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USER PROFILE

How To Guide

By genegene

Updated
1/19/2010



Since I started Geocaching, I have always liked looking at other cachers profiles. Then one day I started noticing that some cacher profiles had lots more info on them that what you can type in normally. There were Difficulty and Terrain ratings for the caches that they had found, First to Finds, Caches found in what states, Finds per month, and the list goes on and on.

There are many different programs out there that make your profile look different ways, but in this guide, we will be using GSAK to set up a very nice look for your Profile Page on Geocaching.com. It took me quite some time to figure out how to create my stats info using GSAK, but I was on my own when I did it and there was no "How To" guide for me to follow. It was all trial and error. Even now I am still learning all of the cool features that GSAK and its dedicated macro creators have come up with.

Everything will be explained in an easy to follow, step by step guide. You may already know most of it, but this "How To" guide is set up as if you have never used GSAK before, or your P.Q. options on GroundSpeak.

OK now on to what you have come here for. At times things are going to look very daunting, but don't worry about it. Stop looking ahead of what you are reading and me wanting you to do, and when. I will explain things to you as we go. If you follow these simple step by step instructions it will be semi painless, I only say semi because if you are like me and have over 50 hides that get finds on them frequently, it will take some time to download logs to your placed caches. But I'm getting ahead of my self here, so lets start at the beginning shall we....

What is GSAK?

GSAK is the short name for Geocaching Swiss Army Knife. GSAK is the all in one Geocaching and waypoint management tool. Major features include: Multiple databases, sending/receiving waypoints to GPSr, Google maps, conversion to many mapping formats, PDA output (including CacheMate support), HTML output, extensive searching, macro support, backup and restore, distance/direction from other waypoints (including caches, locations, post codes) and much more. GSAK only runs on Windows operating systems (98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista)

Why Should I use GSAK, I am happy with what I am using now?

If you use something else that is fine. I am not telling you to use GSAK. I am only showing you how to set up a user profile using GSAK if you want to use it.

How much does it cost?

In the grand scheme of things its cheap, very cheap. It only costs $25.00 U.S. and its free for life (future versions may not be though). Upgrades and new add ons are happening all the time. So today there may be 1 new thing to look at and by the end of the month there may be 10.

What if I have a problem with the program?

Have no fear, there are dedicated users and programmers on the GSAK forums that are more then willing to help you with what ever may be your problem or idea. They love new ideas.

What do I need to make the profile that we are going to do?

You are going to need a few things to start.

  1. A Premium Membership with GroundSpeak
  2. GSAK
  3. A good hour or more to spare for your first time running the program. (This all depends on how many caches you have placed, it could take longer)

I will be using abbreviations throughout the steps and I will post all abbreviations here. This will help you if I use a word that you don't know. Just look it up here.

  1. Anything within quotes ( " " ) are direct words used.
  2. GSAK = Geocaching Swiss Army Knife
  3. P.Q. = Pocket Query
  4. GC = Geocache
  5. FTF = First To Find

If you see this image ( ) next to anything, go ahead and click on it to see a picture of what you should be looking at.



Step 1.) Run a P.Q. for all your cache finds picture

This is found in the Premium Features on the right side of your account details page on Geocaching.com. This will automatically send you a P.Q. of all your finds. It is best to do this ahead of time. It sometimes takes a while if the server is busy. On average it only takes about 10 Minn. for mine to be sent to me.

Step 2.) Run a P.Q. for all your hides. If you have no cache hides then you may skip this part.

To run a P.Q. for all your hides you need to run a manual P.Q. here is how to do it...
  1. Create a new P.Q.
  2. Pick a name for it. I suggest something like "My Placed Caches" or "My Hidden Caches" or anything else along those lines that will let you know what it is.
  3. Do NOT pick the day of the week you want to run it on yet. First lets make sure it has your caches in the list first.
  4. Click on "Any Type" and "Any Container" for the next 2 choices.
  5. For the third choice, "That (and)" you only want to pick "I own"
  6. Do not worry about the Terrain, Difficulty, and Countries choices, Just the States that you have caches in. If you are not in the U.S.A., or have caches in other parts of the world, Countries would apply to you.
  7. "From Origin" you can click on "None Selected". This will bring up your caches from the date that you placed them.
  8. The "Within radius of" can be just past your farthest distance placed cache, give an extra 2 mi or km (what ever you use).
  9. Don't worry about the rest of the choices. If I didn't say anything about it, you don't need it.
  10. Submit Information
  11. Now "preview the search" If all of your caches are listed (minus any Events you have hosted or Archived Caches), you can now pick the day that you want to run it on, Just don't delete the P.Q. after running it.

