Husqvarna 223L Weed Trimmer Troubleshooting
Husqvarna 223L Weed Trimmer Troubleshooting
After years of buying the cheapest yardwork tools only to end up in frustration, I finally bucked up enough dough to finally buy a Husqvarna 223L weed trimmer and other some nice equipment. I had two cheap electric Black and Decker lawnmowers which were absolute garbage, especially when it comes to my yard since I must have twenty different kinds of grass and weeds in my home in the woods, not to mention all of the trees and different levels of yard I have to deal with. So while a gas riding lawn mower would be nice in a normal situation, it certainly would not make sense in my yard. After getting sick and tired with my second crappy electric lawn mower, I threw it down in frustration and headed to Lowes that same day to buy a nice high powered gas lawnmower and I couldn’t be happier.
I just did the same after dealing with two cheap, heavy and ineffective weed trimmers or weed wackers. I did my research online and decided on the gas powered Husqvarna 223L String Weed Trimmer since it had amazing reviews and looked like exactly what I was looking for. The downside is that all of the local hardware stores either didn’t have it in stock or just don’t carry any Husqvarna models at all. So I had to order it online and wait for four days while my weeds kept overgrowing to record highs.
I finally got the Husqvarna 223L delivered and my first impression is wow, this thing is huge. But surprisingly, it was relatively lightweight especially compared to my two previous electric weed eaters which were half the size of this thing. It was a cinch to get started with since it was mostly put together right out of the box. After mixing 50 parts gasoline with 1 part oil, I was ready to power it up and get to work. However, it was not as easy as expected.
Here’s what I had to do, per the instructions:
1. Fill up the primer bulb with fuel.
2. Turn the blue engine choke switch down.
3. Pull the starting line to start the engine.
4. Once the engine was started, push the blue engine choke switch back up.
That’s supposedly it. However, it took me forever to finally get it started the first time. Then once it got started, as soon as I switched the blue switch back up, it cut off. After what seemed like an hour, I finally got it to work and was weedwacking away for a few minutes before I turned it off to get my gloves. Then when I came back, the engine would never kick on. I googled “husqvarna 223l troubleshooting” and kept getting the official Husqvarna website and the same instruction manual that came in the box. I also came across some professional lawncare forums but none of them really addressed the problem I was having.
After an hour of letting it cool down, I went back out and tried again. This time it worked and I was able to weedwack for 5 minutes. Then all of a sudden the head stopped spinning. The motor was still on but I could not get the head to spin and thus I could not weed wack. Ugh. This is so frustrating.
As of right now, I have no idea why it won’t spin and have no ideas what to do. Anybody else have any suggestions or tips for solving my Husqvarna 223L weed trimmer troubleshooting problems?
GMail Manager Firefox 7 Not Working – Update
Once again, Mozilla upgraded Firefox to a new version which is apparently Firefox 7.0.1. And once again, because Mozilla upgraded Firefox, a lot of my plugins and addons that I use on a daily basis end up breaking. Most importantly, Gmail Manager to manage multiple email accounts for all of my clients. This is ridiculous that Mozilla keeps upgrading Firefox for what appears to be no particular reason considering the browser is still extremely slow. My preferred browser is Google Chrome since it’s so much quicker, but Gmail Manager or an equivalent plugin is not available currently for Chrome.
Anyways, you probably came here because you upgraded to Firefox 7 and now GMail Manager does not work for you. Well, you’re in luck because I have found the solution straight from the Mozilla extensions page:
http://minus.com/dGiqh21zjjZdk.xpi
or you can patch it yourself.
1. find the xpi file and extract it with an unzip utility. The path will be something like C:\Users\yourlogin\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\somerandomid.default\extensions
2. edit install.rdf and change this line
<em:maxVersion>6.0.*</em:maxVersion>
to
<em:maxVersion>7.0.*</em:maxVersion>
mine is 6.0.* because I’ve already patched this previously. Yours might be 5.0.* . If you haven’t done the previous patch, read backwards in this thread until you see the instructions detailed.
