And Your Favorite Color Is....

Wassa Jr. searches high and low for a coveted
purple whistle, but alas, nothing....

PURPLE! Holy cow! I could hardly believe it when I woke up this morning, but the purple whistles are already sold out! And a close runner-up... red, which the time I type this, there is only one left. I wonder if it'll still be there by the time I finish posting this post.

For those of you planning to pay with a check--don't worry--the items are taken out of the inventory count as soon as your reach the invoice page with the payment options. You don't have to worry about not getting your favorite colored whistles just because the payment takes a bit longer to arrive.

The least favorite color: blue. Still have seven of those left, but still, that means I've already sold 18 of them!

And since I only have 12 whistles of all colors left (Really? I sold EIGHTY-EIGHT of these things in about 12 hours?), I will definitely order more whistles today. It'll take at least two or three weeks for me to get another shipment in, though, but there will be more, so don't be too disappointed if you missed your chance. Also, if you pay by check, do send the payment promptly. If I don't get payment within a week or so, I'll cancel the order to make those color whistles available to others.

-- Ryan

Get Your AQ Whistles!

The whistles come in four colors:
blue, green, red, and purple.

A long, long time ago, way back on April 4, 2011, Housepitality Hostess posted to the message boards suggesting an AQ whistle for premium members. I liked the idea of a whistle--it's considered one of the ten essentials by many people and can help in an emergency when cell phone coverage is weak or spotty while out beating the trails in search of letterboxes. I saw no sense in restricting them just for premium members, but I liked the idea of an AQ whistle. So I poked around, looked up several companies that could create custom whistles, got some prices, and decided, hey--this is doable!

So I ordered them, and 100 bright and pretty whistles arrived this afternoon. Amanda grabbed a green one for herself, blew into it, and I can assure you--these things really work well! I ordered 25 in each of four different colors: red, blue, purple, and green.

And they are now available for sale in the AQ Marketplace! If you want one, order yours today! Once I sell out, I'm not sure if I'll order more or not. I guess it depends on how popular they are. I definitely won't be ordering more until I'm running low of all colors--so if you have a favorite color that sells out, there won't be more coming until maybe all of the other colors have sold out as well.

Happy (and safe!) trails!

-- Ryan

The Last Small Update

SURPRISE!!!!! =)

You often hear me talk about the "Next Big Update." I use the term so often, I sometimes even abbreviate it as NBU. Sounds cool that way. =)

Well, I took AQ down this evening for an update, but admittedly, it's not particularly big, but there are a few items worth noting. In essence, it was the "Next Small Update." Or rather, now that the update is in the past, the "Last Small Update."

So what changed? First, if you check out the Letterboxing Preferences, you'll find a few new options. A number of months ago, I added options so you can eliminate boxes that have been abandoned for at least 6 months, boxes that have at least 3 strikeouts, and boxes that haven't been found for the past year. I think those numbers work fairly well, but I know darned well that others may feel differently.

And now--you can change them! Have at it! =)

The only other semi-functional change I can think of--on the Advanced Search page. There are a few new options to search for cemetery boxes, night boxes, rest area boxes, and boxes in historical locations. It's just a glorified clue search and isn't actually new functionality--it just makes it a little quicker and easier to search for specific types of terms. If you search for cemetery boxes, for instance, it'll also search for various derivatives of the term cemetery (e.g. cemeteries) and common misspellings (e.g. cemetary), and related words (e.g. graveyard). It's not a perfect search, and one test showed that about 10% of cemetery searches returned false positives. It'll certainly narrow down such boxes, however!

Those are the only functional change I can think of that was in this update--and that second one isn't even much of a functional change to begin with--but depending on the browser you use, you might see a number of minor cosmetic changes. I've been updating much of the website to use HTML5. There's a lot of cool new stuff available with HTML5, but only the most modern of browsers have relatively decent support for it, and even the most recent browsers don't fully support it. I can mark form fields as being "required," and the form will not submit until you enter data into it.

