DE Filter Grid With Caked on Crust

There are a few parts to this tutorial which covers manually cleaning and then fixing or patching the grid in your diatomaceous earth (DE) pool filter.

Just back-washing your filter is not enough to keep it clean and functioning properly. Depending on how much your pool gets used and how often you get algae growth or other fine contaminates your DE filter grid (that mesh that holds the diatomaceous earth inside the filter tank) can become crusted with a “cake” like substance that is not removed during back-washing. Symptoms of this include your filter pressure increasing VERY quickly after back-backwashing and vacuuming your pool. A properly cleaned filter should be able to go a few weeks without needing to be backwashed. (For those that dont know, you must backwash your DE filter when its PSI pressure raises 10-15 PSI above where it is immediately after back-washing. In this tutorial I will show you how you can easily clean off this caked on crust to have your filter running good as new.

The other problem people have is that their DE filter gets holes in it. This can easily happen if you ever run your pump without both of the basket filters in place, which would allow for something like a piece of wood or acorn to get through and press against the DE filter grid / mesh and potentially tear a hole in it. Symptoms of this include having dirty water come back through your returns or pool jets during vacuuming.

Having just recently bought a house with a pool, I have had the opportunity to repair a very distressed DE filter and have taken pictures of the entire process to show you here so that you can repair and clean your own. A new DE filter grid costs over $150 in most cases, and usually the old ones can EASILY be cleaned and repaired. Just one new DE Filter Grid Fin can cost over $25.00.

I show you how you can make your entire DE filter work like new for less than $10.00!

So Lets Get To It!

DE Filter Cleaning

In this section I will show you with pictures how to clean the caked on crud and crust off of your DE filter. This caked on crud is the result of filtering very large amounts of algae. If your algae is not dead while you run your filter, it will continue to grow on and in your DE filter mesh and create this hard almost concrete like crusting. After years it can completely block up your filter and render it practically useless.

Step 1: 

The first step involved is the dis-assembly of your filter tank. PLEASE read your filters instruction guide. Improper assembly and dis-assembly can lead to serious injury when you start your pump. Your DE Filter has enough pressure that it could blow its lid straight through the roof of your pool house, which could easily kill you. Make sure you exactly follow the instructions in your pool filter manual during this step.

Here is a link to the manual for my specific pool filter. My filters instructions may be different than yours. http://www.pentairpool.com/pdfs/FNSOM.pdf

 Step 2:

Now you must remove the DE filter grid from the fiberglass tank housing. Mine lifted straight out with some force, some have threaded rods that run through to the top of the grid that must be unscrewed removed. Keep in mind, this can become extremely heavy depending on the amount of water still in, and the amount of caked on crust that is stuck to the DE filter grid. Also, the fitting of the DE filter grid to the return PVC pipe may be tight so some wiggling action may be required. Do not do anything which may crack any plastic or damage the fiberglass. Cracking the tank and causing structural problems can be extremely dangerous when you start the filter. Don’t worry, its still pretty hard to damage, just be aware.

You may want to hose it off first as it is normal for a ton of sand and diatomaceous earth to be sitting on top of the filter, even after backwashing several times. There should be drain you can open in the bottom of your tank to allow you to do this.

DE Filter Grid after just removing the tank lid after backwashing 3 times

Again, this whole apparatus lifted straight up and out for me with some wiggling. I believe it probably weighted about 35-40lbs with all of the caked on crust stuck to it.

Step 3:

After having removed the DE filter grid from the tank, its time to take a hose to it to clean off as much of the caked on dead algae and diatomaceous earth as possible. You can actually hit this with a pretty hard stream of water with your garden hose attachment with out damaging the grid. I could put my hose nozzle on full blast and everything was fine. You will probably be surprised at just how much caked on crap comes off. Some guides online tell you that you need to completely dis-assemble this grid into its 7-10 individual mesh fins, however, I found that I could remove about 90% of the crust with it still intact and I did not need to take it apart. Taking it apart also risks damaging it more. DO NOT set it on its side as something like a stick or acorn or rock could punch a hole in the grid mesh. Also be delicate as the grid’s structure is made up of a skeleton or rib-cage like plastic PVC structure which is susceptible to damage if you were to drop it.

Please take note of the next 2 pictures. The first picture is before I started any cleaning with the hose. The next picture is after I have removed about 50% of the crust from the filter mesh. As you can see, there is a VERY noticeable difference in color.

