GSAK Database Maintenance Questions
Ok, so I jumped on the bandwagon of trying to keep an offline GSAK database of all the caches in NB. It seems to be going fine but here’s the question I have…
How exactly do you keep this thing up to date with your finds and caches that get archived? Are you merging your finds query into the NB database? And for archived caches, are you going through the list manually every so often. How exactly do you keep it up to date?
I have my own ideas but thought I’d pose it out to everyone else to see what they do.
for my offline database i run a province wide set of PQ’s regularly (10 gets everything) and after the pq’s are loaded into gsak i filter out those caches that were not updated in the last run of pq’s (i.e. archived caches) then check those with the api and either delete them or move to a database full of archived caches. this way every cache (found or not) gets updated.
oh and the 10 pq’s i run are based on placed date and in New Brunswick not centered on a specific area
Once I got all in them in GSAK I just run the update function to keep the listings current. I have everything in it and then just filter before sending to gps.
but don’t you get hit with an overage on your 6k caches a day with that?
I am running a status check right now, will let you know but I don’t remember getting an error.
I just did it and it checked all 9800+ caches and told me that 150 or so were archived so I deleted them from my data base. I ran a PQ from the last date I did a PQ January 10th until today and it added a bunch (495).
status checks don’t count towards your daily total and they don’t mark caches found or not all it does is check the status
I know what I was doing that was causing the 6K limit. I was using the refresh data as opposed to status check.
So between the status check and the import of my finds, that should be enough to keep the db up to date I would think eh?
yes that and the load of new caches in the past little while (keep in mind every once and a while a placed date might be outside the date you choose to grab caches from) the other thing that you miss is new logs on the caches that are only getting the status update. (hence why i still rely on the 10 pq’s along with the api loads)
I use a Mac so can’t install GSAK. I hear lots of cachers talk about it though. What does it offer above a GC premium membership that’s so worthwhile?
heathree, for mac users, I suggest iCaching. It’s not as powerful as GSAK (yet), but it is super useful for advanced filtering, and maps. Still has google satellite view, AND it moves puzzle caches to the correct coordinates (if you’ve solved them), making planning an outing a breeze. It’s $15, but for me – it’s already paid for itself several times.
Heath it is just a database (ie PQ) manipulator. It lets you take the data and filter it in dozens of ways and upload to your GPS
In the days of smartphone geocaching, programs like gsak will become less important. IMO.
I agree, I don’t use it much but many cachers have as much fun playing with GSAK and mapping programs as they do going out to cache.
I disagree.
Maybe for caching around town, but for road trips and other more complex caching scenarios, smartphones don’t even come close to what you can get out of GSAK.
GSAK has been absolutely the best tool I could have used for my larger road trips (Geowoodstock, etc). When you’re talking about loading 10,000+ caches, you need to be able to filter and organize those in a way that makes a bit of sense. Being able to sit down and sort through that amount of caches onscreen vs a phone was a HUGE plus for me. I can’t even imagine trying to filter/sort through that kind of data on a small mobile device.
Not to mention that the moment you cross the border, you incur major roaming fees for any data access used by a mobile app.
I think it depends on the type of caching you do, where you go, and what you want to accomplish. For some, mobile is fine. For me, I will never use my iPhone as my only means of working with caches. It really is just too limited.
I think the whole mobile vs GPS/PC thing would be a great debate topic for a podcast 🙂
But you have an iPhone using the official app, I use C:geo which is much better as long as I am in Canada.