3. Zip the contents back up, and rename with an xpi extension. It’s important to note that the final zipped file does not include the top level directory {582195F5-92E7-40a0-A127-DB71295901D7} but just the files within it.
I have posted the completed patch here so if you are lazy, just use that. But I won’t use anybody elses patch. It’s super easy for someone to put nasties in there! Be warned!
Google Analytics Real Time Web Analytics Launches
Google Analytics Real Time Web Analytics Launches
Google Analytics announced today a new feature called Real-Time to let you track visitors on your website in, you guessed it, real time! I’ve always been a big fan of web analytics and am a big advocate of Google Analytics but one of their biggest downsides was that their data could take up to 24 hours to be updated. While this isn’t a problem for analyzing long-term trends, it is kind of annoying that it did not offer a real-time tracking feature to keep track of short term traffic bursts that you could potentially take advantage of by optimizing your site for conversions or stability. I’m excited about this new feature and I was just granted access as a beta user to Google Analytics Real-Time Stats tracking.
I’ve always been a big fan of GetClicky specifically for their real-time analytics functionality so it will be interesting to see how Google Analytics Real-Time matches up and what GetClicky does to innovate. I have no doubt GetClicky will thrive now that more people are aware that real-time analytics exist. There are some other real-time analytics tools out there but I have found Clicky to be my favorite. After all, competition is great for us consumers! 
Google Analytics Also Launches Google Analytics Premium
Google Analytics also released a Premium version for enterprise websites which will start at $150,000 a year! This is obviously a huge increase from the Free version which costs exactly $0.00 a year but probably priced just about right when compared to the other enterprise level analytics tools such as Omniture, WebTrends, IndexTools and so on. However, it will be interesting to see what kind of additional features Google Analytics Premium will offer that sets it apart from the free version and also justifies that huge $150,000 pricetag. I’d love to work with Google Analytics Premium or any of the other enterprise level analytics tools but as of right now, most of my clients certainly don’t have a budget even close enough to $150,000!
Game Room Ideas – Game Room Decorating Ideas for Your Man Cave
Game Room Ideas – Game Room Decorating Ideas for Your Man Cave
My wife and I recently moved into a new house after having shared living space in a tiny apartment. Now that we have all this space, we could either blow money on fancy curtains, pretty lamps along with a beautiful Persian rug. Or you know, we could do that for all of the rooms except the basement, which I demanded (she allowed) to turn into a game room or what the cool kids might call a “man cave” these days.
So, now that I have the full basement to myself, I’ve got to start thinking about what I want in my game room. Here are the essentials:
Game Room Basic Essentials
Every game room or man cave at the bare minimum needs to have the following in order to qualify as an actual game room:
Large Flatscreen TV – The bigger, the better. What else am I going to do in the game room if I can’t watch sports on a massive television??
Refrigerator or Mini Fridge – A true mancave has to have a place to keep beers and soda cold so the man does not need to travel upstairs to the kitchen to get himself a drink.
Video Game System – such as Playstation 3 or XBOX 360. Get that Nintendo Wii out of my face!
Stereo and surround sound speaker system – This is not necessarily essential, but it is very close to it so the man can enjoy jamming out to the glory days of “real” rock n roll before all of these new “popstars.”
Game Tables - The classic game room game table would be a pool table, but if you’re like me and don’t like playing pool, then you can also consider a foosball table, ping pong table or even an air hockey table. Or if you simply don’t have room for a big game table, you could always try a dart board. You have to have some kind of backup entertainment if there are no other sports than the WNBA on TV.
Game Room Furniture
Recliners – The man deserves at least one chair in his house that he can claim as his own. All of those stupid antique chairs in the living room are not even allowed to be sat in, so a real man cave needs to have at least one recliner. The more recliners, the better.
Couches - For all of the guys not cool enough to get their own recliner.
Poker Table - for when the guys want to come over for poker night, duh!
Coffee table – not for drinking coffee but a place for resting your feet on or leaving dirty dishes on.
Bar – Not every mancave/game room will have a bar but it’s definitely a big bonus if you do!