For instance, take the Advanced Search page. The location-based search requires you to enter a location. In the past, if you submitted the search without a location, it would come back with an error message to enter a location. If you try it now, the form won't even be sent to the AQ server--your browser will stop you. Exactly what it looks like and how the error is handled is dependent on the browser you use. My browser of choice--Firefox 4--highlights the location with a fuzzy, red border and a pop-up box that says, "Please fill out this field."

Another example, also found on that Advanced Search page, is the distance. I've marked it as a "number," and browsers that support it will force you to use a number. Firefox 4, alas, does not do this. I've heard that the latest version of the Opera browser does this, but admittedly, I haven't tried it in that browser. But as browsers are updated with the latest HTML5 support, I expect more and more of the validation to be done by browsers.

Another neat trick I added can also be found on that Advanced Search page. If you take a look at the "Member" option, you might see that the box for member has the word "Trailname" in it. That's a placeholder and disappears when you start typing. I added placeholders all over the place. The box name/number, the clue search, the location, and all over Atlas Quest. Not a big deal--if your browser supports it, you'd likely barely notice the change. But there's another feature of the Members box I want to point out: It's smarter. =)

When AQ sends that member box, it's waiting for you to type a trailname into it. Many websites today are fancy and start trying to predict what you're guessing for. Google searches do this. You type the first letter, and a bunch of common search terms starting with that letter show up in a list just below it that you can select from. Type another letter, and the possible search terms change to use those first two letters. I never implemented something like that because it seemed like too much work for the relatively little gain in slickness.

But with HTML5, I can send a list of trailnames with the box, and if you start typing, it'll give you a list of matching trailnames. It's not quite as slick as Google's search--I have to send all possible trailnames that can be used with the box. There are over 25,000 trailnames on AQ right now, and it's not especially efficient to include 25,000 trailnames every time you want to run a search! But really, whose boxes are you most likely to search for? Friends, of course! So rather than sending every trailname on Atlas Quest, AQ checks your contacts, your exchanges, and people you've AQ mailed and received AQ mail from, and sends just those trailnames. Chances are, whoever you're search for is going to be one of those names.

This effect works in Firefox 4, but I don't think it works with IE9 if I remember correctly. I've been trying all of these cosmetic features with all sorts of browsers--Firefox, IE, Chrome, Safari, and Opera, and I never really kept track of what worked with each browser. From what I've read and tested, Opera seems to have the best HTML5 support. (Not perfect, but still the best.) Chrome and Safari have generally excelled at support for HTML5 for quite some time. Only the very latest versions of Firefox and IE have any support for HTML5 (Firefox 4 and IE 9). IE 9 still has a lot to be desired. Firefox 4 I think is pretty good. But one thing I like about IE9--you can finally see the rounded corners! AQ looks so much better with rounded corners. (If you use IE9 and don't see rounded corners, take the browser out of the "compatibility" view.)

I'm having a lot of fun exploring HTML5. You'll likely see additional such tweaks over time, but the changes are largely cosmetic in nature and not particularly noteworthy for the most part. I won't be posting about them again in the future. =)

So there you have it. That's what was in this update. (At least the visible changes.)

Happy trails!

-- Ryan

Calendar Photo Reminder!

Wassa Jr. says to tell everyone hi. =)

Have you been out letterboxing all winter, slogging through snow, mud, and the worst that the elements can throw at you? Then certainly you've got a few nice winter photos to submit for the annual AQ letterboxing calendar! If you're new to this, you can read all about it in the Project X link from the Marketplace menubar option.

And whether you are new or not, be sure to submit your photos now! Yes, the deadline isn't for months away, but those who wait until the last minute often can't find the photos they want to upload or submit them just a bit too late. Get it done now, then head out and start finding those perfect spring photos!

Those Nagging Little Details....

I just uploaded a few tweaks to Atlas Quest this afternoon, and this one is so minor, it's probably not even going to be noticed by anyone. So, I'd like to bring your attention to it, if for no other reason than to let you know what I've been up to and, perhaps, catch any defects that I might have introduced.

