Project-GC Souvenirs - Page Update

Apparently it’s been awhile since I checked out my Profile Stats on Project-GC.com.

Look what they’ve done for Souvenirs: grouped by type!

I’m excited because the geocaching.com website doesn’t make it easy to see if you’ve been awarded a souvenir or not. WOW! These are so pretty displayed this way. Good change!

Favorite Point and Photo Notifications

Oh, the joys of modern technology! Heard a fabulous tip on the GCPC Episode 534 – Useful Apps for Geocaching episode for Project-GC.com and have been reaping the benefits for two months!

Project-GC.com is the easiest way to view your geocaching stats, upload trackable “Discover” logs in bulk, and check if you qualify for local challenges. It has two memberships: free and paid. Admittedly, I’m a big fan, but the $30USD annually does add up. (Makes me chuckle to myself when I see geocaching is touted on all the summer-fun lists as a free past time for spending time with your loved ones. I’m sure that could be done but not by me 😊 THAT’S a topic for another blog post).

These tips are for Paid Project-GC Membership Only - Sorry.

With these two new features, though, I’m hooked even more! As a geocache hider (proud owner of 162 geocaches to date), I will often miss pictures or Favorite Points posted to my cache page unless someone mentions it in their logs. You can’t be everywhere every time, and I wish Geocaching.com had a mechanism to share this info in their “Found It” emails to me.

With a few clicks in your Settings, you can receive email notifications when Favorite Points have been added/removed from your cache, pictures uploaded to a log or if a log has been edited.

GOOD TO KNOW: ShortyKnits from GCPC made a great point about that last one if you are a Challenge Cache owner – Cachers logging a note on Challenge Caches saying they will update it to a Found It log after they qualify. This will catch those who log the note and then return immediately to change it to a Found It log – thinking they’ve slipped something past you as Geocaching.com doesn’t notify you when logs have been edited. Sneaky sneaky!

For paid members of Project-GC, go to Project-GC.com, click the Account Profile drop-down (1) and then click Settings (2).

In the next window, scroll down to the Notifiers section. Check the boxes next to the notification types. As I receive Event notifications from multiple sources in Michigan, I’ve elected to leave that one be. After making your selections, click Update Settings.

Then sit back and wait for the emails! That easy! My first Photo Notification email included all the photos, grouped by geocache, to date. It was a hoot scrolling through them! After that, you only receive emails when someone adds a new photo to one of your caches.

And here’s an example of a Favorite Point notification. This one is a double-edged sword because I’ve watched (with great sadness) some of my friends remove Favorite Points from my caches after they have been archived. If my cache deserved a Fave when you logged it, it still deserved it after I archived it. It earned it, and it messes with my stats (sorry, off my soapbox now).

Never miss a photo or Favorite Point again!

New TB Rescue Site

Took this off the Project-GC.com newsletter:

As mentioned in the last newsletter, and on Facebook several times, we have began to work on something called TB Rescue. The idea comes from http://www.tb-rescue.com, which is a service that was shut down last month. After a week of development with parts of it being working double time we finally have it in a working state. It took us about 3500 lines of code to bring it together, but it's finally looking quite good. 

The concept is as follows: 

An owner of a trackable notices that their trackable has been stuck in the same geocache for at least 4 weeks. Being worried about it being lost or that just too few visits this geocache he or she creates a rescue mission at Project-GC.

Under the Tools menu, click Rescue Map

Users of Project-GC have earlier added Watch zones, ie areas where they want to be notified by email if there is a new rescue mission. If there is a watch zone where the geocache with the trackable currently is, all owners of those watch zones will be notified.

Cool stats on the right side

Those having the watch zones (called rescuers) can then act upon the email about the new mission. They are encouraged to log a note on the rescue mission (at Project-GC) saying that they will go there to take a look. If they do not find the trackable in the geocache they should log a DNF on the rescue mission (again, at Project-GC). After 3 DNF logs the rescue mission will automatically be canceled, since it's very unlikely that the trackable exists there. 

Scroll down to see the map of your zone and TB's in need of help

Examples of trackables in need

Instead, if the rescuer actually found the trackable, he should bring it with him (or her) since the rescue mission owner wanted it to be rescued. He/she can then log a found log on the rescue mission to show that he has it. Besides this, he should grab the trackable using Geocaching.com. The log at Geocaching.com will be used to automatically close the rescue mission with the status Completed, and the rescuer will be marked as the one who completed the rescue mission. 

If you have any trackables that seem to be stuck, feel free to create your rescue mission using our TB Rescue tool.

Create a mission under My Missions (menu option or tab)

If you feel like becoming a rescuer, go to the same tool to add watch zones for the areas where you would like to be notified.

Scroll down to the map. Select your zone if you're willing to be a watcher

The system has only been live for a few days, but there are already over 100 rescue missions created, 230 users who has created watch zones, and almost 2 million km² being watched.

I've signed up! 

Lucky Me! Lucky Me! - Geogearheads Edition

I was the big winner on Geogearheads this week! 

I'm the big winner of Question 202 with my blog post about locking trackables. One year free membership from Project-GC.com! It didn't take me long to redeem it because sometimes it IS about the numbers!

Project-GC: Jasmer Caches

Ooh!  I feel a roadtrip coming on!

I was playing around with Project-GC.com, and I found a nifty tool under Tools > Map Hidden Month.  I plugged in my username, the country, and Hidden Date range.  It popped with this list of caches needed to fill my Jasmer!

Year 2000 caches

Beneath it was a list of missing months (4 to complete my Jasmers) plus caches for me to qualify! Date, GC, Name, Type, Location D/T, size and Favorite Points!  So very exciting!

How I want to get in the car and head off on another adventure!

Sometimes It IS About the Numbers….

…..I don’t believe anyone who doesn’t admit, to some degree, that the numbers matter.  Let’s face it - as much as I LOVE the “experience” (as this blog will attest), those numbers do add a degree of fun.

Take the ones (with a degree of salt) below…. Long story short, a Facebook thread made me curious about Michigan rankings.  After tooling around Project-gc.com (under the Statistics menu)…..

I’ve reached #100 for Michigan finders!*

And TaGeez is #68 for Michigan hiders!*

  

*Technically, both of us have more hides and finds than showing, but we're in the ballpark!  Pretty cool, eh? 

OK. Back to our original programming. Happy Friday!

Tip: Find Duplicate Logs

Useful tip: Lately I'm seeing a lot of duplicate logs on the same cache. In the past, there was an indicator on geocaching.com under the Statistics tab, but it's no longer there.

Use Project-GC.com to see if you have double logged a cache. After authenticating, click Profile > Find Bad Logs. Enter your username and click Filter. 

You will see three sets of results:

* Duplicate logs on owned caches

* Caches you logged repeatedly

* Your own caches logged by you

By cleaning up duplicate logs you will have a more accurate idea of your caching stats.

Badges and Belts, Oh My!

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.