Game Room Decorating Ideas
Sports theme - This is a no-brainer. If you have a favorite professional or college sports team, just plaster the walls with this kind of paraphernalia. I’m talking season schedule posters, autographed sports balls, framed jerseys, team banners, pictures of big moments in sports history and so on. It’s easy to cover an entire room with sports memorabilia.
Music theme - I’m talking about posters of Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Metallica, or whatever else your favorite band is. The only requirement is that the musicians be manly so Justin Beiber is forbidden.
Movie theme - If you’re a big film buff, you could easily put together an awesome man room by putting up framed pictures of The Brat Pack, Scarface, Goodfellas, The Godfather, James Dean and so on. It might be a little collegey but Ef it, it’s your room so do what you want.
Vintage theme – If you grew up in the 60s, then take it back by putting up pictures of Elvis, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and so on. Whatever it takes to take you back to the good old days.
Now hopefully my post has given you some ideas for how to begin decorating your game room or man cave. Godspeed my fellow mancavers!
SEO Presentations, Slideshows & Whitepapers
SEO Presentations, Slideshows & Whitepapers
Below are some of my all-time favorite SEO presentations, slideshows and whitepapers that I wanted to archive in one place. It’s nearly impossible to keep up with the constantly changing landscape of search engine optimization and marketing by reading blogs, articles, forums, tweets, and so on. So that’s why I compiled this list of my favorites which either discuss the basic fundamentals of SEO, a specific niche within SEO such as linkbuilding for a particular vertical and perhaps some different perspectives of a controversial opinion.
After all, SEO is always changing trying to keep up with the search engine algorithms and of course, there is no SEO in the world who knows the ins and outs of every single one of the 200+ factors and signals that Google uses in its algorithm to determine its rankings. So while SEO is a guessing game at best, some are clearly better at guessing than others and that is why I came up with this list. I will try my best to keep this list updated.
SEO Presentations
SEOMoz – http://www.seomoz.org/blog/4-seo-presentations-w-tips-graphics-data-you-can-use
SEO Slideshows
SEO Whitepapers
Organic Search Engine Optimization Best & Worst Practices for Maximum (and minimum) Rankings
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/presentations/organic-seo-itzone.pdf
GMail Manager 0.6.4.1 for Firefox 6 Stops Working
GMail Manager Not Working – Update September 10, 2011
It seems that every time Firefox updates to a new version, my favorite plugin GMail Manager stops working. I use the plugin multiple times a day to check multiple email accounts and switch Google User accounts with a click without having to type in my password each time. Anyways, I updated to Firefox 6 today and then of course GMail Manager 0.6.4.1 stopped working because it is not compatible with the new Firefox. I tried multiple solutions on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/gmail-manager/reviews/by editing the .XPI file (pasted below which may work for you, but not for me) -
1. Browse to C:\Users\YOUR USER NAME\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\A RANDOM CODE IS HERE.default\extensions\
2. Locate the file {582195F5-92E7-40a0-A127-DB71295901D7}.xpi, rename it to {582195F5-92E7-40a0-A127-DB71295901D7}.zip and extract the files to a temporary location.
3. Open the components folder, look for the file gmServiceGmail.js and use a text editor to modify these 2 lines:
this._loginURL = “https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLoginAuth”;
should be changed to this
this._loginURL = “https://accounts.google.com/accounts/ServiceLoginAuth?service=mail”;
this._loginURL = “https://www.google.com/a/” + this.domain + “/LoginAction2″;
should be changed to this
this._loginURL = “https://accounts.google.com/a/”+ar[1]+”/LoginAction2?service=mail”;
4. Save the file, overwrite the existing gmServiceGmail.js
5. Open the file install.rdf with a text editor and change the line:
<em:maxVersion>4.0.*</em:maxVersion>
to
<em:maxVersion>6.0.*</em:maxVersion>
6. Save the file, overwrite the existing install.rdf.
7. Rezip all files you extracted in step 2 and name it {582195F5-92E7-40a0-A127-DB71295901D7}.xpi
8. Replace the old {582195F5-92E7-40a0-A127-DB71295901D7}.xpi for the 1 you just adjusted and restart FireFox
However, this did not work for me but I eventually found a way to fix it. Here is the link to download GMail Manager Version 7 – http://minus.com/mNLgH8BrL/. Just download it and choose to open it with Firefox, Install, Restart Firefox and bam! it should work exactly as expected.
