HeadHardHat Has A New Toy - Geekness Warning

HHH Gets His GEEK button pushed.

If you read my geocaching based posts or watch our GeoSnippits videos you will many times see me holding a BlackBerry Curve 8310 smartphone. I have used and abused that phone for over two years now. For me it was the center of my electronic life. Not only only could I use Geocache Navigator for some very accurate and real time geocaching but most of my Social Networking was used with it as well. Sure there were drawbacks like having to pull the battery out of the phone every few days otherwise it would lock up. That sort of thing. All in all it kept me electronically "connected" with the world. That was then this is now.

I have been watching the greener pastures of Iphones and Droids for quite a while now. Waiting for the opportunity to get just the right combination of camera, Internet, GPS and hyper-drive capabilities. Then with the sound of knocking rattling my brain I was able to get an HTC Incredible Android Smartphone. For Free to boot. My original contract had expired a while ago so I was able to get the phone on a special rate provided by a rather popular electronics store. Sweet!

This is where the geekiness goes into overdrive. I have been a geek since Pong. I have been there when Atari was king and an 8088 computer had a 10 Mhz turbo mode. I hooked up my stereo directly into my computer system before there was something known a sound card. Watched every advance in PC computer gaming since the original joystick. Spent up to $5000 on one once to have the ultimate gaming system. My daughter calls it our junk computer now. Anyhow I have not had my geek button pushed like with this new phone since the days back the gaming world was finding it's niche.

Seen above with a gel cover just like HHH's

This incredible Incredible gave me my first WOW factor right about the time I turned it on. I unlocked the screen with the swipe of my finger and it was like watching the opening of a stage play. It illuminated, immediately told me the time and weather and behind the partly cloudy sun a drape of background clouds parted reveling the actual wallpaper scene behind them. Wow.

Comparatively speaking, this phone is a rocket against the BlackBerry's old grey mare. The phone's build in features are amazing. 8 Gig of initial memory, 1Ghz processor, 8 Mp camera, oh and don't forget the hyper-drive.

Then there are the apps, TONS of apps, mountains of apps with a boat load that come already with the phone. Go to the Android or Google store and you have a choice of over 100,000 apps at your disposal. I spent three days going through just what I wanted to start with and all except two were FREE. I paid $4.00US for the two I purchased and yes they were games. With all the built in memory it is going to take me some time to fill up this puppy. Even when I do a 16 or 32 gig SD card will set things right. So cool.

WiFi is a life saver for me. I personally live in an area that has poor phone reception. It is in a low area and no matter what carrier I get a bar at best. So when I turned on my wireless WiFi functionality I now can stream video or download files in a flash by bypassing the phone connection and load things right off my router. That opened everything for me with using my phone.

Geocaching apps were definitely on my list as well. The second everyone heard that I now have an Android I was flooded with requests to do reviews on the available geocaching apps. I have C:Geo loaded already and all I can say is WOW. I will be doing a review on it and all the rest A.S.A.P., keep watch on my blog and most likely GeoSnippits videos as well.

So what can I say, I am so hooked on the Incredible. Right down to the Star Trek Tricorder app I am currently playing with to the amazing video quality to the ability to lock the front for a much needed lack of butt dialing. The one draw back that I do need to mention is that currently my carrier does not allow free tethering to my netbook. Not without a rather substantial fee. This is no longer a big deal due to all the things I can already do with my phone but it is my hope that down the line that tethering once again becomes a free service. Oh well you can't have everything.

If you are wondering if getting a smartphone is right for you all I can say is do your research for what is right for you. Be it a BlackBerry, Iphone or Droid. Know what you want and after you make your choice hold on to your potatoes because it is one heck of a fun geeky ride.

-HHH

* Hyper-drive not really included - yet.