WARNING – Diatomaceous earth is carcinogenic if inhaled. Please check your local laws for how this needs to be disposed of. In my area I can just hose it off anywhere, but some neighborhoods in warm climates where a LOT of people have these filters have rules in place.

Before I have hosed any crust off the DE filter grid

After Some Hosing:

after hosing some crust off of the de filter grid

As you can see, there is a HUGE difference in color from the crusted areas and the clean areas. Its no wonder that the filter was getting clogged so quickly when I added new DE and started vacuuming. Before I started hosing off the filter grid, only about 10% of my filter was un-caked and actually capable of filtering.

Remember that you cant just do the outside, attempt to clean the insides and inside all of the cracks, nooks and crannys to that you can get as much of the crud off as possible.

Step 4:

completely cleaned DE Filter Grid Mesh

Soaking your DE filter in a chemical bath: (I actually forgot to take pictures of this part.) Now that you have finished cleaning off the crust, you might notice that the entire grid seems slimy and greasy. This is probably excrement from algae and the oils will cause your grid mesh to clog easily. Also, there may be an excess build up of microscopic calcium in your mesh further impeding its ability to pass water. Get a large trash can which can hold your entire DE grid and clean and rinse it out. Use Mr. Clean and dishwasher soap to get rid of the oils and break down the calcium as well. Bleach or Liquid Chlorine will not work on this stuff. As a second step if you feel like Mr. Clean was unable to remove all the calcium, you will want to soak the grid in a bath of diluted muriatic acid over night which will clean the calcium deposits out very effectively. Make sure you dilute this properly. Full strength muriatic acid can eat right through certain materials. WARNING – Muriatic acid is VERY hazardous and can cause severe chemical burns. Use utmost caution when handling the substance.

The next day you can empty the trash can and rinse the soap or acid out of your grid (Mr. Clean worked fine for me, I did not use the acid). Do not empty this into your pool!

You have now completed the cleaning portion of this guide. If you thoroughly inspected your filter grid and did not find any holes, you may re-assemble your filter according to the manufacturers instructions.

REPAIRING your DE Filter

On the other hand, if you have found holes or tares in your DE filter grid mesh, this section of the guide will help you to repair the problem. IF you have dirty water passing back through your pool jets or “returns” while you are vacuuming, you probably have one or more holes somewhere in your DE grid mesh. I will show you in a few easy steps how you can patch these holes to easily withstand back washing for at least your entire summer season. I have successfully repaired and back-washed my pool with these patches about 10 times, and after re-checking my work, they are still holding up like brand new and show no signs of deterioration.

 Step 1:

Buy the stuff you need for the repair - This stuff called “Water Weld” is ingenious. It is a putty that sets as hard as concrete after 60 minutes, and best of all, its completely waterproof and can even continue to harden under water. The other stuff you will need is regular old hot glue.

water weld and hot glue

 Step 2:

Locate all of the holes that you may have in your DE filter grid mesh. For me, I had quite a few up around near where the pipes connect. Damage may be easier to spot if you can disassemble your entire grid, however, I was able to patch all of my holes without doing that.

Here is what my hole looked like. It looks like someone tried to patch the mesh with silicon probably years ago and the silicon gave out. Obviously this allows dirty water to come back through the jets when you are vacuuming and these holes need to be plugged.

DE pool filter hole causing dirty water through jets

Step 3:

Fill the holes with your hot glue gun. This will create a flexible layer of sealant which absorbs into the mesh and will also give the water weld something to bond to over the hole.

hot glue on DE filter grid mesh

That wasn’t the best picture, however you can see that the the glue has completely smothered the area.

Step 4:

Now its time to break out the water weld. This putty comes in a tube, and there are two putties rolled together. When you mash the putty and combine the two, they start to harden in minutes, but you will have plenty of time to apply it where you need it. Mold the putty over the areas where you have had holes to create a comprehensive shell which will protect the glue seal. Push it into the mesh and make sure to build it up around the plastic area as well.

me molding the water weld

water welded de filter grid mesh hole

You should attempt to do both the gluing and the water welding after the filter has completely dried. You should let the water weld cure for at least an hour before attempting to put the filter back in the filter housing and running the pump.