Run the P.Q. now if it looks good.

Step 3.) Now lets get your Archived and Event Caches together shall we:

  1. Go to "My Account" on Geocaching.com
  2. Click on "(Mine)" next to Geocaches.
  3. This is a list of all of your Geocaches, What you want to do is make a bookmark list of all of your Archived Caches and Events.
  4. After you have made the list, Run a P.Q. on the Bookmarked list.

Step 4.) Go to GSAK's web-site. www.gsak.net, Click on "Macros" at the top.

If you don't have GSAK, get it now. Its free for 21 days and then it gets an annoying pop up to remind you that you didn't buy it and it does this every time you try and do something.

Step 5.) Scroll down and select "FindStatGen3".

Download it now. It will automatically put it in with the GSAK Program.

Step 6.) Download "AddLogs" It will also put it in with your GSAK Programs.

*There are lots of different Macros that you can play with here. But only download the ones I have asked you to download for now*

Step 7.) On your Desk Top Create a new folder and name it "Geocaching Queries".

This is where all of you P.Q. should be paced when you get them in your e-mail. The reason is because if you run multiple programs that need P.Q.'s you know where to look and find them. You can also unzip them and have them in the same desk top folder.

Step 8.) Check your e-mail for the three P.Q.'s that should be there now, and send them to your new Desk Top Folder.

Step 9.) Open GSAK

Step 10.) Click on the file button at the top let corner and open the new P.Q you were sent "My Placed Caches".

Step 11.) Open your archived bookmarked caches P.Q. the same way.

Make sure that when opening the second P.Q. that you uncheck the box on the middle left that says "Clear Database before loading". You do NOT want to clear the caches that are listed now.

Step 12.) Its time to set GSAK up to know who you are.

  1. Find your name in the caches listed and then look at the "owner ID" number. This is your official user ID number given to you by GroundSpeak.

  2. If you do not see it then you must add "owner ID" to the Grid.

  3. Do the same steps as 12b1.- 12b2.
  4. In the "General" tab, you will see a box that says this, "Method for matching placed (hidden) and found caches" click on the circle that says "Owner ID # "
    5. 12d
  5. Enter you GC user ID number in this section. Select "OK"
  6. You have now told GSAK who you are and this will not change unless you tell it to.


*Now that both P.Q.'s are loaded, and GSAK knows who you are, you should notice that the GC# codes are now highlighted. They will be Green , Yellow , or Pink. If any are white, then you have the wrong P.Q. in the files. Repeat steps 10 and 11.
Just remember that when you run a regular P.Q. on GSAK, that you check the box that says "Clear database before loading". If you don't any new info will be included with what you have in there already *



Step 13.) Now that your placed caches are loaded in GSAK, we are going to add all of the logs to your Geocaches.

  1. Click on the "macro" button at the top.
  2. Click "Run/Manage..."
  3. Click "AddLogs.gsk"
  4. Click "Run" at the bottom.
  5. A new screen will pop up and ask what kind of logs you want. I reccomend having all boxes checked, and then pick the option that says " Move to Next Way point When Done ".
    Make sure that the box for " GetOwnerID # from GC.com if NOT found in DB (open online profile page)? " is checked
  6. Click "OK"


Now for the Good news and the Bad news.

The Good news is that you have now successfully added all of the found logs to your cache. The bad news is that you need to do this for each cache you own. Repeat Step 13 for all your placed caches.
If you are like me and have a lot of caches, this will take some very consuming time the first time.
Each Geocache you run the "AddLogs.gsk." on, GSAK will have to get the GC.com user Name and ID Number for each new cacher it finds.
But have no fear, as you progress, GSAK stores the new names and user ID's it gets in its database, and the run time becomes less and less.

Step 14.) Now its time to store all this info in a useful place that you can retrieve it very fast and easily the next time you want to update your profile or look at any info.