In this case, an example might be the easiest way to explain this tweak. Take a look at this search of San Luis Obispo, CA, sorted alphabetically. The #2 entry is for the "Beach Vacation Series"--the quotes are part of the box name, not me quoting the box name. In the old days (that is, before today), Atlas Quest would sort boxes on a character-by-character basis, and because quotes come before letters, it would have shown as the first box. Now, quotes (and other punctuation marks) are ignored, so the box is now correctly placed after the A from All the News That's Fit to Print.

A related issue are box names that start with "useless" words--the, and, a, etc. In the old days (that is, before today), a box named The Building would have been sorted under the T's. If you check those search results, however, you'll now see it listed along with the other B's, where it should be.

Number 12 in the search results is called A Dragon in the Library: Adelinde. In the old days, it would have shown up in the A's. Today? Nope, not anymore.... It's with the other Ds.

Because punctuation marks are ignored, you'll also find that words like dogs and dog's map to the same word pattern. In the old days, a search for either of those words wouldn't find both of them. You can see this happen in a global search for boxes with the word dogs. In my results, the first six use the word dogs, but #7 uses the word dog's.

In another slight tweak in the search results, in this search for Winter Falls, you'll find none of the first several entries use the word winter. Why would they rank so highly, then? Because it's part of a series, and one of the boxes in the series use the word winter. If you click on the Silver Falls series, it ranks highly because there's a box within the series named Winter Falls. In the old days, AQ was not able to match words in the names of individual boxes within a series--but now it should!

Anyhow, these are minor little tweaks, but I'm a little concerned I've overlooked something. If you happen to notice any search results that aren't quite as expected or find an unexpected glitch, do let me know! Thanks! =)

New Edition of the Letterboxer's Companion!

It only took eight years, but the second edition of The Letterboxer's Companion is finally out! =) I was going to write a book review of it--I got my grubby little hands on it several weeks ago, and I've never officially written a "book review" before. But now that the book is officially out, I find myself mired with other more important things to work on. *grumble grumble* Stupid bugs.... Seems like I've been hit with a number of difficult-to-fix issues recently, and I'm still working through the problems. (Fortunately, for the most part, the problems aren't that obvious, so most of you surfing Atlas Quest probably don't even know about them! But they're there, and they do need to get fixed.)

But I will say, I like this edition better than the first one. It's smaller, lighter, and a little more portable. Cheaper too--it's paperback! =) (There's even a Kindle version this time!) I read the book, from cover to cover, and it's certainly been updated with a lot of information about Atlas Quest that wasn't there before--mostly because Atlas Quest didn't exist when the first edition came out. There's a bit more detail about how to work the LbNA website as well.

Amanda had a copy of the first edition hidden away and I flipped through them both looking for anything that was different, and they were actually more alike than I remembered. Reading the second edition, it seemed like it had a lot more information about carving stamps than I remembered, but as it turned out--not really. Just my imagination playing tricks on me. *shrug*

There are a couple of places where new material was added. In the chapter of Advanced Techniques, Mapsurfer (a.k.a. Randy Hall) added a bit about book codes, which had me hunting through the book to solve an example one provided where the book code used his own book--a teasing message, but I'll let you solve that yourself. ;o) Then he describes "Other Codes and Ciphers," explaining what cryptograms are and an example of the Freemason's cipher (or "pig-pen cipher"). He describes what these codes are, but he doesn't actually explain how one would go about solving them--instead suggesting to the reader to research the ciphers on the Internet. Well, I suppose one could make a case for "teaching a man to fish" rather than "giving a man a fish," but still, it seems lazy to show these codes then not explain how to solve them. There are still plenty of other codes and ciphers to research on the Internet. Revealing the secrets of some of the most commonly used ones or a short section of letter frequencies would have been convenient.

There's a whole chapter on "Internet Resources" that been expanded greatly. The original book had a section called "Internet Resources," but I guess there wasn't enough material then to actually call it a chapter in its own right. It's now been upgraded to a full chapter in the second edition. Considering how much of our hobby is Internet based, it's a well-deserved upgrade.

