CachingCentral

Garmin released minor firmware update for the GPSMAP 60Cx, GPSMAP 60CSx, GPSMAP 76Cx & GPSMAP 76CSx models yesterday. What is listed as changed is:

Changes made from version 3.20 to 3.30:

• Fix potential shutdown when searching UK extended postal codes.
• Ensure that all UK extended postal code search results are shown.
• Enable the Quit button function on the geocache compass page.

To get the download go to the Garmin product page at http://www.garmin.com/outdoor/products.html and select your model from the list. Then on the left, select the Updates and Download link and then the firmware update link on the specific update page for each model.

With more than 700 geocaches in Anchorage alone, there’s plenty of exploring to be done – with plenty of rewards.

“A lot of them are theme based, so you can find a book cache, you can find a dog toy cache over off the coastal trail, the used DVD cache is out near Portage,” Ambrose said.

There’s actually one in anchorage awhile back, someone left a PDA in it and all other kinds of higher tech stuff,” O’Connell said.

Full story…

NBC17 in North Carolina did an intro piece on geocaching and it includes a couple minute long video of a couple local geocachers.

“There’s a page on the Web site for every cache out there,” said Linda Roberts. “It has the coordinates, descriptions; sometimes it tells you what you’re looking for. It might give you a few hints.”

It will also show a level of difficulty for finding each cache. Some are simple. 

This trek took us just off the American Tobacco Trail in Durham. 

But you know sometimes you don’t always find it. But that is what is cool. There are hundreds of thousands of caches all over the world from Antarctica to one that apparently is in the mouth of an active volcano. I would just suggest starting along the American Tobacco Trail.    

And it’s a fun hobby for anyone. 

“It’s great,” Rowland said. “It’s great for families, single people, great for people trying to lose a little weight.” 

But it can be addictive. Rowland and his family have found more than 5,000 caches in three and a half years. 

Full story and video…

The bomb squad responded after a 2-inch-long metal cylinder was reported to police about 2:20 p.m. near an In-N-Out restaurant at 324 S. Azusa Ave., Azusa police Sgt. Michael Gurbada told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. 

An In-N-Out employee called the sheriff’s department after seeing a car drive up, leave the metal canister on the ground and drive away, said Gurbada.

Here’s a link to the cache – Get In, Get Out – Covina

Read the full story…

Jeep has a bunch of games to play at http://www.jeep.com/games/ with one of the games being a Jeep Geocaching Challenge. Ater a simple site registration, you get to download a zip file containing the game. The zip file is 63MB, so you don’t want to do this on dial-up. You extract the zip file to a subdirectory (takes about 80 MB) and run jeep.exe to start the game. It’s a pretty system resoruce intensive game, but very cool, and free.

Game Description:
Are you ready to hunt for the cache? You can find them by exploring five different areas in one of four Jeep vehicles or challenge yourself to a number of exciting Mini-Missions.

Game Features:

• Explore the terrain in one of four Jeep vehicles: 2007 Grand Cherokee Limited, 2007 Commander Limited, 2007 Liberty Limited, and 2007 Wrangler Rubicon.
• Hop out of your Jeep vehicle at any time to access hard-to-reach areas on foot.
• Collect cache to unlock postcards and e-mail them to your friends.
• Compete in five timed Mini-Missions and get your score on the Global Leaderboard.
• Experience realistic weather effects in five different terrains.

Garmin has updated the firmware for the 60Cx, 60CSx, 76Cx & 76CSx units to v 3.20.  I think all units are reporting the same changes.

 

Changes made from version 3.10 to 3.20:

• Updated daylight saving time dates.
• Add capability for 2 wide data fields on map, compass, and highway pages.
• Add capability for 1 wide data field on map page.
• Added data card information page.
• Add selectable alarms for proximity waypoints and custom POI.
• Improve labeling and scanning of custom POI on the map page.
• Address issue where custom POI finder would erroneously produce no results.
• Add capability to see vertical profile of an autoroute using DEM topo data.
• Fixed issue with incorrect dates showing when editing the date field for Sun & Moon page and Hunt & Fish page.
• Fix issue where invalid find menu options could show when using the Auto Order feature.
• Fix issue with the Swiss grid providing incorrect coordinates.
• Fix issue where route names would be converted to upper case during editing.
• Update data card driver to support SD version 2 cards.
• Corrected problem with NMEA input that could corrupt Waypoint names in WPL sentences.

Download the updates off the following links:

Garmin 60Cx
Garmin 60CSx
Garmin 76Cx
Garmin 76CSx (as of this posting it doesn’t show the 3.20 but I think it’s the same as the 76Cx so you can use that download)

Garmin has released an update to MapSource. The file is large at over 45MB.

Changes made from version 6.11.6 to 6.12.2:

• Changed the default file format to GDB version 3.
• Added web links. This feature allows user created internet search options to appear on context menus. These search options can use either location or name information.
• Added a MiniMap.
• Added new waypoint symbols (contacts, geocache, hunting, etc.).
• Added support for multiple links on waypoints, routes, and tracks.
• Added additional guidance for the user when clicking on the ‘View in Google Earth’ menu item.
• Added support for writing waypoints, routes, and tracks to SD cards for new chart plotters.
• Enhanced the driving directions page in the route dialog to provide additional statistics.
• Added a notes area to the route dialog. These notes are printed with driving directions.
• Added two options to the routing preference ‘Try to Avoid’ list: ferries and seasonal road closures.
• Added support for multi-line comments for waypoints.
• Added a transfer preference to specify if (and which) serial ports should be searched for Garmin devices. This should solve problems for users that have badly behaved internal modems that cause MapSource to hang.
• Added the ability to join tracks from the Tracks page.
• Added track color to the list on the Tracks page.
• Changed the behavior of the track draw tool to populate the elevation in tracks if the map product has DEM elevation data.
• Changed several feature symbols (mountain peak, city, and airport) to be smaller so they don’t obscure as much of the map. This only applies when the large symbol size is selected.
• Adjusted the layout of several preference pages for improved usability.
• Changed the behavior of several dialogs to ignore the degree symbol in user provided coordinate strings.
• Fixed an issue when selecting map sets larger than 4 GB in size.
• Fixed an issue with saving files to offline network drives.
• Fixed an issue with preserving line feeds inside of comments in GPX files.
• Fixed an issue with printing when the ‘No Map’ product is selected.
• Fixed some line rendering issues on Blue Chart map products.
• Fixed an issue with some postal code address searches not finding results.

Download the MapSource update.

Garmin has posted USB Drivers software version 2.2 at http://www.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=591.

All that is listed as changed is Vista support.