GeoCache: I'm NOT Obsessed... Right?
http://headhardhat-geocache.blogspot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------
Twitter me at
@headhardhat

Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at
http://www.geosnippits.com

Black Berry Phones Powering Down - My Findings

I have worked in computer support for a combined 15 years so I am putting in the disclaimer here. My situation may not be the exact same as yours so you will have to do a little research to see if this will indeed work for you. When in doubt check with your carrier for more details... yadda.. yadda... yadda...

So here's the situation. I own a BlackBerry 8310 also known as a Curve. It has worked fairly well for me for over two years now, until recently. The issue I was having would be the unit powering itself off regardless of what the visual indicater stated was left of battery life.

• Pressing the power button did nothing
• Using a power adapter or charger would restart the phone when connected
• The battery indicator would usually show a significant drain when the phone reinitialized.

What to do? It literally was at the point that if you pulled the battery and put it back in the phone would again power down a moment or two after booting yet the indicator still stated there was at least 1/4 of battery life left.

This was very frustrating. Nothing like being 100' from a geocache only to have the phone die and no way of getting it back up. That is also why I am mentioning this on my blog because it easily can be geocaching related. To The Internet!!!

The Internet gave many ways of potentially resolving the problem. Everything from reseating the battery to wiping your operating system and restoring. The problem is very common and you can find example after example all over the net. I had no problem doing a wipe of my phone but if there were any workable solutions before going through all of that I wanted to give a shot. So I did do the remove the battery for several minutes trick. It actually seemed to work for about 30 minutes before going back to bad habits. Then I read that you should replace your battery. Hmmmm, I thought. If I am going to spend the $50 for a new battery I better be able to return it if the phone insists on being uncooperative. So I made sure I kept the receipt before proceeding.

Needless to say I replaced the old battery with the new one and for the last week or so it has been working flawlessly. Well as much as a Black Berry can anyways. So if you are having troubles similar to mine I suggest you trade with a friend that has a new battery to see if it goes back to working correctly or go buy a new one like I did. For me it was the best solution and this time I did not have to reinstall all the software.

I hope this information proves useful to you.

-HHH

GeoCache: I'm NOT Obsessed... Right?
http://headhardhat-geocache.blogspot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------
Twitter me at @headhardhat

Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com

Solutions For On-The-Go Paperless Geocaching

I have written several posts, articles and videos about paperless geocaching solutions and they are to this day functionally sound. The solution of that time was to utilize an application on your home computer like EasyGPS or GSAK among others and to load the waypoints onto your GPS and gather the geocache information on your PDA device. That way you did not need so much paper and all the information was still at your fingertips. As they say, that was then - this is now.

If you want to REALLY go portable and paperless you are going to have to upgrade a few things and when you do you will never want to look back to the ways of the past again.

I'm talking real portability on the fly which is going to be great if you are on vacation, on the road or you simply need the latest and greatest geocaching information hot and fresh.

Here is what I came up with:

Bye - Bye PDA, Hello Netbook

PDAs are great little helpers but it is time to turn in that old Palm or Handspring for a nice netbook. I just purchased a real nice one that has bluetooth and WiFi with a 160 gig hard drive for a smidgen over $300.00. PDAs still can cost that much today. The one that I am currently typing this on is a Dell Inspiron Mini with 1 gig memory and the aforementioned 160 gig hard drive. It has the power and the memory to run any application that I have at home on my PC but now it's portable with the bluetooth / WiFi connectivity.

Smart Phones Rock

I am sure there are dozens of smart phones out there that have bluetooth functionality. My BlackBerry Curve 8310 works great. It not only has the bluetooth but a built in GPS as well. So even if you still have your trusty GPS unit out there you can use applications like GeocacheNavigator or CacheBerry as backups or companions while geocaching. The main thing is that you are able to connect from your smartphone to your netbook via bluetooth.

Connectivity is the Key

Having WiFi on the netbook is a very nice thing. You are able to work pretty seamlessly with a WiFi hook-in and yet you are immediately limited to places that actually host WiFi. If you have it for your netbook then you have an advantage but what about when you are out and about with no hotspots are available? Read on.