  1. Click on " Database" up top in GSAK
  2. Click on "Save As"
  3. Save this list as "My Placed Caches"
  4. You will now notice that the "Database" drop down menu is now listing these caches as "My Placed Caches"


In the future, all you have to do is click on the Database Drop down menu and select the data base we just created "My Placed Caches" to bring up all of the logs and caches you own.

If you place more caches and want to add them to the list, just run a "GPX eXchange File" (Geocache PQ) on each new cache you have placed and send it to your Desk Top Folder and then open up your "My Caches" database and add the new file to it. Just make sure you save your new cache in the data base after you add it to the list.

Step 15.) Now switch back the "Database" setting to "Default "

Step 16.) Load your "Found Caches" P.Q. into GSAK

Step 17.) You now must mark all of the caches that you were FTF on (if any). There is a little box in the columns that says "f t f ". This is where you will put your FTF check marks.
If you do not see it, repeat steps 12b1 - 12b5, except you will check the "First To Find" box instead of "Owner ID" box.

Step 18.) Now that your finds are loaded, Lets save this list just like you did with your "My Placed Caches" shall we..

You will save this list just like you did in steps 14a. - 14d. but just named differently. Lets call this saved list as "My Found Caches". After you save the list, the Database drop down menu will now say "My Found Caches"
Whenever you want to update your "My Found Caches" database, Just upload your new "My Finds" P.Q. (from Geocaching.com) directly to this list.

Step 19.)Its now time to get the profile you want and how you want it to look.

  1. Click the "Macro" button up top
  2. Click "Run/Manage..."
  3. Click "FindStatGen3.gsk..."
  4. Click "Run"

Step 20.)The next box that pops up will say "'Find' Statistics HTML Export " Click on the "Options " button on this pop up screen.

Step 21.) This next pop up screen is where you can make your profile look any way you want it to look.

There are 3 things we need to set first before you can make it look however you want it to look. These 3 things are to be set and not played with. They control where GSAK looks for the info it needs to create your profile.
  1. Found caches Database = My Found Caches

    2. This is where all of your found caches are now stored for easy retrieval by GSAK and yourself.

  2. Placed caches Database = My Placed Caches

    3. This is where all of your placed caches are now stored for easy retrieval by GSAK and yourself. Make sure that the box is checked for "Include Own Finds in Placed"

  3. User Geocaching Name = Your Geocaching Name
The only thing left to do now is have fun deciding what you want to have on your profile. All of the other options that you will see, change the way things look. As long as you do not change the 3 things above, everything will be fine to play with.

Step 22.) After you have played with the choices, click on "OK".

The GSAK profile will automatically run and open up online in a browser so you can see what it looks like. If you don't like it repeat step 19 through 21 until it looks the way you want it to look.

Step 23.) Once your new look has been chosen and you like the way it looks, its time to put it on your profile.

On the Browser that now is up (with a very nice look I may add) that has a lot of info on it that you might never have known about your caching history, you need put it where you want it. How do you do that you ask, very easy my Dear Watson.

For your Geocaching.com Profile, go to step 24
    If you want to have this info on your personal web page:
  1. Right click on your new profile.
  2. Look for the choice "View Source" and click on it.
  3. On the new window that pops up, copy everything from the 2nd line down.

Step 24.) Go to your profile page on Geocaching.com

  1. Click on "My Public Profile" on the right, under your Avatar.
  2. Click on "Edit your Profile"
  3. Right click your mouse button and chose "Paste" in the box provided.
    NOTE: When you click "Paste", all the info that will be pasted, is already in your computers clipboard. It was sent there by the GSAK macro. This is because of limitations on the types of HTML coding that GroundSpeak will allow you to use.
  4. Update your account by clicking "Save Changes"

Step 25.) Check out the new details and profile about your caching history that others will be viewing by returning to "My Public Profile".


From now on when ever you want to update your database's, all you need to do is just refresh the PQ in GSAK for what ever database you want to have updated.
I recomend updating your database at least once a week. If you have a lot of caches that get found a lot, I would say update that one twice a week.


I know that there was a lot to do and learn here, but rest assured that it will not be this hard the next time you do it. You will not need to download anything but your P.Q.'s.
The "FindStatGen3.gsk" and the "AddLogs.gsk" are downloaded into GSAK and will not be removed unless you don't want them anymore.


Good Luck and have fun using your new GSAK Profile.


Gene G.
aka... genegene


If you have any suggestions or comments about this "How To" guide you can contact me directly.




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