Ok I know I am opening myself up for "You big Dummy" posts, but I don't understand this whole PDA - geocaching thing. I now get pocket queries in both .gpx and .prc files. I have not found any how to get started info on it. Just some vague try this, try that posts. I tried looking at the Plucker site and was totally confused on what I needed to download. I used to use avantgo, but I'm not sure how to set up the custom channels. I really want to get away from having printouts and using the PDA that's been sitting around gathering dust. I have downloaded mobipoket and even have it loaded on the PDA, but hae never used it. I think that is where I need to start.

You are no Dummy.
I have found there is no EZ solution to PDA's and file downloads.
Mobipocket works but it is a memory pig and the downloads from Pocket Query has all the logs included which takes up alot of memory.

I use Avantgo but have not found a way to download cache information unless you go online with their wireless product ( PDA has to have a modem) and look at a page in real-time.

I know this does not answer your question, but as you can see I too am lost for a good workable solution.

Perhaps at the Feb meeting some of the PDA geeks can show us how to use this equipment

I messed around with it and got it to work like a champ.

I think the confusion comes from all the talk from people who had already used the products as delivered and wanted something more (to customize to their liking) Which I will probably be wanting to do come february. The whole thing wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be.

Hey Brad I tried to read all the directions, I just couldn't find any!

Thanks all!

Oops - never mind - that's me that's the dummy. If I had a PDA I'd know what in the heck you are all talking about. I'll lurk on these posts and when I get a PDA then I'll post my own 'DUMMY' questions.
Hehehe

What?, Me Worry? - Alfred E Neuman

I'll see if I can explain.

The pocket query can produce three types of files.
A "prc" file which can only be read by the MobiReader from mobipocket. There is version of MobiReader for Palm's and another for Pocket PC. There is free version and a non-free version. I don't like the free MobiReader and didn't try the one, which cost money.

It can also product a "loc" file which can be read by easyGPS and then load the name and coordinates to your GPS.
Then there is "GPX" files, which can also be read by easyGPS and then the names and coordinates can loaded to GPS.

However the GPX files have a lot more in them than just the names and coordinates. EasyGPS can't do anything with this extra information. But there are several programmers including me that are writing programs to do things with this information.

Clayjar has a program called Watcher which is suppose to allow you to look and sort the information in a GPX.

Then there is gpsbabel. This is a program, which can read, in various different kinds of files, which different GPS use, as well as different mapping programs including GPX and LOC files and convert them to any of the formats.

Another is GPXspinner. This is a website where you can upload your GPX and it will put a “spin” on it. By spin he means it will take the GPX, and change things like the waypoint id to be based on the different items about a cache such as type of cache, name owner etc. One addition thing it can do is produce HTML files that are suppose to be small pages, which can be loaded to PDA’s.

Also fizzymagic has made gpx2html which convert GPX to HTML suitable for Palms.

Now with these programs which convert GPX to HTML how do you get the HTML files into the Palm. There are two programs which I know that can do this: avantgo and Plucker. These two applications have two parts: one on the PC which can be set to take webpages then convert them to a PDA file, second part is on the PDA and displays the information. They both can get the HTML from the gpxspinner if you have it produce them. But Avantgo can only pull data from websites, which means it can’t directly get HTML files the gpx2html produces unless you put them on a website. However Plucker can read HTML from websites or local files which means it can read the files produced by gpx2html, but it is a pain to set to do that. However a programmer type can set up a procedure convert HTML files to a palm file in advance.

This brings me to the program I am working on. When it is “ready” it will work as follows:

1) A geocaching.com subscriber sets up a Pocket Query to produce a GPX file.
2) The pocket query can be set to be emailed to any email address, this will be a special email address on allenlacy.com
3) When the GPX arrives at allenlacy.com my program will “read” it.
4) It will extract the GPX
5) It will convert the GPX to HTML
6) It will convert the HTML to a plucker format.
7) It will then email the plucker file to the subscriber’s real email address
8) It will delete the HTML and pocket query file it just made (they aren’t needed).

When the subscriber gets the email from allenlacy.com, they can get the file and install it on their Palm. There is no Plucker for PocketPC. Then it is ready to read.

I am doing this because a) I don’t like Mobireader. b) I prefer not to get a GPX file in the email and then have to run a bunch of programs to get it in a form to load to the Palm. c) I like setting these kinds of things up.

