CountyCount 1.0

[abcdmCachers]

If you’d like to count the counties you’ve cached in, I’ve written a little program that can help you do this. It uses your “My Finds” pocket query and determines which county each cache is in (Wisconsin only). You can also enter coordinates for an individual cache to check which county it’s in.

Why would I want to count my counties you ask? Well, now you can enter and track your county statistics along with your states on our excellent new wi-geocaching website (if you’re not aware of this, check it out here):
http://wi-geocaching.com/modules.php?name=State_County_Stats

It also gives you a good excuse to go to places you might not otherwise go to (as in, “gee honey, we only have to travel 600 miles this weekend and we can cross off another county!!”).

I don’t have a webpage for this yet, but you can download here:
http://www.logicweave.com/CountyCountSetup.msi

System requirements will be the same as for the CacheStats program:
http://www.logicweave.com/cachestats.html

Disclaimer: there is roundoff error involved – caches very near countylines may be incorrect, in fact I can guarantee it – I know of at least two caches near borders that show up in the incorrect county.

Thanks to jthorson for pointing out the boundary data files that this program uses for its calculations:
http://www.census.gov/geo/www/cob/co2000.html

[Green Bay Paddlers]

This is fantastic. Thanks for filling a needed void here. I have gone and updated our stats on the new page. Thanks again for the software…

Jeff

[LightningBugs Mum]

I never counted the counties we have cached in because I never wanted to bother. Now I don’t have to bother! Thanks – I’ll give it a try when I get back home next week.

[Really Im Not Lost]

Very cool!! thank you!

[Ray]

Works well. I had been tracking mine with an excell spreadsheet and did some comparisons. both routines agree on the count of counties with finds, but they disagree on finds in the county for several. “County Count” [sounds like ‘linky link’] doesn’t pick up locationless, temps or archived caches.

I guess we now have a Count of County counts 😉

[SadowskiFamily]

I got a kick out of the county that I have cached in the most… Now you need to have it make a map of Wisconsin so we can place it on our profile page.

[GOJeepers]

I agree! The coded map of Wisconsin would be great! I know nothing about programming though….is that kind of thing a pain in the butt?

[jthorson]

@GOJeepers wrote:

The coded map of Wisconsin would be great!

Here’s mine:

Produced with http://monarch.tamu.edu/~maps2/wi.htm and using the output of ‘CountyCount’.

Note that the red counties in the map above are done as example. Really.

[Jeremy]

I finally got around to trying this program out and it worked great! It picked up all my county “finds” (all 55 of them), and only two of the caches appeared to be classified as being in the wrong county.

I had always planned on writing a My Finds Pocket Query parser for the website. In fact, I started this a couple months back but never got around to finishing it. This parser would automatically determine what states and countries a person cached in, but would not handle the counties.

I have contacted the abcdmCachers to see if they would be willing to share the code/algorithms/etc. that they are using to come up with the county counts. If they do, we should be able to have a parser on the WGA website that can automatically determine state, country, and county statistics! There would be no excuse for people (even the extremely lazy or busy ones ;)) not to enter and keep their statistics up to date…

[Jeremy]

@GOJeepers wrote:

I agree! The coded map of Wisconsin would be great! I know nothing about programming though….is that kind of thing a pain in the butt?

This is another enhancement I had always intended for the State/County Stats module on the WGA website.

Having the images generated by and kept on the server would make things really easy. You could put a link to your find map image(s) somewhere (such as your gc.com profile) and they would automatically update as you make changes to your stats on the WGA site. (It would work in the same way as the geocaching.com stat bar image.) This would save people from having to upload new maps each time they make a change and possibly editing the img HTML tags.

The hardest part is coming up with some good, “clean” Wisconsin and U.S. maps to use for generating the filled maps. I will be starting a thread in the Suggestion Box looking for such map images… I know some people are manually creating maps of finds and I want to know what they have found work and look the best.

[djwini]

just downloaded your program. it is excellent! i have always wanted to see where in the state i have been, but could never take the time to break it down. of course, now i see some white spaces and know i will have to head to those counties to fill them in. and i was just getting over the addiction.
djwini

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