This is another image of a place I have welded, after several back-washes I wanted to check on the status of the water weld. I was worried it would have broken apart or disintegrated with the pressure, however it was in absolute perfect condition. I have a lot of confidence in this fix. It is still hard as a rock. I’d estimate that this will at least get you through a year. Before you open your pool every year you may want to re-apply it if you feel it is deteriorating.

water weld after several backwashes

Final Step

You are now ready to completely re-assemble your filter, fire up your pump and add your new diatomaceous earth filter media. Remember to follow your manufacturers assembly instructions exactly in order to avoid serious injury or death. You’ve just completely cleaned and repaired your pool filter over a weekend and for less than $10.00. Congratulations.

Any Questions?

Let me know if you have any questions or comments about this procedure! Let me know if it helped you! Don’t forget to share this with everyone you might know that has a pool to help save them money as well!

UPDATE: It’s been a year and my water weld patches are still holding strong… however, my grids are starting to tear in other locations now to the point where they definitely need to be replaced. About 3 of the grids have large vertical tares and it wouldn’t make sense to try and patch them anymore. I’d go through probably 2 sticks of water weld. But I was at least glad to get another season out of these!

Reasons to perform:

1. Much cheaper than a flush (many places charge over $150 for this service).
2. Prolongs the life of your transmission.
3. Lessens the amount of “particles” in the fluid.
4. Increases the amount of fresh detergents in the fluid.

Regularly performing a drain and fill on your automatic transmission can significantly prolong it’s life. This is especially true for people with a lead foot, people who tow or frequently drive with a loaded vehicle, and especially people with Turbo Models.

Driving under these and other “severe” operating conditions as outlined in the owners manual causes excess strain on the transmission. In order for it to last as long as possible, it is important to have fluid which is fresh in order to:

1. Prevent buildup of gunk grime and sludge
2. Keep everything slippery and lubricated to prevent gear wear

Turbo subaru forester’s have much more torque than the naturally aspirated versions and this places much more strain on the gears, making it very important that everything is properly lubricated and clean.

The cost to perform a transmission flush can be in the $150 region ($200 at my dealer). A flush will ensure that 100% of the transission fluid is brand new. A drain and fill will only replace about 40% of the fluid, as much of the fluid will not immediately drain from the bottom.

However, a drain and fill can be done for about $25-$30 as you only need 3-4 quarts of fluid to do this. Regular drain and fills also ensure that you always have at least some “fresh” fluid in your transmission, and if this is done regularly enough, this is much better for your transmission than waiting until your fluid is completely shot before performing a “flush”. Think of it like this, always adding fresh fluid ensures that you always have a good amount of lubrication. The damage done by bad fluid cannot be reversed by adding better fluid, thus it is important to always maintain good fluid.

If you are hard on your subaru, or drive a turbo model, you will want to consider doing a drain and fill every 2-3 oil changes, or every 7,500 – 10K miles. Conservative drivers will probably want to do it every 15-30K miles or once per year, which ever is shorter.

This is what the fluid looked like in my 2009 Subaru Forester XT after 35 thousand miles without ever doing drain and fill. Keep in mind that I have a turbo model and consider myself a pretty rough driver.

30k miles transmission fluid color

And this is what new fluid looks like (Subaru ATF-HP)

Subaru ATF-HP Fluid Color

If I had been doing regular drain and fills every 10K miles, my transmission fluid would be in MUCH better condition, but better late than never. I plan to do it again during my next oil change as a jump start.

Instructions

Items you will need:

Tools:

• 18mm or 11/16″ Socket
• A flexible long neck funnel (preferably longer than 1.5 feet)

Approved ATF Fluid:

• Subaru ATF Type HP (Dealer had it for $7.50 per quart)
• IDEMITSU ATF HP (Could not find this anywhere)
• Royal Purple Max ATF (very expensive ~$13.50 per quart around me)

• New Drain Plug Gasket

NOTE: 2009+ Subaru’s with the 4EAT automatic transmission are very particular in the kind of ATF they require. Do not use any universal ATF fluid unless it specifically states subaru ATFHP. Royal Purple Max ATF is the ONLY one I have found that specifically states that they support the ATF-HP requirement. (See their site). Be wary of having transmission fluid changes or flushes done anywhere that uses a universal fluid. Your dealer is best if you cannot do this yourself for some reason (although it is VERY easy, just as easy as draining and filling your oil).

If you are getting this fluid at your dealer, ask them to grab you a new drain plug as well. Mine did this free of charge which was nice, taped it to the bottle too so I wouldnt lose it.

Amount of fluid: You will need anywhere from 3-4 quarts. Keep in mind that this fluid’s volume changes a lot depending on it’s temperature. On a flat level surface with aHOT transmission, I drained until nothing was coming out of the bottom of the vehicle, and itonly took 3 quarts until it was at the full line. With a COLD transmission, this could change slightly. ALWAYS add less than you think you need, wait a few minutes for it all to settle, and then check the dipstick to see where the level is.

If you add too much, loosen the drain plug a little and let some fluid seep out slowly until you are where you need to be.

Drain Plug Location:

This picture is looking underneath the vehicle from the drivers side (left hand drive). This should be the same for 2010 and 2011 subaru forester’s as well.

2009 subaru forester automatic transmission drain plug location

Make sure you have your drain pan ready when you loosen the plug. You may also want to remove the dipstick from the top (via engine compartment), to allow air to flow in from the top or you will get a messy “gulping” action as air flows up through this drain area.

Filling Location

This is where you will need to add more fluid. This is also the location of the dipstick in your subaru forester. It is the same place for turbo and non-turbo models.

Subaru Forester ATF Dipstick Location

And just incase you are still wondering if you have the correct dip stick, check it out, it will say right on it, “ATF”.

Subaru Forester ATF Dipstick

Now that you realize how far you have to reach to get to it, and how narrow the filling area is, you realize why you need a narrow and very flexible long-neck funnel for this job.

Remember I only needed 3 quarts of fluid in order to get right up to the fill line. I’ve heard some people state that they used 3.5 and even 4 quarts. They may have had the vehicle jacked up a certain way, and I’m not sure if hot vs cold fluid makes a huge difference either. It IS bad for your transmission to have too much fluid.

Obviously make sure you have your drain plug back in with a new gasket before adding the new fluid.

In this article, I will show you the code you need, and the image format you need to ensure that your thumbnail shows up every time.

Facebook will search through the meta tags on your website to find a link to the preview image. Below is the code you need to have between the <head> </head> tags of your page

<meta property=”og:image” content=”http://website.com/facebook-thumbnail.jpg” />

(Replace website.com with your own website, obviously) – However, facebook also has image specifications regarding what types of images it will use in the preview. See below:

The thumbnail’s width AND height must be at least 50 pixels, and cannot exceed 130×110 pixels. The ratio of both height divided by width and width divided by height (w/h, h/w) cannot exceed 3.0. For example, an image of 126×39 pixels will not be displayed, as the ratio of width divided by height is greater than 3.0 (126/39 = 3.23). Images will be resized proportionally.

So your best bet is to crop and re-size your facebook preview thumbnail to be exactly 130×110 pixels if possible. You should upload this thumbnail so that it is hosted by your own website and not somewhere else like photobucket, etc…

I also recommend using a .jpg file format because I’m not sure if facebook will reject .png images that have transparency. I would also recommend trying to keep it less than 15k. I’m not sure what image size facebook starts to reject images as.

What if it still doesn’t show?

If you have fixed everything and it still doesn’t show, that is because you have already attempted to share the link previously, and facebook caches the thumbnails server side when you share a link. So if you share it again, rather than download the new thumbnail, facebook calls up it’s saved thumbnail from its own cache.

Solution: Share the same link but slightly different. For example, if you are trying to share the home page to your website (www.example.com), you can add some PHP jibberish to the end of the url which will go to the same page but make facebook think it is a different URL. For example:

http://example.com/index.php?facebook=1

If you use PHP to code your websites, you can add this “GET” data to the URL. This simply adds a variable called “facebook” with a value equal to “1” to the URL. Your PHP code could call and use if it was programmed to do so, however, in this case, it’s simply tricking facebook into thinking that this is a brand new URL that needs a fresh thumbnail preview to store in it’s cache.

If you are just using plain old HTML, try directing straight to your index page by changing the link to

http://example.com/index.html

rather than

http://example.com/

The above two URL’s go to the exact same page. On some servers, index.html is replaced by default.html depending on who your webhost is. But if you are a web programmer you should know this already.

See the images below for how changing the URL in this manner can cause facebook to download a new thumbnail preview from your website:

Thumbnail not showing

Facebook Thumbnail Preview Working With new URL

So… I hope I have showed you how to get a facebook thumbnail preview showing 100% of the time you attempt to share a link! Let me know how it’s worked for you or if you had any problems!

Visit facebook developers share tutorial to learn about more tags for sharing different sorts of content from your website

So you want to get back into World of Warcraft (WoW) again after taking a break for a few years and you don’t want to wait to install 10 CD’s worth of files and then wait hours and hours for World of Warcraft to patch itself… or you just bought a digital copy and need to download the game.

Your first instinct might be to try and find some of the latest copies of the CD-Roms online somewhere (probably a sketchy website), download them, and wait for minimal patching. But this is definitely not going to be the fastest way.

Turns out, the ABSOLUTE FASTEST way to download World of Warcraft and any of it’s patches is to download it through the launcher straight from blizzard. You can get this World of Warcraft Launcher straight from the World of Warcraft website. But that’s not the end of it. I have a couple tips which will further increase your World of Warcraft download speed from Blizzard’s own server.

World of Warcraft Fast Download Speeds

World of Warcraft’s downloader / launcher utilizes the bit torrent’s peer-to-peer file transfer protocol to save on Blizzard server bandwidth. This means that the files you are downloading might come from someone else sitting there waiting for their copy of WoW to finish downloading. This presents a problem because world of warcraft’s launcher’s bit torrent application is not terribly efficient. In fact, it was utilizing my uploading bandwidth at such a high rate to send the file from my computer to my peers, that my download speeds were bottle-necked and limited to around 300KB/s… Which is terrible if you have a 10MB/s internet connection.

People with slower internet connections or people with extremely limited upload bandwidth lines will find this tip extremely useful.

Now sometimes this peer-to-peer transfer does work fine and you will get great download speeds… but in my experience it is very inconsistent and the fastest way to get your downloads and patches done is to disable peer-to-peer file transfers. This is doable via an option in the World of Warcraft Launcher’s menu. (See image below)

World of Warcraft Disable peer-to-peer transfer

By selecting Options -> Downloader Preferences you have the ability to uncheck Peer-to-Peer transfers. This will close all peer-to-peer connections and enable an HTTP Direct Download straight from the Blizzard server. When I did this, my speed immediately jumped from 300KB/s to 1MB/s and even hit speeds of over 1.7MB/s!! Obviously, this significantly shortens the waiting period required until you can start playing the game.

Speeds will be further increased during Blizzard’s off-peak hours, such as early in the AM. For example, at 8:00am this morning I was able to hit the super fast speed of 1.7MB/s. However during peak playing hours, like 8:00pm, my HTTP direct download transfer speeds were significantly slowed to around 600KB/s. It is during these peak hours that the peer-to-peer transfer is designed for. At that time Blizzard’s servers don’t have the bandwidth to give you the fastest speeds. However! It is also during peak playing time that there will be the maximum amount of peers to transfer with. So if you are trying to update during peak playing times, it is possible that the peer-to-peer transfer might give you somewhat of an increase in speed. You can play around with it and see that works best for your time and your internet connection.

At the very least this should give you something you can fiddle with so that you can get the maximum download speed possible. It certainly saved me some time!

Restart Your 30 Day CS5 Trial

Adobe CS5 (Adobe Creative Suite 5) is some pretty expensive software. Lucky for us, they have a trial option available. The Adobe CS5 Trial lasts for 30 days, after which the program will automatically close itself after launch. During this 30 day trial period, you also have the option to enter a license key to unlock the program.

Now you might be wondering how to restart the Adobe CS5 trial so that you can keep using the program. Good question. Most people try uninstalling and then re-installing the software, and guess what, adobe hides files on your computer that don’t get deleted during the uninstall. Because of this, when you re-install the Adobe CS5 trial, your trial period will still be expired!

But there is a way around this little problem. By following the easy steps in this how to tutorial, I will show you the process of how to restart your Adobe CS5 Trial so that you can continue using the Adobe Creative Suite tools for another 30 days. This works for Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, and any other CS5 packages offered as well.

Instructions:

1.) Navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD

Adobe Common Files PCD Location

2.) Delete the file named “pcd”

3.) Open the “cache” folder

4.) Delete the file named “cache”

5.) Edit your “Hosts” file to prevent your Adobe CS5 programs from communicating with Adobe.

Editing your hosts file is a relatively easy task (See image below). Navigate to Computer -> Local Disk (C:) -> Windows -> System32 -> Drivers -> etc -> hosts. Or you can simply type “hosts” into the search bar when you are inside the folder “System32″.

You will need to change the security of the hosts file in order to edit it. Right click it, select properties and then select the security tab. You will need to grant regular users “Full Control” in order to edit this file.

WARNING: You should remove these full control privileges from the regular users group after editing the file for system security purposes.