Anyhow, the book was officially released March 1st. I looked on Amazon.com's website and they say that only 7 are left in stock (but more are on the way). Looks like it's already become a best seller! =)

For any serious letterboxer, you probably won't learn anything new from this book. But I still like it. It's small, compact, and light. And if you know someone who might be interested in letterboxing, this book could be the perfect gift. And who knows.... if a lot of people start using this edition as a code book for their clues, you might need the book just to find some letterboxes! ;o)

Sub-Accounts Have Arrived!

I think I got the first request for a "sub-account" about two days after Atlas Quest went live. Okay, maybe it was three. It seemed like so long ago now. =) The main motivation, in particular, was the desire for a 'family' account--a way to identify oneself individually and as part of a family.

And I've never really been sure how to implement something like that. There's a lot of stuff to think about, and the logistics just thinking about it would give me a headache, so I put it off. And put it off. And put it off.

And while hiking the PCT, I thought about it some more and decided that if this feature would ever happen, I needed to actually DO something and play around with it. So shortly after I finished the trail, I followed through with the first step: Adding a column to the database that would do nothing more than point to a "parent" account. The master account. The family account. The primary account. Whatever you call it. It didn't actually DO anything, but it gave Atlas Quest a way to identify a simple relationship between to accounts.

And over the last couple of months, I've added a piece here and there--real functionality. First the ability to log into a sub-account using the password from the primary account. Then the ability for the master account to edit boxes and trackers if it was owned by the sub-account. Then the ability to read mail from sub-accounts through the primary account. And so on. A lot of little incremental improvements that, today, is quite a substantial feature in it's own right.

So now, you'll see a new link under the 'My Page' menubar option called 'My Accounts.' This is where you can control all of your accounts from one convenient location. =)

There are three distinctly different types of sub-accounts:

• Aliases: Your alter egos, if you have any. Something like the Mystery Mailer would be an alias for a real person. Registering an alias with your primary account will allow you to post messages and send AQ mail from your aliases without having to log into your alias accounts.
• Child: Child accounts are for the children in your family--typically those who aren't old enough to have their own accounts. Child accounts have additional restrictions that will not permit them to post to the message boards, send AQ mail, or drop into the chat rooms. Child accounts are generally only meant to record finds that your children have found--they don't really need all those other features. When recording finds, you'll be able to record finds on child accounts at the same time.
• Adult: These are like the child accounts, but without the restrictions.

Each of the categories do have slightly different characteristics, so it does make a difference which you choose for each sub-account. The list above focuses on what makes the types different, but they also have a lot in common.

While logged into the sub-account, everything works like it always has. You won't see any changes. The real power lies in the primary account. The password for the primary account can log you into any of the sub-accounts. You can also reset the passwords for the sub-accounts from the primary account. And like I said before, you can edit the boxes, trackers, events, etc. of sub-accounts directly from the primary account. The primary account is also capable of reading the AQ mail of any attached sub-accounts.

There's also a new widget for My Page for sub-accounts. If you plan to make use of this feature, you'll probably want to add the Sub-Accounts widget.

Happy trails!

Flying around Google Earth

Letterboxes from coast to coast!

Of all the major changes I listed yesterday, I overlooked one: maps. Most notably, KML files that work with Google Earth. The best way to see this in action is to try it for yourself. You'll need to download and install Google Earth if it's not already installed on your system to follow along with me.

Now, when a premium member runs a search for letterboxes, they'll see links for "KML" and "Network KML." KML is a specific file format and Google Earth is probably the best known program that supports it. Super cool stuff. *nodding* The original KML link has been there for years and still works the same as always. It returns a file with the first 100 boxes that your search matches, and you can zoom around Google Earth to see it. It's a static file, though, and never changes. It's still pretty cool, but has a couple of limitations--the fact that it never updates, and the fact that it will only show the first 100 boxes in your search.

The "Network KML" link gets around these limitations by specifying a special URL on Atlas Quest that Google Earth can contact to get the information it needs to display through a feature called "network links." When you click on the link and open it in Google Earth, it doesn't actually contain any information about letterboxes--just where on the Internet to get information about letterboxes.

