Welcome to the new Cache Up NB

This article was originally published on Cache Up NB. It has been mirrored here for archive purposes only.

After months and months of planning, coding, testing, conversing, and many other “ing” things, the overhaul of Cache Up NB has finally been completed. Welcome!

As you can see, we have made a major change to the look and feel of New Brunswick’s only dedicated source of geocaching information. The new look is intended to make the site look a lot “brighter” than it used to (the old look was a bit dark), and give us an excuse to provide a whole new set of features. We’ve added a pile of new things to the site, and fine tuned other aspects that we know didn’t work so well. We’ve also been waiting for this relaunch to announce the availability of our new mobile app for iPhone and Android devices (links available on the upper right hand side) as well as our plans for the future.

So, without further adieu, here’s a rundown of our new features and what’s changed. I’ve broken it out into several different pieces since it’s such a huge change.

Front Page / Newsreel Changes:

• We now sport a brighter and more active front newsreel page
• We have an image slider which shows the most recent “featured” stories on Cache Up NB
• Five “random” articles are displayed beside the recent updates.
• These are random news items pulled from our posted history. Any story that has appeared on the front page of the site could show up in this list, regardless of how old it is
• Recent Comments has been tweaked to include more information about the specific comment
• A new feature called “Quickies” now appears along the right hand side
• Quickies are smaller articles submitted by readers that may be too short for the main news reel, but still worthy of attention.
• Things such as for sale, trades, or quick question/answer type of articles can be found under Quickies
• Admins/moderators will usually make the call on whether or not something should be filed under quickies. If you already know it should not be in the main feed, set the category appropriately but the admins/mods have the right to change it.
• Items that are non-geocaching related but that might still be of interest to our readers will also be filed under Quickies
• A new category preview section now appears on the right showing some entries from our news history
• The new navigation menu contains a more refined list of pages and information for users
• Links to our Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Flickr, iPhone, and Android pages can all by found on the right hand side

Photos / Video

• Like before, users can upload video to Youtube and share it on Cache Up NB by including the “cacheupnb” tag in their video description within Youtube.
• We’ve now linked with Flickr so now you can tag any geocaching related photos with “cacheupnb” and they will be added to our pages here.

Mobile Applications

• A new application for iOS (iPhone/iPad) based devices can now be downloaded and installed to your mobile device from Apple’s App store. There is no charge for the app.
• A new application for Android based devices can now be downloaded and installed to your mobile device. from the Android Marketplace. There is no charge for the app.
• Both mobile apps allow you to do the following:
• Read all of our current newsreel items (main page) and comments
• Browse the calendar of geocaching events
• Listen to our latest podcasts
• Media player is built into the app
• Browse and watch Cache Up NB tagged video from Youtube
• Browse and view Cache Up NB tagged photos from Flickr
• Both apps are “sponsored” apps and will display minor ads beneath the content you are viewing
• Clicking of these ads does not provide revenue to Cache Up NB
• The ads were including to allow us to provide the app for free. Otherwise, there would have been a large fee to Cache Up NB per month to have the app. We wanted to provide it for free so we allow the ads to display. Don’t bother clicking them. It doesn’t help us at all.

Google Latitude Integration

• A new feature called “Who’s Caching” allows cachers to share their location with other cachers from the Cache Up NB community
• A Google Map will display a map of the province with the locations of each person who has this feature enabled.
• You must have a mobile device and Google Latitude enabled (available on Android and iPhone) for this feature to work
• All cacher’s profiles have this setting set to “Off” by default unless they choose to turn it on. You can enable/disable anytime you want to.

Cache Up NB News Becomes Geocaching Aware

• All GC code and TB code references on the site are now hotlinked to the actual cache/log/tb listing
• Hovering of your mouse over such a code will present a small window which provides you with details about the listing
• For caches, it will provide you the name, owner, size, difficulty, and terrain.
• Here’s a GC code example: GC38GY2
• For TBs, it provides the name, owner, and TB icon if present
• Here’s a TB example – TB2QXDD
• The information provided by the hover overs is pulled directly from Geocaching.Com through the use of their API. The information is in real time.
• The linking/hover display is active in all news items, comments, live ticker, and the scribbles
• Geocaching log codes (GL) and trackable log codes (TL) are also hotlinked with a hover over

Cache Up NB Partners With ACGA

• As part of a new arrangement with the Atlantic Canada Geocaching Association, Cache Up NB has begun taking over the ACGA’s responsibilities within New Brunswick
• Cache Up NB will be taking over (adopting) ACGA based geocaches within NB with one exception
• All geocaches (and related events/challenges) within Fundy Park will continue to be managed by the ACGA
• The ACGA has a partnership agreement with Fundy National Park for the development of the geocaching program at the park.
• Cache Up NB is exploring an opportunity with the ACGA to take over responsibility for geocaching within Fundy and other NB provincial parks

Miscellaneous / Other

• The thumbs up/down icons for comments remains and we have now added a means to rate each article/post on a scale 1-5 stars.
• All articles now have a Facebook “like” and “Tweet” icon on their main page and look much cleaner than what was previously used
• Users can now edit their own comments after submission for a fixed period of time

It’s a lot of information to swallow all at once but you’ll get used to it. Please feel free to comment on any of the new features and once again, welcome!