Using your SmartPhone as a Modem

You are really going to have to do some research on this but there are a lot of success stories of people (including myself) who have been able to do this WAP connection. Meaning using your smartphone as a modem so your computer can hook into the Internet. I am going to give you the link I used to get mine working. Your success is going to depend on your phone carrier and the model phone you have. If this does not give you what you need check out the Internet for more details. It is out there you just have to look for it.

Here is the link I used:

http://www.blackberryfaq.com/index.php/Using_BlackBerry_As_Modem

Before you start using the Internet Access of your smart phone you should make sure that you have Unlimited Internet Access otherwise this could cost you more than just a pretty penny. Internet media is charged by the meg and can add up quickly. This is not the same as texting charges which are separate. When all is said and done you should be able to connect to WiFi networks and Bluetooth WAP connections from your netbook to the internet.

GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife)

GSAK is a very nice application used by geocachers that you should be able to run on your netbook without a hitch. It is basically a series of databases which holds information from .gpx or .loc based files and stores them for you to query specifics about geocaches. Many people are premium members of Geocaching.com and as members you can be sent a whole series of Pocket Queries which are configured by you and contain geocaches from any area or type you choose. They are then loaded into GSAK and visually displayed in the application itself.

There is a section of GSAK where you can type public logging information about a geocache when you find it. There is another part of that section where you can keep personal notes as well. Then when you are ready you can upload the public logging information to geocaching.com when ready.

How It All Comes Together

The netbook computer will have complete portability because it will have access to both WiFi hotspots and WAP connections through your smartphone. This will allow access to the internet for places like geocaching.com, google earth, etc. You will utilize pocket queries or standard queries through geocaching.com and store them into a geocaching application like GSAK. Once loaded into GSAK you can log your geocaching and personal notes per geocache then load them into geocaching.com any time you would like. So in a sence you have a mobile version of GSAK at your fingertips. If for some reason you do not have access to the Internet because of interference like high foliage, buildings, mountains, etc. You still have access to the GSAK database and can still pull geocache information.

After figuring out where you want to geocache you can download from your notebook into your different GPS devices both handheld and road. You will have access to a host of macros, filters and other criteria to choose exactly what and where you want to geocache.

All this and more can be achieved and you didn't have to use a single scrap of paper. In fact your notebook will be the center of your geocachemobile's headquarters.

See you out on the trails and BTW I typed all of this in a nice shaded park, miles from any WiFi hotspot. Ahh the joys of technology when it works.

Have fun and see you out on the trails,

HHH

Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com

HeadHardHat's Garmin Mobile for Blackberry Review

Not too long ago some viewers wrote in and asked if I had tried out the Garmin Mobile application for Blackberry phones. Hmmm, did not even know that Garmin had a mobile app out so I was intrigued.


Taking Garmin Mobile For A Spin
First I loaded Garmin Mobile onto my Blackberry 8310 without a hitch. Not unexpected yet to me always a good start. Then I cranked it up and the familiar Garmin Trademark peered through a background of black. If you are interested in trying the GM out for yourself there is currently a seven day trial period. Since I was just giving a good once over that is what I started out with and you are greeted with the number of days you have left in your trial and the option to purchase on the spot.


I clicked continue and was immediately greeted with the WARNING about not trying to operate this application while driving. “Why No – Never”, says I as I click the OK button. Then something quite startling happened. The screen displayed looked exactly to the interface I am very used to on my Nuvi GPS unit. I mean exactly the same. That gave instant recognition and an ease that the learning curve should be almost nil. This was great because I wanted more time testing and less trying to learn how it works.


