As several new cachers have joined, I thought I’d share this
bit of information. Did you know you are
earning badges and belts as well as souvenirs when you cache?
You can access them many ways. I use Project-GC.com It’s free (though they have a paid version,
too). Once you access the website, click
the Authenticate button in the upper-right
corner so the site can access your Geocaching.com
stats.
After you authenticate, you will find several really cool
features including the Profile Stats
(found under the Profile menu
option).
When the Profile Stats
page opens, you will see tabs that include Finds,
Milestones, FTF*, Hides, Maps, BadgeGen, and Souvenirs. On the BadgeGen tab, you can hover over each
badge (see attached image) to see how many qualifying caches you have found and
how many more you need to level-up! You
can also click for Badge and Belt detail at the bottom of the page.
*Just a quick note because this always comes up…. For some
of you, why is the FTF tab
blank? Because you have to code your FTF
logs so the Live API will pick them up and add them to your statistics. In the body of your Found It log, enter one of the following (these are the more common
examples): {*FTF*} {FTF} (FTF) [FTF]
Sometimes I find Project-GC.com works better in Chrome
versus Internet Explorer. I find this to
be especially true using the Discover
feature under the Tools menu option.
Also, if you are a GSAK user, you can pull your BadgeGen
stats via a macro. There are pluses and
minuses of each. Running BadgeGen from
Project-GC uses the LiveAPI so it’s always includes your latest data. However, if you are not a paid member, the
latest data can be almost a week old (free members get updated weekly). To run the BadgeGen.gsk macro in GSAK, you
will need to create a “My Finds” database first. However, you will need to manually keep your “My
Finds” updated.
Elisa,
ReplyDeleteYou are such a tech-whizz! And as always, a great teacher.
Happy 4th!
Happy 4th to you, my friend! Miss you!
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