because the site will be changed only to prevent access from tools. I reid today also live.gc but this tool can not be used on a WM6.x handheld. it is only terrible.

I think supporting opencaching will also put some pressure on gc to either allow such tools or probably to bring more and more caches on opencache and we can than start to really use it.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] hdpsytes:
Whilst we wait for the TOM:

you can use the http://geostats.geocaching-pt.net/ to generate gpx with all caches of your region (though not all caches getting the correct description). then import the gpx with GCZII. if something fails open the zip file generated by the site with the Gsak and generates a new gpx.

firefox plugin to get the gpx (one by one): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/45777

alternative program for WM: http://www.gateway.dds.nl/gatecacher/

something that we should not forget:

TOM thank you for your work!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] andreus2:
Hi i dont know why, but i cant display any cache. After i set up name of location, list of caches shows, but when i open some of them it shows me window "cache not found". When i check download all caches, it downloads 1 MB but 0 caches.. I tried look in 09_CacheDetail.html file, there are correct coordinates, not ?????.. So.. what i am doing wrong?

Thanx for answer
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Titus_Andronicus:
Must...Not...Flame...

A recent GC.com update temporaraly killed GCzII. Tom (the developer) is going to try to fix the problem this weekend. Be patient, and keep trying AppToDate to get the update ASAP.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Titus_Andronicus:
How do you use that site. I don't speak Portugies, so I am unable to read a lot of the site. Will it generate a GPX file for anywhere, or just in Portugal?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] dreamfalcon:
I think is just for Portugal
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] hdpsytes:
only realized now, it's only for Portugal.

have a british flag but only translate the main page. :(

if you are a premium member you can perform a pocket query, otherwise try the mozila add-on but it only gets one by one.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Wolves4Ever:
Unhelpfull to say the least... I too was seriously thinking of going 'premium' on geocache, but dont think i'll bother now.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] privatrony:
"Our" caches

Geocaching.com makes business on "our" caches- created, owned, maintained by us, geocachers. They will pay/reimbursed us also? Without our caches = no business for them.:mad: