USPS API Shipping Methods Labeling Error On Interspire Cart

Posted on January 22, 2011 by TireyTV

[UPDATE:
For the record, I have been an Interspire customer since early 2004 and I have purchased 3 email marketer scripts, 1 knowledge base, 3 shopping carts and 2 shopping carts at the enterprise level through my account and accounts I have setup for my customers. This is somewhere around $5,000 and I'm a small-fry customer to Interspire.

I'm parting ways with Interspire over their key activation policy. You need a key activated to a specific domain to help Interspire reduce fraud. I respect that. What you might not know is that they will not update your key, should you need to move domains or subdomains, without an active support plan on the product, which is $147.50.

If they want to bang on you for $25 bucks or something, sure fine I get that, and I understand that nobody's time is free. But $147.50 for a 12 month support plan? No thank you, I'm taking what small amount of business I do with shopping cart scripts elsewhere. It's not a lot of money, but It makes me feel pushed around, so yes this is an emotional reaction.

I want a shopping cart vendor that sees ME as their customer and not playing gotcha because I needed a simple domain change on the key. Interspire's support plans are tied to the product and not to me and my account. So if I have 5 carts, I need support plans for all 5. That just doesn't work. For what it's worth, the key was expired by 5 weeks and I was changing from the .com to .net of my domain name and I WILL get my cart to work, but I'm going to have to setup a DNS.

]

Here’s the solution you need below. but I do encourage you to think about shopping cart alternatives on your next project.

I notice recently that the USPS shipping method label on my Interspire shopping cart has been returning code like this

Parcel Post<sup>&reg;</sup>

Investigating, I learned that the USPS API has recently  been updated to return the registered trademark logo in superscript.   I have zero experience with this API and I didn’t have much time to solve the problem.  Here’s my hacky solution which I adapted from someone else posting this solution for a Magento Cart.

For Interspire Shopping Cart open the file:

/modules/shipping/usps/module.usps.php

At about line 663, find this line of code:

(string)$xml->Package->Postage->MailService

Now comment it out so that it looks like so:

//(string)$xml->Package->Postage->MailService

Directly beneath the above line of code add this new line of code which will do a simple string replacement in order to yank out the registered trademark code that is not parsing correctly.

str_replace("&lt;sup&gt;&amp;reg;&lt;/sup&gt;", "", (string)$xml->Package->Postage->MailService)

Your final changes will look like:

//(string)$xml->Package->Postage->MailService
str_replace("&lt;sup&gt;&amp;reg;&lt;/sup&gt;", "", (string)$xml->Package->Postage->MailService)

Save and post. That’s it.  I hope you find this useful and please feel free to comment if there are better solutions.

Posted in General, Online Marketing | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Integrating Phone Call Tracking With Grasshopper Phone Service

Posted on April 28, 2010 by TireyTV

For my Erie Blue data center marketing project I am evaluating the Grasshopper phone service.  Grasshopper provides a simple to use and fast to start up virtualized phone system complete with greeting messages and inboxes.   I added on top of Grasshopper phone call tracking solutions provided by Mongoose Metrics. With Data Center marketing, paid search keyword rates are quite commonly in the $7 to $18 per click range and organic keyword campaigns require incredible investments in copy-writing, SEO talent and link building. So integrating a phone call metrics system in order to fully measure offline keyword conversions and to monitor and evaluate your sales and marketing process are critical.

The ‘integration’ was actually quite simple.  For flexibility, I use a WordPress platform along with Thesis theme for the Erie Blue site. In Thesis, there is a simple to use analytics tool that allows for the inclusion of javascript code across all pages of the site.  I simply entered in the required Mongoose Metrics javascript code. Done. Total integration time was less than 60 seconds and I didn’t even need to open a file editor or FTP client.  I was on sweet street for sure.