Add the following lines to the bottom of the file:

127.0.0.1         activate.adobe.com
127.0.0.1         practivate.adobe.com

This essentially tells your computer that when you attempt to navigate to either activate.adobe.com or practivate.adobe.com, rather than being directed to those addresses, your computer will loop that navigation back to itself, and your Adobe programs will fail to reach the adobe activation destination. “127.0.0.1″ is your computers own loopback IP address.

Click for full size

I’m actually not sure if that whole hosts file editing part is absolutely necessary, but it doesn’t seem like it could hurt. I’m not sure if Adobe attempts to keep track of trial users on their end.

Now the next time you open an Adobe CS5 program, you will be prompted to accept the license agreement and start a new trial.

Adobe CS5 Start Trial Screen

Drawbacks to using an Adobe CS5 Trial

There are some drawbacks to using an Adobe CS5 Trial. Adobe has hidden limits and disabled features in many of their trial version programs. For example, Adobe Premiere Pro will not include audio in many popular video formats because they want people to actually buy the software to get all of the features. This workaround will not work for those situations. But in the event that you absolutely need to use your Adobe CS5 trial for a few more days while you wait for your full copy to arrive, this is a solution which can help you.

This solutions is probably against Adobe’s Software License Agreement. If you use this software and profit from it in any way, you should really purchase it. Student’s can get some great prices with Adobe’s student discount program.

The Amazon.com Link to the right is the cost of the Student / Teacher edition of Adobe CS5 Design Standard which includes Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended, Adobe Illustrator CS5 and Adobe InDesign CS5. An extremely reasonable price if you ask me.

Hunter Rain Boot Covered In White Residue

A lot of people with Hunter rain boots find that they sweat white residue and it can be extremely difficult to remove. Here I have a solution that will not only remove the white residue from hunter rain boots, but it will also shine your boots so they look brand new!

Hunter Rain Boot Company has the following to say about this white residue wax bloom:

During the manufacturing of the natural rubber compound used to make Hunter boots, a white wax is inserted into the mix to help protect the rubber. During certain conditions, this wax can be brought to the surface giving the boots a white, cloudy look known as “blooming”. It does this to protect the rubber from drying out. This is a natural characteristic of the boot, not a defect, and can be wiped off with a damp cloth.

However, a lot of people find that a simple damp cloth is just not enough to remove this white residue. A lot of people try things like rubbing oil and other shining compounds on the boot which only masks the problem because when that oil or shine wears off, the white residue starts to show again. A lot of those solutions only work for a couple weeks at most.

The solution I have here will remove the white residue from hunter rain boots permanently as well as give them a bright deep lustrous shine. The instructions are very easy to follow when you have the right tools. You will need two things to get started with the white residue removal:

1. Goo Gone Spray Gel
2. UV TECH Protectant & Rejuvenator

You will probably have trouble finding these products in your local store, and a lot of people online tried to tell me this stuff was only available in England! I had to scour the internet to figure out that I could find them on Amazon.com for a pretty good price. The two links above take you to their location on amazon.com

GOO GONE white wax residue removal

Step 1:Remove the white wax residue from your hunter rain boot

Use GOO GONE to remove the while bloom waxy residue. Spray the GOO GONE directly onto the boot or cloth and use the cloth to rub the boot until the wax is gone. You will find it does take a little elbow grease but it does come of pretty easily, especially compared to just a “damp cloth”.

Take a look at the picture to the right. It shows how the GOO GONE has removed almost all of the white residue from the part of the boot I cleaned with it. (See bottom right of image)

Step 2: Use UV TECH to further clean and shine the rubber

UV TECH protectant and rejuvenator will further remove traces of the white wax residue from your hunter rain boot while giving them a deep lustrous shine. Spray the UV TECH onto the boot or a new cloth and rub the formula into the boot.

UV Tech on toe VS GOO GONE on heel

This really is a two step process. Just GOO GONE will clean the white wax residue off but it will still leave them kind of “rough” looking. The UV TECH removes the last traces of the wax and gives them the shine… but you cant just do one of these without the other. You need both to get these hunter rain boots to really shine.

The UV TECH also has the benefit of protecting your boot from UV RAYS and other nasty elements.

The picture to the right shows the difference between just removing the white wax residue with goo gone (on the heel) and doing step to to shine the Hunter rain boot with UV TECH (on the toes).

