Postcrossing.com now uses "htpps://" for the login procedure (which probably is a good thing for the security of the site itself :)), unfortunatly, I can't get my "cUrl" (php) procedure to work with this "htpps". I already updated the "cacert.pem" file, but still I can't get a login succeded. As I'm busy with other projects at the moment and being a bit absent on postcrossing, I fear that this statistics opportunity will be gone dead. At least for now. Cheers, Wyando
Why this webpage?
Well, I'm really addict to postcrossing and I do love stats. Paulo already provide some Stats, but I always want to know more about the cards I've sent and received. So I came up with this page.
Who is doing this webpage?
If you don't already know me: I'm Wyando. You wanna know more? Well, just get a look to another addiction I have: BookCrossing, for which I maintain the German Support Site (in german, english or dutch), European Support Sites, Belgian Support Site and BookCrossing: Statistics. Here is the link to my BookShelf at BookCrossing.com :)
Why do I have to login on this webpage too?
This page will build stats based on your sent and received cards. But those two pages at
postcrossing.com are only visible if you are logged in. This works fine if you stay in the
same browser to look at it, but the stats over here are build on data a program script grabs
from postcrossing.com - meaning that it isn't the same source as the browser (and so it can't
read the needed cookie postcrossing.com create when you log in over there.)
So, to build the personalized stats, the program script have to log on himself to postcrossing.com
to get access to the pages
sentPostcards and
receivedPostcards.
For this reason - and only for this reason - you have to enter your loginname and password to get a
personalized stat.
Could the login data of this Add-On be intercept?
Honestly: yes.
But: I, Wyando, promise not to do. I will keep track of the loginnames, but only for the purpose
to know how this webpage is being used (and even misused, if there are unsuccesful logins). But I never
will collect any passwords.
What does this program script anyway?
To create a personalized stat, there have to be some data. This data can be found at postcrossing.com in the sections sentPostcards and receivedPostcards. But this is a simple sequential list of the cards with detailed data. I, Wyando, like to have more specific stats, to answer questions like:
- How many cards have been sent/received for each country?
- How many days were the fastest and lamest cards travelling?
- Which are the shortest and longest Kms inside a country?
- Create lists for the country based Bingos!
- ...
If you have not that much cards yet, you'll see that on the sentPostcards and receivedPostcards page quickly, but the more cards are coming, the more this list becomes hard to read. So I decided to create a program script, which grabs the data needed and builds the stats I'd like to see.
This script takes your login data - if you agree - and logs on to postcrossing.com, grabs the sentPostcards and receivedPostcards pages and then logs out directly. From the grabbed pages, it builds the personalized stat and shows it in your browser. Sent/Received cards either alphabetical or decending on maximum cards per country. That's all. :)
Just to be sure: personalized stat means, you only can create this stat for your own account!