The Theory Behind My Finds Pocket Query

[+TheArsenaultQuartet]

Hi all. i was wondering of anyone knew why we can only do the my finds Pcoket Query once a week? we can do an number of queries every dayu, but not this one? Am I the only one this bothers? Do you think GS should allow My finds PQ once per day?

[+Isonzo Karst]

For many cachers, it's a very large query.

 

On a daily basis, you could run a date ranged query for caches "which I have found"

Every once in a while, this could fail to return a cache which you'd just found and which had then been archived.

You would get that in your weekly My Finds Query.

 

Re, GS should allow My finds PQ once per day? No.

I probably don't run it once a month.

[+9Key]

I would imagine the reason is because some cachers have tens of thousands of finds and that takes some processing power and stress on the email server too. Once a week is plenty for me, and I probably only run it once a month or so. No reason to have it more often than that.

[+Kryten]

Standard PQs can only return up to 500 caches. The "My finds" query is not limited in this way and can return several thousand caches. The once per week limit exists to prevent server overload.

[+rob3k]

I'd like to be able to schedule it, but I can deal with just once a week. I use it to update GSAK with the caches I've found.

 

What would be just as useful for me, and less intensive on the servers, is a pocket query of caches I've found in the last 10 days (or 2 weeks or 1 month, whatever). I could use this to update my recent finds in GSAK and use the much larger query with all my finds only when I want to generate fresh stats or refresh my full My Finds DB.

 

A rework of the 'Placed During' section to make this flexible - 'I found during', 'made inactive during', 'flagged for maintenance during' would be excellent.

Edited January 18, 2010 by rob3k

[knowschad]

Hi all. i was wondering of anyone knew why we can only do the my finds Pcoket Query once a week? we can do an number of queries every dayu, but not this one? Am I the only one this bothers? Do you think GS should allow My finds PQ once per day?

Wow! 428 finds in 13 days? I can see why you'd like to see your stats more frequenty! You've been mighty busy.

[+narcissa]

Hi all. i was wondering of anyone knew why we can only do the my finds Pcoket Query once a week? we can do an number of queries every dayu, but not this one? Am I the only one this bothers? Do you think GS should allow My finds PQ once per day?

 

You are limited to five PQs a day, and those are limited to 500 caches each. Allowing people to run the "My Finds" PQ once a day would, as others have suggested, be very demanding on the servers.

 

If you want to keep track of your finds *that* closely, you can manage them in GSAK.

[Mr.Yuck]

Hi all. i was wondering of anyone knew why we can only do the my finds Pcoket Query once a week? we can do an number of queries every dayu, but not this one? Am I the only one this bothers? Do you think GS should allow My finds PQ once per day?

Wow! 428 finds in 13 days? I can see why you'd like to see your stats more frequenty! You've been mighty busy.

 

I think the dog needs new glasses, I believe he's been caching close to one year.

 

For me with 1,900 finds, this query comes in well over 1 MB of data. I am a very wordy online logger, but I doubt that is too much of a factor. Unless someone with 2,000 finds, 75% of them 5 word logs for parking lot caches wants to chime in on the matter.

[knowschad]

Hi all. i was wondering of anyone knew why we can only do the my finds Pcoket Query once a week? we can do an number of queries every dayu, but not this one? Am I the only one this bothers? Do you think GS should allow My finds PQ once per day?

Wow! 428 finds in 13 days? I can see why you'd like to see your stats more frequenty! You've been mighty busy.

 

I think the dog needs new glasses, I believe he's been caching close to one year.

 

For me with 1,900 finds, this query comes in well over 1 MB of data. I am a very wordy online logger, but I doubt that is too much of a factor. Unless someone with 2,000 finds, 75% of them 5 word logs for parking lot caches wants to chime in on the matter.

Oops! Hey, I was still working on my first cup of coffee, OK?

[+GeoGeeBee]

Hi all. i was wondering of anyone knew why we can only do the my finds Pcoket Query once a week? we can do an number of queries every dayu, but not this one? Am I the only one this bothers? Do you think GS should allow My finds PQ once per day?

 

You are limited to five PQs a day, and those are limited to 500 caches each. Allowing people to run the "My Finds" PQ once a day would, as others have suggested, be very demanding on the servers.

 

I second the suggestion to use GSAK to manage your finds. You can run a regular pocket query, filtering for caches that you have found, every day if you want to. Unless you find more than 500 caches a day, this will allow you to update your GSAK database daily.

[+StarBrand]

Hi all. i was wondering of anyone knew why we can only do the my finds Pcoket Query once a week? we can do an number of queries every dayu, but not this one? Am I the only one this bothers? Do you think GS should allow My finds PQ once per day?

 

You are limited to five PQs a day, and those are limited to 500 caches each. Allowing people to run the "My Finds" PQ once a day would, as others have suggested, be very demanding on the servers.

 

I second the suggestion to use GSAK to manage your finds. You can run a regular pocket query, filtering for caches that you have found, every day if you want to. Unless you find more than 500 caches a day, this will allow you to update your GSAK database daily.

Unless (unlikely) a acache gets archived between your find and when you run a new PQ.

[+rob3k]

Hi all. i was wondering of anyone knew why we can only do the my finds Pcoket Query once a week? we can do an number of queries every dayu, but not this one? Am I the only one this bothers? Do you think GS should allow My finds PQ once per day?