How to Stop Joomla from Stripping Object, Embed or Iframe HTML Code in Web Editor
How to Stop Joomla from Stripping Object, Embed or Iframe HTML Code in Web Editor
I spent about two hours today trying to re-add some Flash slideshows on a website that is using the Joomla 1.5.23 Content Management System. All I wanted to do was change the Title tag on this page, but when I clicked “Save”, the Flash slideshows disappeared. Turns out Joomla has a lot of ridiculous security measures that strip out certain HTML elements even when you make the changes within the HTML window of the default TinyMCE editor or even when selecting “No Editor”. The account I was using is an “Administrator” account, but turns out you have to have “Super Administrator” access to mess with any of the Parameters settings, which is just stupid.
I scoured the web and the official Joomla help forums for random solutions by changing all kinds of settings, disabling and enabling plugins, user permissions, etc. and tried them all without success, until I found this blog post which explains you need to actually edit the PHP file in “libraries\joomla\filter\filterinput.php” and remove your desired tags from the $tagBlacklist array. I would say take it a step further and remove the tags in the next array, such as codebase for SWF files.
Do me a favor everyone and never use Joomla as a Content Management System. You’ll thank me later.
GMail Manager – Google Changes How They Handle Cookies
GMail Manager – Google Changes How They Handle Cookies
Just yesterday I noticed that I am no longer able to switch from Google Account to another Google Account via the GMail Manager add-on for Firefox. I can log into one account, but then when I try to switch to another account, I am redirected to a Google Accounts page that says I have to clear my cache and cookies before switching accounts. So obviously there has been some kind of change in the way Google handles cookies. Hopefully they’ll either switch it back or the author of the GMail Manager plugin will update it so that it works again, considering it is my favorite Firefox add-on!
Concerts That Will Sell Out – Which Singers, Bands and Venues Have the Most Sold Out Concerts
Concerts That Will Sell Out – Which Singers, Bands and Venues Have the Most Sold Out Concerts
Concerts and concert tickets are obviously a huge business for ticket outlets such as Ticketmaster, but there is also a lot of money to be made by small independent ticket brokers and scalpers who specialize in selling tickets to sold out shows at a higher price than face value. Ticket brokers and scalpers obviously make their money by either buying tickets at face value or somehow acquiring them for free or through some other means. Either way, ticket scalpers typically tend to get a bad reputation for trying to rip off customers by charging more than face value while ticket brokers basically do the same exact thing yet are not as frowned upon.
Personally I think both scalpers and ticket brokers have every right to sell their tickets for whatever price a customer is willing to pay for them. It’s the epitome of supply and demand, the fundamentals of basic economics. If a broker or scalper prices their tickets too high and can’t find a seller, then they are out of luck since they obviously will not be able to sell their tickets after an event or concert has occurred.
I don’t claim to know much at all about ticket brokers and scalpers operate their businesses, but it is definitely something I am very interested in learning more about. Over the past 6 months, I’ve bought tickets to popular concerts that I thought had a good chance to sell out and listed them on StubHub in attempts to make a buck. I’ve done it for about 5 concerts, and I’ve basically broken even. The first time I listed tickets to a sold out Bright Eyes concert, I was certainly not expecting to be able to sell them for as much as I did as quickly as I did. I thought to myself, wow this is the easiest money ever so I became overconfident and bought 8 tickets for a Ben Folds concert which I was sure was going to sell out. Turns out the concert did not sell out and I ended up losing money on those tickets, even when I quickly dropped the prices below face value on Stubhub in attempts to reclaim at least a portion of my money. I tried it for a couple more concerts and it’s definitely a roller coaster of emotions. The concerts I thought were definitely going to sell out and that there would be tons of people lining up to buy my tickets on Stubhub, were the ones that I wasn’t able to sell my tickets to, and the concerts I bought tickets for with the intention of actually using them myself but for whatever reason could not go to so I listed them for sale on Stubhub for the heck of it, ended up being the tickets I’d sell. Now that I’ve broken even, I’ve decided to pause my attempts at ticket brokering until I learned more about how to figure out exactly what to do.
