F*Stats - back-up your Flickr Stats data / Discuss

tarmo888    says:

Simple, you will ask, I will answer.

How to I install it?
Download the zip file, unpack it to any folder. It starts from the executable. If it doesn't start then you are missing version 2.0 of dot NET framework.

Can I use it with Safari or Firefox in MAC?
Current version of F*Stats is stand-alone Windows only application that uses Internet Explorer. I don't know if there are emulators out there that can run it on any other platform than Windows.

Why is it auto signing-in to my other account, not the one I use in my default browser?
Account that keeps automatically signing-in is probably set to "keep me signed in" in Internet Explorer.

I went through authentication and sign in successfully. How do I get my stats now?
After granting View permission, Flickr will tell you "You have successfully authorized the application F*Stats. You can go ahead and close this window now.". Don't close the window, click Authenticate button instead on the bottom. It will tell you "User authenticated:" and the name how it will remember you next time. "Authenticate" button will be replaced with 3 new buttons, first collects your referrer data, second your photo (view/favorites/comments) stats and third shows you charts and top lists.

How can I keep Stats separated when I use multiple accounts?
Copy and rename the executable. It will create a new SQLite db file with a same name as executable file.

Can it be tricked to go all the way back in history to download ALL statistics available, and not just 28 days?
Flickr keeps only 28 days of data, so you need to run it at least once in 28 days. If you are not able to run it as often, use something else like flickrstats. F*Stats uses one trick and sometimes can recover little bit more than 28, but not always (depends when Flickr deletes old stats results).

Can I use the data files from FlickrStats and combine it with the file on F*Stats?
Not yet, but importing csv files is planned feature for future release of F*Stats 2.0, unfortunately I am not able to promise any dates because it's just a hobby project.

Why is it asking me to authenticate even if I authenticated it last time?
On program start, it asks your screen name, use the same name it shows in "User Authenticated: ..." message.

Why reports have 2 sets of spark-lines (blue & pink)?
Blue spark-line shows number of unique referrers, pink spark-line shows total number of all referrings. Same with photos, unique photos vs. total number of views/favorites/comments.

What search engines are taken account when calculated Search reports?
Flickr search of course, Google, Yahoo, Bing and lot more smaller search engines (more than Flickr in 2009 Dec. detected).

How is Domains report different from Other Sites report?
Domains report includes all the views from listed domain, Other Sites report excludes the views that are already in Groups, Searches, Tags and Users reports.

How is Keywords report different from Search report?
Search report contains search phrases data, in Keywords report, all those phrases are split into words and numbers are based on every single word.

Why sometimes F*Stats all-time counters (views, comments, favorites) are smaller than info on Flickr?
This is probably because you haven't got all the statistics from Flickr. Examples: you didn't collect statistic at least once in 28 days or your account was active more than 28 before you started using F*Stats.

Why sometimes F*Stats all-time counters (comments, favorites) are larger than info on Flickr?
This can happen if you or some other users have removed their comments or favorites. If the user account is deleted then comments remain, but favorites are removed.

Flickr Stats shows me 1393 views from yesterday, F*Stats photo views has 1257 and F*Stats referrers has 1155. Why is that so?
This is because views report contains all views, but referrers report doesn't include views from Unknown Source (Direct Traffic), so there was probably 1393-1257=136 views for Photostream, Sets, Collections, Galleries and 1257-1155=102 views from Unknown Source.

How can I export spark-line charts or list of top referrers?
Right-click, View source and save it as html or install any PDF printer (like PDFcreator), click Print Preview, click Print icon from left corner, select PDF printer and click Print button.

How can I open db3 files and access all the collected data?
db3 is SQLite database file, which can be opened with software like SQLiteStudio. I have also tried sqlite-manager extension for Firefox and SQLite Database Browser. Tables that start with stats_* are collected data, rest of the tables are for aggregated data thats used in Reports part of my application.
Originally posted at 9:11AM, 4 January 2010 PDT (permalink)
tarmo888 edited this topic 16 months ago.