 

You are limited to five PQs a day, and those are limited to 500 caches each. Allowing people to run the "My Finds" PQ once a day would, as others have suggested, be very demanding on the servers.

 

I second the suggestion to use GSAK to manage your finds. You can run a regular pocket query, filtering for caches that you have found, every day if you want to. Unless you find more than 500 caches a day, this will allow you to update your GSAK database daily.

 

How do you set up a PQ to only return recent finds? I'd like to do this.

[+Chrysalides]

How do you set up a PQ to only return recent finds? I'd like to do this.

I use "found in the last 7 days" option, but of course this just means found by anyone, not just me.

[+GeoGeeBee]

 

I second the suggestion to use GSAK to manage your finds. You can run a regular pocket query, filtering for caches that you have found, every day if you want to. Unless you find more than 500 caches a day, this will allow you to update your GSAK database daily.

 

How do you set up a PQ to only return recent finds? I'd like to do this.

 

Dang it. I thought it was possible, but now that I go try to do it, it appears not. Since I have WAY less than 500 finds, it doesn't matter for me.

 

I guess you'd have to center a search on the area you were hunting in most recently, and find the 500 closest finds. When you update GSAK it won't matter if some (or most) of them are already in there and marked as found, it automagically de-duplicates them.

[+rob3k]

 

I second the suggestion to use GSAK to manage your finds. You can run a regular pocket query, filtering for caches that you have found, every day if you want to. Unless you find more than 500 caches a day, this will allow you to update your GSAK database daily.

 

How do you set up a PQ to only return recent finds? I'd like to do this.

 

Dang it. I thought it was possible, but now that I go try to do it, it appears not. Since I have WAY less than 500 finds, it doesn't matter for me.

 

I guess you'd have to center a search on the area you were hunting in most recently, and find the 500 closest finds. When you update GSAK it won't matter if some (or most) of them are already in there and marked as found, it automagically de-duplicates them.

 

Bummer, I was hoping I missed something on PQ screen.

[+debaere]

If you want to keep track of your finds *that* closely, you can manage them in GSAK.

 

This assumes, of course, that the OP is running an OS that supports GSAK. Not everyone does. None of my devices support GSAK due to the OS.

 

tangental thought: Personally I think the world would be much better off for an online version of GSAK, preferably in a manner that supports importing listings from geocaching.com. We should all strive for the cross-platform solution.

[+GeoGeeBee]

If you want to keep track of your finds *that* closely, you can manage them in GSAK.

 

This assumes, of course, that the OP is running an OS that supports GSAK. Not everyone does. None of my devices support GSAK due to the OS.

 

tangental thought: Personally I think the world would be much better off for an online version of GSAK, preferably in a manner that supports importing listings from geocaching.com. We should all strive for the cross-platform solution.

 

I actually liked GSAK so much that I sold my Linux Netbook and bought one that supports Windows.

[CoyoteRed]

How do you set up a PQ to only return recent finds? I'd like to do this.

I use "found in the last 7 days" option, but of course this just means found by anyone, not just me.

Add "Found by me" and it will return only the caches that you've found and have been found in the last 7 days. Imperfect because I think it also goes by the log date not the date the log was written. If you back-date logs this would not be a solution. You would then need to use "changed in the last 7 days" which I believe include back-dated logs, no sure. You'll also get caches where attributes and descriptions have changed, but that's few.

 

The next alternative it is add each cache to a bookmark list. It's extra work, but you will get the archived caches.

[ZeMartelo]

Staying on the topic of the my finds PQ, knowing the aversion of Groundspeak to people that keep offline databases as discussed in many threads, why have this option at all?

 

What purpose does a My finds PQ serve other than to be used in an off-line database?

Just curious...

[+fegan]

Staying on the topic of the my finds PQ, knowing the aversion of Groundspeak to people that keep offline databases as discussed in many threads, why have this option at all?

 

What purpose does a My finds PQ serve other than to be used in an off-line database?

Just curious...

 

Simple...to generate find statistics.

[+Planet]

I just click on my last cache log, it says right next to my name how many I've found.

[AZcachemeister]

I prefer to re-visit the page(s) of the cache(s) I log right after logging them and downloading the individual .gpx file. These go into the same folder with my received PQ files and are loaded into GSAK pretty much daily.

I only need the 'My Finds' PQ every three or four months to catch any stragglers I might have not downloaded after logging.

[CoyoteRed]

I prefer to re-visit the page(s) of the cache(s) I log right after logging them and downloading the individual .gpx file. These go into the same folder with my received PQ files and are loaded into GSAK pretty much daily.

I only need the 'My Finds' PQ every three or four months to catch any stragglers I might have not downloaded after logging.

Excellent suggestion!

[+Isonzo Karst]

What purpose does a My finds PQ serve

 

I didn't run a My finds query for a long time after they became available. Couldn't see the point. I'm not into stats, haven't downloaded any mash-your-stats programs, don't use itsnotaboutthenumbers.

 

But I o find that i use that database of My Finds quite a lot in trip planning and in planning get-togethers with other cachers. Having the GC Code of a cache that I recall as being near the parking, or close to the start/end point of a trail allows me to get to the right GC.com cache map. If your memory is better then mine (likely) you may not need this. I'm joining friends today, and I used MyFinds to get to cache map and grab a PQ for the area.