Now I went through these steps pretty quickly for purposes of demonstration and didn’t spend more than a couple on minutes on the process (which shows how easy it is with these products). You’ll probably want to take a q-tip or something to spend more time around the corners and decorative areas to get all of the white residue “bloom” off of the boot as you can see that I left some near the edges of seams.

BEFORE AND AFTER PICTURE

Take a look at how awful the original hunter rain boot looked with its white waxy residue bloom, and compare it to the 5 minutes I spent cleaning it up (on the left). With these two product, it’s easy to get your Hunter rain boots looking like new again!

Hunter rain boots bloom before and after

Droid X Landscape Mode stuck 1

I just got my droid x a few weeks ago, immediately updated it to Android Froyo 2.2 and I have been having a few problems lately which only seem to occur when I’m streaming music to my car stereo via Bluetooth.

You see, Every once and a while, my Droid X will lock up, do turn to that screen where the red eye animation appears, and then after about 20 seconds come back to life, except the screen will be in landscape / horizontal mode… And it will be stuck there until I restart the phone. I dont know why it is doing this and it can be annoying because I have to restart my phone.

Droid X Landscape Mode stuck 2

I NEED to restart my Droid X when this happens because it wont go back into vertical / portrait mode, no matter what. Even if I open my web browser or a text editor and rotate the phone, it says in landscape mode.

I dont have root mode enabled. I dont have any UI mods installed. My Droid X is pretty much stock aside from the Android Froyo 2.2 update I performed, which appeared to go off without a hitch.

Has anyone else experience this strange phenomenon with their Droid X going into landscape mode and getting stuck there??

Droid X Landscape Mode stuck Dialer Pad

Well here are some simple instructions.

Requirements:

• Windows 7
• Cell Phone with Bluetooth Connection
• Computer with Bluetooth Connection

Ok so let’s get started!

Step 1: Power up the bluetooth connection on your phone. On many verizon phones, the process goes something like this. MENU – > Settings & Tools -> Bluetooth Menu -> TURN ON …  Which will activate the bluetooth connection if it isn’t already on. All phones are slightly different but that is how it is done on my LG Env2 cell phone.

Step 2: Turn on the Bluetooth connection on your computer. On my Sony Vaio Laptop, the process is as easy as clicking the green things to open the SmartWi Utility and then clicking the bluetooth toggle switch to turn its power on (Picture below). I’m not sure if this is native to windows 7 installations that have multiple wireless cards (Such as wifi and bluetooth), or if its Sony Software… But if your computer came with bluetooth there should be an equally easy way to turn it on.

Step 3: Turn on Bluetooth Discovery mode on your cell phone. This will allow your computer to search for your phone so that it can make the connection.

Step 4: Once Bluetooth Discovery mode has been activated on your cell phone (remember it will only stay activated for a couple of minutes for security reasons)… It’s time to search for your phone from your Windows 7 Bluetooth Enabled Laptop or Desktop Computer.

To do this go to START -> Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Devices and Printers -> and then click “add a device”

If your phone is still in discoverable mode, the computer should find it and this window will appear. Select the phone you want to add and click next.

When you click next a passkey will appear and a screen on your phone will prompt you to enter the code (this is a security feature). Once you enter the code onto your phone, your devices will pair. After they have paired, for the first time only, you may need to wait a few minutes while windows searches for and installs drivers that are particular to your phone.

Step 5: Now that you have waited for drivers to finish installing your bluetooth phone is ready for exploring through Windows 7. You will see that your phone is now available through the Devices and Printers window we were at earlier in Step 4.

You can now double click on the phone to access it. Once you have done that a new window will open with multiple options for what you can now do with your phone, depending on your phones capabilities. For now select “Browse Files On Your Phone”.

Selecting “Browse Files on your Phone” will open a new window which will show you folders that are on your phone. One of them will have your pictures, another will have your videos, etc. You can now easily download images and video’s from your cell phone via Bluetooth on Windows 7… Surprisingly easily! Before windows 7 this could be quite a difficult task!

Did these instructions work out for you? Let me know!

Well I have outlined here an easy step by step process, with pictures of exactly what you need to do to get a perfectly working LAMP server without any issues or problems. Remember, this will work flawlessly with a clean install of Ubuntu 10.04, if you have installed other things first it should work fine however something else may cause a conflict (but shouldn’t!).

Ok so lets get started:

Step 1:

step 1 clean install of ubuntu open terminal (click to enlarge)

So first thing you need to do it fire up the terminal. Go to Applications > Accessories > Terminal and it will start up. All you need to do now is follow the next few steps and your LAMP server will be installed perfectly. Remember, these commands listed include “sudo” at the beginning because that is the way to telling the computer you are an administrator and are allowed to perform these actions. If you leave out “sudo” it may not work.