I will let everyone know when I think it is in a usable form. I about have the GPX to HTML to Plucker format working. I will have to set up the email reading part, I have done that before, but it was for work and I will have to set it up for allenlacy.com.

Edited 1/18/03 I noticed miss typed something so I fixed it. The change is in bold.

[This message was edited by AllenLacy on January 18, 2003 at 09:09 AM.]

That is some great information on PDA/Pocket Query/formats. I copied it and saved it to my harddrive for later. Makes me want to go out and get a PDA. Thanks for clearing up a lot of misconceptions.

You Da Man

I have a headache. And Slayerette, sure you tried to read the directions... That's your story, and you're sticking to it! (Not the right critter - I just noticed we don't have any neat country & western type graemlins

Made my head ache too. But, also it tweaked my interest. My niece gave me a Franklin eBookMan for Yule and when I read about mobireader I perked up. It has that software on it.

So, I made a new query, got the file, transferred it to the eBookman and, ta da, I've got data!

Cool! Thanks, Allen!

See ya on the hunt!

Mobipocket has been a bear for me. I wanted to do a cache down in Key West, but mobi kept crashing on me.
I decided something better had to be out there.

I like what Spinner has done for me. Spinner takes the GPX file and converts it to an HTML doc that can be put on the Palm PDA. Frankly, I just got Plucker downloaded and installed and cannot make it work. I know it is something easy that I am missing, but I have been using AvantGo for so long that I just used it to get the file from Spinner. I carry 400+ GA pages now in an 800kb file on the Palm PDA right now. Spinner really works great and is easy to use. Try that and sync with AvantGo and you are off. I hear Plucker is great and I need to take the time to figure it out.

quote:

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Originally posted by gpsfun:
And Slayerette, sure you tried to read the directions... That's your story, and you're sticking to it! (Not the right critter - I just noticed we don't have any neat country & western type graemlins

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How about this in Slayerette's honor?

quote:

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Originally posted by mtn-man:
I like what Spinner has done for me. Spinner takes the GPX file and converts it to an HTML doc that can be put on the Palm PDA. Frankly, I just got Plucker downloaded and installed and cannot make it work. I know it is something easy that I am missing, but I have been using AvantGo for so long that ...

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At what point are you having trouble? I had no trouble installing or running it on my home Win98 machine or my work NT 4.0 machine. Now this weekend I had multiple problems installing it on allenlacy.com. This is a computer running FreeBSD. I had to work off an on all weekend with my Web hosting company to get it to install. I need it there to finish up my GPX to Plucker program.

There are several reasons I am using Plucker instead of Avantgo for my GPX program

Avantgo depends on the Avantgo servers, so that if they change the rules about free usage you might be stuck.

The Avantgo viewer, the program that runs on the Palm and allows you to actually see the webpages is larger than the Plucker viewer.

But the main reason is that with Avantgo their servers have to make a "web" connection to a website and convert the webpages to Avantgo database which is transfered to the PDA. Plucker does the collection and converting on the PC.

In fact with Plucker I can write a program to convert a GPX to webpages then immediately convert them to a Plucker file. After the information is in a Plucker file the webpages can be deleted.

If I was going to support Avantgo like GPXSpinner does, I would have to dedicate enough disk space to allow for all the GPX's it converted to webpages to stay for awhile.

I must be doing something wrong, because everything worked just fine for me. I had to go down to St. Simons on business so I requested an EBOOK for a 20 mile radius of Brunswick. I downloaded the mobipocket demo version which is the pro version that is good for just a few days.Shortly my ebook and .loc files were emailed and I downloaded it without a hitch. I have a 64 meg memory stick and I moved the ebook to it without a hitch. I loaded all the .loc files into easy gps and then into the receiver. I had no problems whatsoever, did some caching, returned home and ordered the pay version of mobipocket. I did this because with the scaled down version, you can't move your files to the memory stick. I have since purchased a dictionary and have suscribed to newsweek, the new york times and sports news. Still no problems.I am using a clie(Monochrome)with os4.1 and a memory stick.
Nasty

Slayerette,

Would you please explain for all us other "dummies" what you did and what programs you used to get everything to work? What setups you used, etc, and some details would sure help those of us also struggling to use a PDA for caching. Thanks for your help.