Obviously, the big question for every ticket buyer is to determine which tickets and concerts are going to sell out and which tickets have the best chance of generating a profit in the ticket resale market. And that’s exactly the question I want the answers to! Does anybody have any suggestions for how ticket brokers can find out which are the best tickets to buy?
If there isn’t one already, there needs to be a website that lists the following:
- Entertainer’s name (singer, band, event, sports teams, etc.) or Concert Venue
- How often they sell out concerts
- How quickly they sell out concerts
- Average price of ticket at face value
- Average price of ticket at resale value
As of right now, I haven’t seen any kind of website or service that lists sold out concerts and which upcoming concerts tend to sell out. Somebody should get on this!
Ecommerce Pay Per Click Strategy with Google AdWords for Online Retail Websites
Ecommerce Pay Per Click Strategy with Google AdWords for Online Retail Websites
We recently picked up a large ecommerce client who needed help with search engine optimization, pay per click management in Google AdWords, and conversion rate optimization. We have worked on other ecommerce websites in the past and have had success, but this new client is a nationally known retail company so the pressure is on us to produce results quickly. We’ve already seen some results in the little time we’ve worked on their site thus far, but we obviously want to kick ass right out of the gate.
One of their biggest challenges was running a Google AdWords Pay Per Click campaign. They previously had been running it in house and were essentially flying blind. So I went in and immediately created new AdWords campaigns specifically targeting only the keywords that are most relevant to their products.
Here are some tips for managing a large Google AdWords pay per click account for an ecommerce client:
1. Create new campaigns for each specific product category - If your website sells musical instruments, create a campaign for electric guitars and then another campaign for harmonicas. Do not just create one campaign and then create a new Ad Group for each product category. This is critical because Google AdWords allows you to add Ad Extensions at the campaign level. This means if your ad for electric guitars has the ad extensions for harmonicas, then the relevancy is completely out of whack. If you set up a new campaign for each product category, then you’re good to go.
2. Use [exact match] keywords at the beginning of a new campaign – This allows you to have complete control over the keywords your ad shows up for. If you find the search volume is not there, then you can also add “phrase match” keywords BUT YOU MUST KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE ACTUAL QUERIES and then add the irrelevant keywords as negative keywords. Never, ever use broad match unless you want to waste your money.
3. Use negative match keywords if you are using “phrase match” keywords – This is absolutely critical. If I found that a client that sells yachts was getting a ton of clicks for the phrase match keyword “50 foot yacht”, then I would I would immediately make sure to add the negative keywords such as “renting” or “leasing” since those visits are obviously not looking to buy.
4. Use Ad Extensions - I mentioned this above, but Google AdWords now allows you to add product links under your AdWords ad. These are highly effective and increase the real estate of your ad. Here’s how we would set up an ad extension for electric guitars:
“$599 White Electric Guitar” – destination URL goes specifically to that product’s landing page
“$785 Diamond Electric Guitar” – destination URL goes specifically to that product’s landing page
5. Send visitors directly to landing page that is relevant to their search - oftentimes, ecommerce websites are broken out into product category pages and individual product pages. If somebody is searching for electric guitars, make sure the destination URL is the category page for electric guitars, not just all guitars, or all musical instruments, or god forbid, the homepage!
6. Use Google Analytics and Google AdWords conversion tracking – if you are running an ecommerce website and using Google AdWords or other pay per click network, then you are probably already aware of what conversion tracking is. Google Analytics can automatically track ecommerce transactions and capture the value of each completed sale, which is extremely helpful. If you are not using any kind of analytics or conversion tracking, then you are likely missing out on tons of valuable data.
Gotta run now but I’ll add onto this list later!