After Google Earth loads the file, it connects to Atlas Quest and says something like, "The view of Earth is currently showing the entire United States. What boxes are there that are within this area?" And Atlas Quest will reply with the first 100 boxes that it finds in the database within the designated area.

Zooming into the San Francisco Bay area.

If, in Google Earth, you then zoom into California, Google Earth will contact Atlas Quest again and say, "Hey, my owner moved the map, and now it's only showing the area in California. What boxes should I display?" And Atlas Quest will again search through its database and reply with the first 100 boxes that it finds in California. The maximum number of boxes shown in a view is still 100--but it throws out the boxes that are no longer within that view and replaces them with new boxes that are still within the view.

If you then zoom in further, such as into the San Francisco Bay area, Google Earth will contact Atlas Quest again. "Hey, AQ, my owner just moved the view again. What boxes do you have that cover the SF area?" And Atlas Quest will give it another list of up to 100 boxes that are within that view.

You get the point. So while you'll never see more than 100 boxes listed in any given view, if you zoom around enough, you could--in theory--spot every single letterbox listed on Atlas Quest. And if you save that file and come back to it a year later, it again contacts Atlas Quest for the current boxes that match the search. If a box was deleted during that timespan, it'll stop showing up on Google Earth. Or if the box was moved, it'll move on Google Earth. Or if your search was original set to show only active boxes and a box had been retired, Google Earth will stop showing that box. The results are dynamic and always up-to-date.

This is very cool stuff. *nodding*

I zoom in even further, this time to San Jose.
Wait a minute, is that Wassa I see? Hmm... I think
I've been hacked!

And, it's mostly a premium member only feature. But if you aren't a premium member, don't feel too left out--I added a new Google Earth search to the Letterboxes menu. This link will show all active letterboxes around the entire world, and you do not need to be a premium member to use it. If you want to be able to hide plants and finds from those results, or only include boxes with a specific tag, or any number of other variations of the search, you'll need to be a premium member. But for most people, this particular link will be all you'll ever want. =)

So, that network link thing is new and pretty darned cool. And I totally forgot to mention it in my post yesterday. Too many changes in that update for me to keep track of! =)

While developing the network link feature, I discovered that Google also updated their maps API, so I upgraded the code to using their latest and greatest Google Maps API. As a result, you might notice some minor changes when you click on the "Map Results" link, but they're generally so minor you might not notice any changes. But if you think it just "looks" different but can't figure out why, you aren't going crazy. It too has been updated. =)

Starting 2011 With a Bang!

Fireworks at the Space Needle--
that's what I watched to ring in 2011! =)

The long awaited Next Big Update (NBU) has come to pass, and it's packed full of stuff. Given the enormous amounts of new code in this update, I fully expect a lot of bugs to crop up. In fact, I already found and fixed five of them, and the update hasn't even been in place for a half hour yet. Make that six now. (I keep checking for errors AQ detects at the end of every sentence I type.) In any case, please be patient. If something isn't working correctly, I'll fix it.

Now--what all is new in this feature-packed update? Undoubtedly, there's something for everyone to love, and something for everyone to hate. =) (But I hope the former outnumbers the latter.) I won't get into details here (too many bugs to fix!), but I will run down some of the major additions and changes and let you guys poke around and figure out how it all works. I'll be updating the help pages the next few days to answer questions and add additional details to get the most out of the features.

