TAG :: Toronto Area Geocachers
Dec 15 2010
The secrets are starting to leak out now. Now we have a GoGeocaching twitter post that links to a video on their YouTube account. Check out the embedded video above to see a demo of the new map functionality. Very similar to Opencaching.com’s map with one notable exception – the Geocaching.com map blots out the map with the cache information when you zoom out to a state/province level.
Word is, this will be arriving next Tuesday (December 21), and this update’s gonna be major.
Dec 15 2010
Groundspeak is now reporting (via their Twitter account) that their large infrastructure update is complete. Users have been noticing glitches all morning, including problems with the Geocaching iPhone and Android apps, and the coord.info links. Judging from the chatter around on the blogs there is a lot more going on at Groundspeak than a simple server upgrade. No doubt the war chest is being armed against Opencaching (and others). The website appears to be operating more or less normally now.
The date was chosen for the upgrade as historically December 14 is the least busy time on the site. Guess most of us are Christmas shopping … well in the Toronto area we are 
Dec 15 2010
While the Geocaching.com site may be back up after the update, it’s not without any hiccups. The site is very slow in responding currently.
Pocket Queries have also not run for today and the iPhone app can’t connect to the site.
Dec 15 2010
Found this one this morning at Teamvoyagr’s Cachemania blogsite. Looks like Groundspeak gave permission to one of their reviewers in the United Kingdom. Pyrocacher, to release a few screen shots from an upcoming software update at Geocaching.com. These features are not coming as a part of last night’s update but we “won’t be waiting long”.
Improvements coming for include:
- Better maps – he has a screen shot showing every cache in North America
- Cache favouriting
- Stats
Stop by Pyrocachers blog for more details
Dec 15 2010
Well, it looks like the Geocaching.com update window has gone a little over the 6 hours. The original time estimate was from 11PM EST to 5AM EST for the site maintenance but here we are at 8:25 AM and the site seems to be down. The forums are up and running, but there’s nothing posted in the maintenance thread to indicate there’s a problem. Geocaching.com, Waymarking.com are down but Wherigo.com is up and running.
Dec 14 2010
Just a quick reminder that the TAG Christmas gathering is tonight at 6:00pm, at the Kelsey’s Restaurant (Millcreek and Erin Mills Parkway) in Mississauga. The event page is GC2JATT. The event currently has 70 people signed up (as of 2:00pm). While the main seating area holds 50 people, there’s room to spill over into the main restaurant as well. Make sure you check the event page before showing up for any last minute information
Also, please note that Groundspeak will be shutting down for maintenance starting at 11PM EST for about 6 hours, so you might have to wait until tomorrow to post your “attended” log, especially if you head out caching after the pub. Groundspeak is describing this as the biggest update they’ve undertaken in 5 years. Wonder if there will be any interesting new goodness come out of this update.
Dec 13 2010
Several Toronto area geocachers were interviewed for a new local magazine, Journey ON!. The magazine features articles about travel and adventure in Ontario. northernpenguin (yup, that’s me), teamvoyagr and chris-mouse were interviewed at the BFL Boot Camp event last October.
The caches I referred to in the article are the Tour de Matchedash series, and Languages.
The earthcache is Juicepig’s Sudbury Astrobleme
You can view the magazine online here, or skip right to the article text here.
The magazine is also embedded below, if you can view Adobe Flash content:
Dec 13 2010
If you’d like to see COG Spring Fling 7 get a Souvenir on Geocaching.com, now there’s a place where you can vote for that.
Spring Fling is hosted annually by Central Ontario Geocachers, and it’s Ontario’s local Mega Event, held just north of the City. Even if you don’t upvote the Souvenir, set aside June 11, 2011 to attend the event, it is one of Ontario’s premier annual event caches.
Dec 10 2010
Groundspeak has opened up a section on the feedback site for picking out the next souvenirs. Souvenirs are little FourSquare like achievement badges that show up on your profile when you complete a certain task – like logging a geocache in a given area, or at a certain event.
Here’s a list of all the active Souvenirs
If you have an active account on Geocaching.com, you can head on over and see the list that everyone’s pitching, and vote for the ones you’d like
Dec 10 2010
We’ve completed the migration for the TAG Forums to Bluehost, and now they’re back online. Thanks for being patient folks!
UPDATE: Now all of our previous articles have been migrated from the decommissioned server.