I just recently broke down and got a charter membership at geocaching.com, so all the talk about queries and pda's was moot...till now. I wish I had paid a little more attention. So I searched all the forums and reasearched all the sights and software mentioned. I came up with one conclusion...Start at the beginning. So I did what the site says to do and "Voila" I have cache pages on my PDA. I actually used it today, For the first time in the field. It wasn't too bad.

All i did was download the mobireader and then installed on my PDA. I then received my query In ebook format(which is a .prc file)from Geocaching.com by email which I had already setup on the site. I saved it to my downloading file folder. Because it is a .prc file when I click on it the file loads into the hotsync queue that my Palm desktop software (which came with the PDA) automatically loads to my PDA when I do a Hotsync.

When I opened the mobipocket reader on my PDA My query was right there.

It is probably the best place to start. Using the mobipocket reader. It gets you off and running quickly. But it is a little clunky. I'm sure after awhile (a month or so) I will be ready to move to better programs and such. But right now I'm just trying to understand how this stuff works and what I would like the software to do. Then I can evaluate the options a little better.


I hope that helps.

Many thanks for your very fast and comprehensive reply!!!!

Mobi started off OK for me. It was nice and then... one day it crashed and shut down the palm completely. It ate all the files that were loaded for mobi other than the test ebooks. Aesop's Fables were no help on the caches. My day of caching stopped at that point. Since then when it has crashed it only ate the Geocaching file once. Like I say, down in Key West it crashed everytime I did a search for this one cache GC number. I had to skip that cache. The first time it had the major meltdown I was on the road and mtn-woman emailed the Geocaching ebook .prc file to me and I was going again the next day. Since then I always carry the backup file on the laptop with me. If you are a mobi user and you travel heed that warning.

Now I am using spinner. If I can get plucker to work for me it would be great. Avantgo is sweet and I really like it a ton. I get 5 day satellite predictions from heavens-above.com, I get headlines from space.com, I have weather from weather.com, and I can sync any web page on the net.

Next I am going to try gps2html. It is suppose to make smaller files than spinner. Every little bit helps.

There are two things to me that I like about spinner over mobi (well, besides the meltdown thing!). One is the fact that the caches are sorted two ways, by GC number and by cache name. You can select which way you sort them with a touch of the screen! The other thing is that the hint is linked directly on the cache description page. With mobi you have to search for it using the search function. I hated having to scrawl the cache GC number if I was stuck. With spinner all you do is tap the screen. From what I understand gps2html does the same thing.

I used to swear by mobi, now I just swear at it. If it crashes on you and eats the file, you will know what I mean. It ends caching for the day. That is the worst.

By the way Allen, plucker installed on the machine and on the Palm. The manual synced to the palm on the installation. I cannot get anything to sync now. On the hotsync operation, it doesn't even appear to hit the screen. I feel I have a configuration issue, but I cannot figure it out. I have even gone through a re-install. I may bring the whole thing to the February meeting since Avantgo is working super for the time being.

Well mtn-man I have a guess as to what your problem is. First I will have to give some background for my guess to make sense.

Both Avantgo and plucker have 3 major parts.

1) A viewer which runs on the PDA and allows you to see the information gathered from the web.

2) A parser or spider, this is the part which reads your configuration and reachs out to Internet and gathers content and converts it to a format for the viewer.

3) A transfer tool that takes the converted information and puts it on the PDA.

On Avantgo parts 2 and 3 are triggered when you press the HotSync button. Also with Avantgo the parser runs on the Avantgo servers.

On Plucker they are seperate and run on your computer. You run the Plucker Desktop and tell it to Update its channels. This triggers the Plucker Parser. It then automaticly places the results in the Palm Install tool. Then when you hotsync, it places the gathered information on the Palm just like any other installation.

The advantage of Avantgo's method is it is a single step. The advantage of Plucker's method is that if you hotsync more than once a day, then it doesn't have to be connected to the internet, whereas Avantgo trys to connect to the internet on every hotsync. This is also what will allow me to build a Plucker file and email it. When it arrives all someone has to do is run the Palm Install tool and add the file manually. Just like Mobireader requires. Also if you have an always on Internet connection, you can set the Plucker Desktop to update on a schedule, then when you hotsync it will transfer the Plucker files to the Palm.

Anyway I suspect you aren't running Plucker Desktop and telling it to update. So when you hotsync there is nothing to transfer.

I just wish I understod all this!

I wish I had a PDA