We Have Keys! Now we need your help

[Corfman Clan]

Big news. Today I received the keys to access the production Geocaching.com Live API.

With the production keys, we can access Geocaching.com's live database, so now we can start updating the data we have gathered with the latest. This will allow us to test how LonelyCache works in a real environment and fix any issues we may have. It will also allow us to bring the LonelyCache database and statistics up to date.

What we need now, is a premium member account to work with. I've currently set up four basic member accounts on Geocaching.com: LonelyCache 01, LonelyCache 02, LonelyCache 03, and LonelyCache 04. I'm hoping that some of you may be generous and gift a premium membership to LonelyCache 01. Upgrading LonelyCache 02 would be helpful too, but isn't necessary yet. Once things are going well, we will probably need three premium accounts to properly manage LonelyCache.com.

Thank you so much for all the support you've shown as we have been developing LonelyCache.com and also for your generosity!

All the best,
Russell

[skeeper]

LonelyCache 01 is now a premium member.

[Corfman Clan]

LonelyCache 01 is now a premium member.

Cool! Thank you very much. Since you are from Utah, I am setting things up to get Utah up to date first.

[skeeper]

Thank you for all you've done and you're very welcome.

[bikephotog]

LonelyCache 02 is premium

[Corfman Clan]

LonelyCache 02 is premium

Wow, another one goes premium. Thank you very much Bikephotog!

I'm starting pocket queries for NM with this account since I already have Utah taken care of.

[Corfman Clan]

I really think we have a great community here. Thanks to the greenskeeper and bikephotog for their premium gifts. I have no doubt many more of you are ready to help out when needed!

Last night I was able to get LonelyCache running using the production keys and monitored things for awhile. In general things are working really well. Due to more restrictive API limits on the production system than the staging system, updating LonelyCache will take several days if not a few weeks. It ran into a few errors over the night but it looks like most of them are just some tuning issues that can be taken care of simply enough.

Thanks again,
Russell

[rocketsciguy]

I really think we have a great community here. Thanks to the greenskeeper and bikephotog for their premium gifts. I have no doubt many more of you are ready to help out when needed!

Last night I was able to get LonelyCache running using the production keys and monitored things for awhile. In general things are working really well. Due to more restrictive API limits on the production system than the staging system, updating LonelyCache will take several days if not a few weeks. It ran into a few errors over the night but it looks like most of them are just some tuning issues that can be taken care of simply enough.

Thanks again,
Russell

That's awesome! Thanks Russell (and Redfist) for all your hard work to date, and thanks greenskeeper and bikephotog for being so quick to sponsor! It's exciting to know that it's just around the corner. Since you're building data from the Live API now, I think it would be pretty interesting to see the site flesh itself out as the database builds on its skeleton base. Each day you'd have radical changes in Point value and Leaderboards. (hint hint) It would be really interesting to see it.

[Corfman Clan]

That's awesome! Thanks Russell (and Redfist) for all your hard work to date, and thanks greenskeeper and bikephotog for being so quick to sponsor! It's exciting to know that it's just around the corner. Since you're building data from the Live API now, I think it would be pretty interesting to see the site flesh itself out as the database builds on its skeleton base. Each day you'd have radical changes in Point value and Leaderboards. (hint hint) It would be really interesting to see it.

Things aren't going to be changing as quickly as one might think. I set the database in such a way that every cache is ready for a full update. That is, all the logs will be retrieved for every cache. Doing this will just happen to pick older caches first. (They aren't being sorted so I'm not sure why, it just does. Maybe because the primary key is the cache ID). We already have most of the logs for the old caches, so those won't be changing much. Also, Groundspeak limits the API call for fetching logs to 200 calls per hour with up to 30 logs per call. With 4 accounts, I'm getting 800 calls an hour. Some of those old caches have a lot of logs too. So after a day, a bit over 4000 caches are fully updated. New caches will be added with pocket queries but then, those caches won't be updated until all the older caches have been. So, it's going to take awhile. The system also has a lot to do so I have my doubts on whether the stats will be updated too, though I can manually start that as I want.

[kingbee]

Why are you downloading the logs? You just need the total finds. Is there not a data that shows that?

[Corfman Clan]

Why are you downloading the logs? You just need the total finds. Is there not a data that shows that?

Actually, there isn't a way to get the numbers of different types of logs for a cache. That would be nice but at this time, there isn't. Even if there was that is not adequate for what LonelyCache is doing, we also need to know who found each cache and when.

Optimally, it would be great if there was an API call that would return a list of finders, the date found, and the log id for a cache, but currently there isn't one.

[wolf11469]

LonelyCache 04 is now a premium member.

Thank you for all the work you guys have put into getting this project rolling ....... I can't wait.

[mojave_rattler]

Shucks....I would have given a gift premium membership to one of the accounts but it looks like all of them are already covered.

[skeeper]

There's always next year when they expire.

[Corfman Clan]

LonelyCache 04 is now a premium member.

Thank you for all the work you guys have put into getting this project rolling ....... I can't wait.

Thank you!

[Corfman Clan]

Holy cow, I didn't expect all four accounts to go premium!

Thank you everyone for your generosity. I think we could have gotten by with three premium accounts but four will simplify managing things.

I received PMs from some of you stating you were ready to gift a premium account when we were ready for another. I guess I didn't have a chance, but as the greenskeeper mentioned, there is always next year.

I do think we have a great community here. Sometimes you are a bit quiet, but still, a great community. Again, thank you to everyone for your generosity and I'll continue working hard to get this site live.

[huntnfool]

QUIET, is good in this case.... We are all patiently waiting for the finished product, and we are all very THANKFUL for ALL of you working to get it up and running!!!!!

[Corfman Clan]

QUIET, is good in this case.... We are all patiently waiting for the finished product, and we are all very THANKFUL for ALL of you working to get it up and running!!!!!

Ha, perhaps so, but I'd like to have more chatter here. When things go quiet for awhile, I try to post something to get some conversation going but I'm more of a geek than a social butterfly

[gjhiker]

We appreciate all the hard work you have done and eagerly await access to the new database. We are definitely getting starved of interesting geocaches to search for. We're still working off the old DGP lists.

[Corfman Clan]

I finally got around to checking the emails for lonelycache 01-04. Mainly to delete all the pocket query notifications. When what do I see, that LonelyCache 02 actually received two premium gift memberships. Yes it's premium out until 6/20/2014.

So I want to thank the five of you that donated a premium membership to this project!
I know that there are several of you that were ready to help out too. Again thank you.
You guys are awesome!