Because the application mirrors the Garmin Nuvi I set my car GPS to ride side by side with the mobile unit on my phone. This would in my opinion give a fairly good comparison. I had a few performance suspicions already preset but we would have to see if they came true. For example if you use a Blackberry application like Google Maps, Blackberry Maps or AT&T Navigator there are issues with speed of the map updates and a bit of slowness when approaching a street while driving. They always seemed just a step or two behind, which at times can be a bit irritating. That is one of the main reasons I liked a road GPS like a Nuvi because the processor and map updates flowed much smoother.


Real Time Functionality
Right off the bat I was very pleased with some functionality that exists with Garmin Mobile that I did not have on my Garmin Nuvi. For example because it is running on a GPS enabled phone with Internet connections you have access to pleasantries like current weather, traffic reports, airport flight statuses and even a place to upload and view street level photographs called Panoramio. Not earth shattering innovations but nice to have none the less.


Road Trip Test
Next I took both units on a 15 mile road trip to compare and report. It consisted of five different waypoints with two of them being via points. Via points are waypoints that are requested to stop before reaching your actual destination.


POI (Points Of Interest)
Maybe it was because it was around noon and I was hungry
but my first stop was a Fast Food restaurant. It was just a subtle thing but I really liked that under the Food POI Garmin put the first category to choose from was Fast Food. That is normally the category I go for and it was sweet to see it on top of all the rest. Nice move Garmin.


After loading the same destination in both units I was off. There were slight differences like the actual map display was a bit different on the GM unit. For example the default zoom is three and at three it does not show the side streets. This was a bit distracting at first and I realized that this must be to keep the unit from downloading the mappings so often on long trips. The idea in my mind is when you do get down to where you would have to turn you simply click the '+' sign to zoom in one and you were set. A slight extra step but when you consider that you are using a phone application it really was not too much of an inconvenience.


Results – Turn for turn the Garmin Mobile unit matched the Nuvi exactly. Did notice that the feeling of movement on the GM unit was not as distinct as the Nuvi but again, for a phone application you are not going to have the graphics horsepower as the auto unit.


Local Search
Local Search is a way of using Google and getting the most recent information for POIs you may be looking for. I have noticed that the mappings appear to be Garmin's yearly North America map and that only updates yearly. When you use Local Search you have a better chance of getting the latest and greatest. I used it to find a department store in the next town. It was newer and accurately found it. I also created a via point buy looking for the nearest gas station. One of the cooler features was you can search by gas price. This is not always accurate but it can be a good guide line. The gas station I chose was off by .10 cents from what was posted.


Results – Local Search seems the better way to go when looking for Points of Interest you may not be certain about within the area you are currently driving and the via point functionality works just as nice as the Nuvi device.



Highway Driving
I used the Contact section to find my next destination. This was rather cool because it uses the address book that is already into your Blackberry phone to get the address. You simply choose the contact person, validate the address and go. This is slick in my opinion because sometime you just don't remember the address and this saves some time looking it up.


Results – One of the biggest pluses with Garmin Mobile is how smooth the map uploads are as you drive. In many of the cases I was expecting to see the upload/download arrows and did not yet the driving map continued on without interruptions unlike other viewed GPS mapping applications. On the flip side I did notice that a new section of freeway that has been in place about a year did not show up while driving. Which tells me that Garmin is using their mappings. I have seen free GPS map applications like Google Maps having more current maps. Not a show stopper but if they have Google working with them would it not be better to use the most up to date mappings?


HeadHardHat's Conclusions

Pros

• Fast and almost seamless updates to the mappings while driving.
• Real time accessibility to the Internet which gives you the most current information available.
• Many little niceties like street voice audio and familiar Nuvi application interfaces.

Cons

• Pricing is a bit steep. $99.00 one time fee is per the life of the phone. If you change phones you null the contract and have to purchase a new contract at full price.
• If you are in areas with phone dead zones you are going to have issues. There is no way to upload/download maps without a connection.
• Default zoom is set to 3 which makes the user have to zoom in to see local streets (annoying).

HeadHardHat's Final Thoughts
Overall I am very impressed with the Garmin Mobile application. It truly is like having an automobile Nuvi GPS in your pocket. This I feel boils down to your need of usage for an application like this and the $99.00 price tag.