So, without further ado.... some of the major things to look for:

• Removed maintenance comments. After spending the better part of an afternoon removing maintenance "requests" such as "box is missing" and "watch out for mosquitoes!" I decided it was easier just to get rid of them. The icon can still be applied to a box--but no note can be attached to it. Any previously existing notes were added to the top of the clue page. (At least if it was an AQ hosted clue.)
• There is no limit to the number of planters that can be added to a box. This probably won't matter to most of you, but if there's a box that was jointly planted by three or more people, you can now all get credit for the plant.
• Carvers will no longer be notified of finds or attempts on their boxes. Before you start freaking out, please keep in mind that almost nobody will even notice this change. Anyone who was a carver on a box I've added as a contact--so you'll still be contacted for that reason. And when a box is first added, the carver will automatically be added to the list of contacts. For all intents and purposes, all carvers will still be notified of finds and attempts. The difference now is that they can drop themselves as a contact if they no longer wish to receive those notifications--an option that was not allowed before.
• There's now a "Trackers in the Night" in profiles you view. It's like the "Ships in the Night," except this one shows the most recent trackers that you and the person who's profile you are viewing have both signed up for and has already launched. (Unlaunched trackers are not included in the list.)
• There are new preferences now available. The Letterbox Preferences page (new!) is the key one to check out. You can now set it up to identify your search preferences. Do you want your plants and hides automatically hidden when you run a Simple Search? Now you can! You can also specify if you want attempts, strikeouts, abandoned boxes, and old last finds hidden (or not) by default.
• 
  
  
  
  
  On the Advanced Search page, you'll find three more search options available. You can now search for Box of the Week boxes, historic boxes, and rarely found boxes. Since this is automated, "historic" is purely a matter of numbers: Any box that was planted more than ten years ago and has been listed on Atlas Quest for at least five years is considered historic. I know a lot of you like to find those hard-to-find or unique boxes that few other people have, and that's what the "rare find" option does--it returns any box that has a last find date that's more than a year old. While the search page has icons associated with these options, these icons do not show on the box listings.
• At the end of the Miscellaneous Preferences page, there's now an option for "App Password." Our resident app developers wanted to be able to create apps that allowed people to log in so searches could do cool stuff like hide your plants and finds or run searches based on the tags you've selected. You can increase the security of your account by creating an app password. When using the app, it'll ask for your trail name and password. They aren't supposed to store your password or later use it to log into your account, but I don't really have any way of making sure app developers are good and honest. By logging in with your app password, you can keep your real AQ password secret. If you do not select an app password, your real AQ password will still work with apps. But if you do have an app password, only that password will work--your real AQ password will not.
• And finally, themes.  You'll find that the themes page has been completely rewritten from the ground up. Anyone can now list a theme on Atlas Quest, just like listing a letterbox or tracker. The themes are searchable, and you can even be notified of new themes matching your favorite searches. Right now, the only themes listed are those created by Wassa and myself. The "theme details" page includes any relevant information about the theme (it's creation date, last modified date, the CSS used for the theme, etc.), but it also applies that theme TO the page so you can see it in action. And when you've selected a theme, there's a new "about theme" link (under the original link, if there is one) that will link to the theme's details page. There aren't any new themes added with this update--but how themes work has radically changed with this update.

And that, I believe, are the major changes you'll see. You might also notice any number of smaller and generally not-very-noteworthy changes as well, but the big ones are covered. =)

Happy New Year!

A Satisfied Eye Bleach Patch Customer

Another satisfied eye bleach customer!

The first eye bleach patches have gone out, making their way to satisfied customers all over North America. I made a quick trip out to North Carolina to hand deliver some of these important letterboxing tools to Mama Wolf. As you can see, she's quite pleased with the results. You don't want to know what's behind the camera! We would not be smiling now without these eye bleach patches on!

Now everyone knows that Wassa is the brains and inspiration for eye bleach, but it was actually Mama Stork who first contacted me about the idea for eye bleach patches shortly after I finished hiking the PCT. I immediately loved the idea, but since it was Wassa's patented product, I threw the idea to him to ask if he wanted to run with it. Guess he was busy, because he said no, but he too loved the idea. So then it was up to me to create the patches.

When I saw the results, I knew it was something special and needed to think up a way to properly "introduce" the product to the rest of the world, which is when I decided on the eye bleach countdown idea. Wassa helped me research posts to use, an astonishingly simple job for him since he's in so many of them. =)

And the rest, as they say, is history. Order your eye bleach patches in the AQ Marketplace today! Supplies are limited!