Step 2:

First thing we type into the terminal is as follows:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get update

This updates your Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx with current package information so when we type the next commands, it gets the most recent data.

Step 3:

Next thing we type into the terminal is:

sudo apt-get install php5 mysql-server apache2

install php5 mysql-server apache2

This literally tells the computer to install the software for PHP5, MYSQL server, and Apache2 all at the same time. You will be asked to enter “Y” to confirm that you do want to download and install the software. You will be asked to enter a password for the mysql root user.

password for mysql root user

Step 4:

The next step involves typing the following:

sudo apt-get install php5-mysql

apt-get install php5-mysql

In older versions of Linux, or with older versions of PHP, you used to have to go into php.ini and add the mysql extension to make php work with mysql… NOT ANY MORE! Now you have to install this module through the terminal and this automatically enables your PHP5 installation to work with mysql. Without this step, phpmyadmin would not work. You do not need to edit the php.ini file!

Step 5:

Now we have to type the following into the terminal:

sudo chmod 777 /var/www

sudo chmod 777 /var/www

Warning: This is not the most secure way to hold your files and on a production LAMP server, more care needs to be taken for security, that said, this is PERFECTLY FINE for an at home development server.

The files that are served to the internet (or your browser) are contained in the “www” folder, found in location /var/www. Files in this folder are the ones that are served to the internet (or your browser when you go to http://localhost/). When the LAMP server is initially installed this “www” folder is locked to everyone except the administrator. The command entered above unlocks this folder to be editable and viewable by everyone... Meaning you can easily open it to add / change files once you perform this chmod command.

Step 6:

The next step in the process is to download and install phpmyadmin. PHPmyadmin has a very easy to use interface for creating and modifying mysql databases. It’s a tool I would never go without.

You can Download PHPMYADMIN here. Choose the one that ends in “.zip” for simplicity sake.

Step 7:

Once downloaded you need to extract and re-name the folder

phpmyadmin extract here

Clicking “Extract Here” will extract the “.zip” file’s contents into a folder. Rename the resulting folder “phpmyadmin”.

Step 8:

Now that you’ve extracted and renamed the folder, its time to move it to /var/www so what we can use phpmyadmin through our web browser.

Move phpmyadmin to /var/www

Once it is here you can view it with your web browser

Step 9:

Test that everything works.

localhost-it-works

Go to http://localhost/  to verify that your site is indeed working

The go to:

localhost-phpmyadmin-login

http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ and you can use the username “root” and the password you selected in step 3 to login and start creating databases.

And there you have it, a fully functioning lamp server setup in minutes with no hassle!!! Aren’t you happy??!?

So you downloaded the cutline theme for WordPress, except there’s one problem, the header images aren’t really random. They seem to show depending on what page you are viewing rather than being truly random.. Well here’s a fix for that. I wanted a different image to appear every time the page loaded (almost every time, there is a SMALL change that it may be the same)… With a tiny bit of tinkering, this code can be cut and pasted into any number of themes that have clear header image code.

All that is required is a little java script that creates a random number variable and appends it to the image’s name.

Open up your Cutline Theme’s folder and locate the file called “Header.php”. This is the file that contains the header generation code. Scroll down to the bottom and look for an area with this code:

cutline header image code

The Div is the container for this header code. You can delete everything inside this div because it will not be needed. 

Now we will replace it with our java scrip code. This code will generate a random number, then call the image but attach the random number to the image name. For this to work your header images should all be the same size (pixel dimensions), they should be .jpg format, they should have the same name too except each should have a different number at the end. For example, they would be “header_0.jpg”, “header_1.jpg”, “header_2.jpg”, “header_3.jpg”… etc

Below is the java script code you will need (click the image to enlarge)

wordpress random header image javascript

Or copy and paste the code from here: (see text file)

In this text file, the URL for the image (after “var imgsrc”) leads into my theme folder, and then into the folder where I house all of the theme images.

This code after “var randomnumber” will generate a number between 0 and one below whatever number you specify the red number. In this case, the numbers 0, 1, & 2 can be generated at random. The code then calls a header image with the random number attached.

And there you have it. A random header image will be displayed in your wordpress theme. Enjoy

Let me know if something isn’t clear and I’ll try to explain it a little better!