I already have a Nuvi GPS in my car and currently very happy with it. Which means that this particular application would be used for travel. If you cannot pack your auto GPS while travelling this would be a perfect solution. Then again there are phone applications that get you from here to there for free. I am personally going to hold off purchasing this application because even though it is a sweet thing to have, the overall usage just does not currently seem to fit my needs. Your views and needs of course may be different. Give the seven day trial a try and see for yourself. http://www8.garmin.com/mobile/mobilext/


HeadHardHat host of GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos frequently does reviews for all types of gadgets, gizmos and applications. Be sure to Google headhardhat blog to see his latest blog and video posts. You can contact him at headhardhat@gmail.com.



Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com/

Checking Out The AllSportGPS Phone App by Trimble

This is going to be an ongoing series because I do not just intend doing only a review and GeoSnippits episode on this neat application. This is going to be used to keep track of me getting back to a more healthier lifestyle and you can come right along with me.

Let's face it... I'm fat. I know I'm fat, if you have seen my videos or photos you know I'm fat and I admit it. With that being said it also means that I need to work on better health ideals and I need an easy and convenient way for me to track my exercise. Because not only am I overweight - I'm lazy and the last thing I want to do is calculate how far I walked and how much I burned in calories doing it. Heck for most of the time I will be busy getting enough oxygen to my legs so I can keep moving. I don't need the extra aggravation.

That is where an application I have found by Trimble comes in. It is called AllSportGPS and I like it a lot. I am going to give a complete review shortly but let me give you some highlights. I am currently using it on my BlackBerry Curve 8310 with AT&T. The application works on many other GPS enabled phones and you can check out all the availability on their website at the end of this post. The cool part is the application specializes with all sorts of sporting activities. For example I do walking, there is a whole section dedicated to walkers. There is also sections for Running, Road Biking, Mtn. Biking, Trail Running, Boarding/Ski, etc. So if you are outdoors it will track what you do while you are doing it. Very Cool and the best part is it saves each session on your phone and online in a calendar so you can get all the data you want of where you have been and what you burned off while doing it.

Below is a session I just did tonight while walking my GeoPuppy Emily. You can see all your sessions on your phone in real-time and on your PC after it logs the information back to Trimble.

You can see exactly where I walked and if you drill down on the other links below you can see all the details including what I walked, the elevations I walked (yes our neighborhood is that hilly) and other interesting facts. Again all is loaded to their server once you stop your session. Way cool.

Feel free and look around, I don't mind.



So if a product like this interests you check out AllSportGPS here. Oh and they currently have a 60 day try it before you buy it offer for Black Berry owners going on - I highly recommend it.

In fact if you do sign up for AllSportGPS and want to join my group
The HeadHardHat's Hard Heads
where you can post your daily exercise trips right along with me to show the world you are trying to make a better you too.

So what do you say? Post comments below or sign up with the rest of the Hard Heads and lets get out there.

Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com

Geocache Navigator version 2.0.5 Review by HeadHardHat

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit obsessed when it comes to all things geocaching. No really, I am and one of the many things that pushes my geek button is all the gadgets, gizmos and applications out there designed to make my life as a geocacher easier. So when I found out about an application that works on my GPS enabled Blackberry phone and made specifically for geocaching I couldn't wait to see what it was all about. This review is going to give you an honest perspective from a true laymen who would be me. I will not pull any punches and will give you the straight facts as I see them. When you are done reading this and after seeing the application in action in my two videos you should have a great all around knowledge of how it works and how well it works. So lets begin.


Some First Time Thoughts Before We Start

For the record I own a BlackBerry Curve 8310 and my cell phone service provider is AT&T.

Before you even start with all of this, there are a few things you need to consider. Besides the obvious like do you have the correct phone and/or phone service for this application. The BIGGER question is do you have unlimited Internet access? If the answer is no, you need to adjust your phone plan. Geocache Navigator connects through your phone the same way your phone browser works. Which means you are pulling a boat load of information back and forth over the Internet. If you only have the five meg of data plan you are going to be hurting after a very short time. Don't say I didn't warn you... You can find out all the compatible phones and phone services for Geocache Navigator here. You can look if you want but come right back. We'll wait.

Getting Geocache Navigator On My BlackBerry

The process of getting the application onto my BlackBerry was quick, easy and painless. Hard to believe in this age of making things complicated the whole thing took a few minutes and it was up and running. You start off by going to http://www.geocachenavigator.com/ and purchase the usage fee of about $5.99US a month depending on your phone carrier. Once the formalities are done you will download the application directly onto your phone. It will need to know your Geocaching.com user id so it knows who you are. If you do not have one I highly recommend going to http://www.geocaching.com/ and sign yourself up first. Many geocachers already have an account so it should not be a big deal but I thought I would mention it.

Once you have Geocache Navigator installed and configured to you it is time to hit the trails. Again the whole process took me a matter of minutes to complete.


Ladies and Gentlemen, Start Your GPSs

This type of paperless geocaching is very exciting to almost all of us. With this application you technically do not need maps, geocache listings, geocache pages, log books or any other pieces of paper. It is all done online and in real time. If you watch my GeoSnippits Tutorial Videos Part One and Part Two, you will see about 95% of all the functionality involved so I am just going to do a quick fly by here so you can get a good feel for the application.

When you start up Geocache Navigator you observe a simple menu which include inventive and easy ways of pulling up a nearby cache. Your top two choices are:

• Quick Cache - Many times geocachers are out doing things of everyday life. Going to the store, taking the kids to practice, dropping your spouse to the gym or salon. It is then that you suddenly realize you have some time on your hands. Let's Go Geocaching! Quick Cache pulls up for you the ten nearest geocaches from where you are standing. Very handy and I personally use this functionality a lot.


• Find Caches - Maybe you have a specific geocache you are looking for or of a specific type or size. Find Caches gives you the option just as if you were on Geocaching.com to select any cache anywhere. Depending on the query you choose up to 10 caches matching that search will become available.

Those two options are what you are going to use the most. Your other menu options are:

• Settings - Which allows you some simple configurabilty for the application.
• Enter Manually - Which allows you to put any legal coordinate into the device just like a standard GPS unit.
• Getting Started - Want to learn some basics about geocaching in general. This pulls up all you will need to get you started. A great feature for beginners.
• Quit - Takes you out of the application.

A Geocaching Opportunity

Lets take Geocache Navigator through the paces once so you can see it in action. So for the sake of argument we start with you dropping your significant other at an out of town location. Because you are not in your normal stomping grounds your regular GPS unit does not have any nearby geocache waypoints stored in it. Basically a big paper weight at this point but now you have Geocache Navigator on your phone. Woot, let's get some geocaches.

You start up the application which takes a minute or so for the GPS to kick in. This happens with any GPS unit out there. You click on Quick Caches and watch the application connect with Geocaching.com and pull up a list of nearby possible finds. Great there is a bunch within a couple of miles. You select one that looks good to you. Let's roll.

The first of four main tabs open up to you and the default is the Compass tab. Here you get a digital compass pointing you in the right direction. Followed by information like your current speed, heading, altitude and distance to cache. That's great but you need to drive the 1.56 miles to the cache and are not familiar with the area. No problem. Simply select the Map tab and you are greeted with a red arrow (you) and a red dot (the cache). By clicking the menu you have a choice of three different types of map backgrounds at your disposal.

They are:

• Street Maps - Which when chosen works just like any map based GPS with all the current streets shown for you to get to the cache.
  
• Topo Maps - This works just like the big boy GPS units and provide topographical information around you. If you are in any kind of changing terrain this is a godsend to let you know like if you are on the right side of the river, cliff, swamp, etc.
  
• Aerial Photos - Ever want Google Earth in your pocket? Well essentially now you do and it does come in handy when trying to figure out a trail head or other key information that only a satellite photograph can provide.

HHH Note - If I had one suggestion for the maps it would be the ability to have the map center on me the user and have the map scroll underneath. It gets a bit tedious using the 2,4,6,8 buttons to scroll unless you start using it only a short distance from the cache.

Get Out And Start Walking
You are now close enough to the geocache so you park your automobile and check out exactly what you are looking for. Time for the real details and to get them you select the Details tab. Here you get all the description information just as if you were on Geocaching.com. Name of geocache, waypoint, coords, difficulty and all the details you need. If you get stuck there is even a menu option that will tell you a hint or you can browse through the recent logs. It's all there.

Now that you are properly educated about your cache you flip back to the Compass tab. The cache is about 120 feet away so it will quickly guide you in the right direction. When you finally get to about 35 feet away it's time for the Radar! Click the Radar tab and you see what looks like a big bullseye. There is a big red dot in the center (the cache) and a red arrow (you). The object is simple. Get the arrow to touch the dot. When you get there you are at ground zero and where the geocache is supposed to be. There is a handy-dandy readout that tells you exactly how far away you are from the geocache and it counts down quickly once you are heading in the right direction.

Found It !!!

Well now, aren't you the happy cacher? You found that large ammo box hidden so well in that big tree log. Never would have known if it wasn't for Geocache Navigator getting you there. The best is yet to come. After you sign your log book and put everything back in place you no longer have to write down what you just did. Simply click menu and you are presented with the choices of Mark as Found or Mark as Not Found. You of course choose Mark as Found and GeoCache Navigator logs on Geocaching.com an entry for that cache. You can go online later and fill in all the cool details but at least you don't have to worry about loosing your finds anymore.

That's it. Geocache Navigator has all the features a geocacher needs to get from point A to point B and then some. I found the combination of the BlackBerry phone and the application to be a really handy tool for some well needed occasions of geocaching. I do have a few things that I think you should consider before buying.

1. There is a cost for using this application. Be it by month or year it can cost you some added expense. Not saying it's not worth the functionality but just to keep in mind.
   
2. You need unlimited Internet access for this to work and not declare bankruptcy.
   
3. You are taking a very expensive cell phone out into terrain that you have to be mindful of dropping into hard, wet, muddy surfaces. Standard GPS units usually can be dropped into water or onto rough surfaces and bounce right back. BlackBerrys - err, no. So if you mind having your $500 phone in the rain or something else bad happening. Watch where and when you use it for geocaching.

Conclusion
When it comes to pure functionality at a great price I say Geocache Navigator can give those big boy GPS units a run for their money. It is great for spur of the moment geocaching when standard GPS units do not have their coordinates loaded and ready to go. I found it very useful when FTF (First To Find) situations come up. Again new cache nearby, my regular GPS doesn't have the new coords because the cache just published. Boom it pulls it off of Geocaching.com and you are on your way to signing clean sheets. Fantastic.

This application is extremely easy to setup and use. If you are familiar with GPS units this will take zero learning curve. If you are not familiar with GPS units it will take you next to zero time in learning curve. My advice is if you take geocaching to the serious and/or obsessed level this is a must have. Your next big decision though will be going for that next geocache on the list or go back and pick up your significant other you left at the store? Hmmmm.

If you want to see Geocache Navigator in action I highly recommend you watch one of our GeoSnippits Tutorial where you will discover with HeadHardHat three different geocaches using this amazing application.

GeoSnippits Geocache Navigator Tutorial Part One

GeoSnippits Geocache Navigator Tutorial Part Two

You can also visit HeadHardHat's Geocaching Blog:
Geocache: I'm NOT Obsessed... Right?

and finally you can see all of the GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Vidoes
http://www.geosnippits.com/