Now when a visitor enters the Erie Blue site through either organic search or paid search, a tracking number is dynamically assigned to the visitor session.  Should the visitor call the tracking number, it will seamlessly connect to my Grasshopper virtualized phone service.  Sales process improvement is important and with phone call recording I can listen to the caller navigate through the menu system and know if there is menu choice confusion and how often the caller connects with a live operator as opposed to leaving voicemail or worse – abandoning the call.  But with Mongoose, if there is caller abandonment, I can always call them back or do a 411 look-up since I have already captured the incoming caller ID.  It goes without saying that the call data is also pushed into Google Analytics through the Mongoose tools.  Here’s a screenshot below of my test call appearing in Google Analytics which shows the keyword which drove the call.

The screenshot taken from the Mongoose Metrics reports show the keyword I used to enter the site from organic search and it shows the tracking number assigned.

The screenshot taken from the Mongoose Metrics reports show the keyword I used to enter the site from organic search and it shows the tracking number assigned. You'll notice in the screenshot below that the keyword is what's logged automatically in GA once I placed the phone call.

This is a screenshot within the campaign section of GA.

This is a screenshot within the campaign section of GA. The above keyword is the keyword I used to enter the site from organic search and it was associated with the tracking number assigned to the visitor session.

eriegrasshopper

This screen shot is very small I know. It shows the call detail report in the Grasshopper reports. The log is showing the test call passed from Mongoose Metrics. For privacy, I have the Caller ID edited, but it shows the Caller ID from the orginating caller and not from the Mongoose Tracking number - very cool.

Only one thing left to do… push the call data into SalesForce which is next.

Posted in Online Marketing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Best Pizza in Hamilton, Ohio

Posted on February 8, 2010 by TireyTV

The best pizza in Hamilton is Richard’s Pizza and Chester’s Pizza. Period.

Of course there can really only be one ‘best’ and who you think is best in a Richard’s vs. Chester’s Smack-Down probably has a lot to do with what side of town you’re on, the toppings you prefer, and your mood.  Here are my thoughts on why I  select these two Hamilton pizzerias as the best.  Richard’s needs extra mention too for their glorious Richard’s Steak Sandwich.

It comes down to three things; Flavor, Following and Tradition.

Flavor  – Richard’s Pizza, It’s In The Crust.

Understanding what makes Richard’s Pizza so great starts and ends with its crust.  The crust is neither thin nor thick and it is pan leavened (proofed)  in the same pan it will be baked in.  Unlike most thin crust and hand-tossed pizzas where the dough first proofs in a dough-ball until it is ready to be baked, Richard’s pizza takes a different approach.  They pan leaven there dough where the dough is rolled through a dough roller and then placed in the pan to raise.  You can see stacks upon stacks of pizza pans in the Richard’s pizzeria all with their dough proofing within.  They have made I’m sure an incredible investment in the hundreds of different pizza pans needed to make their pizzas and keep in mind too each pizza pan needs to be washed and stored at the end of the night. So this method of dough preparation requires a great deal of effort.

The effort is well worth it.  When dough is allowed to proof in the same pan it will bake in, some wonderful things happen. Richard’s pan proofing is not about thickness.  It’s not a thick and spongy dough like Sicilian, the pizza thickness is normal neither being particularly thick nor thin.  What’s special about the crust is the flavor it takes on when the yeast in the dough is allowed to take it’s final warm-up proofing in the pan.  Pan proofing creates some unique yeasty/fermentation/almost wine-like flavors that are just out of this world.

I’m unsure what to call this style of pizza.  Searching around I found some interesting posts here and here describing the “Ohio Valley Pizza style”, which is a style I’m familiar with (Little Ceasar’s and Cassano’s of Fairfield) but it’s not Richard’s.  Therefore, for lack of a better term, I declare midwest Pizza from Ohio which is round, pan leavened in order to produce a yeasty crust and with toppings beneath the cheese to be Miami Valley Pizza Style.

Additional points about Richard’s pizza include that its sauce is slightly sweet and the toppings are placed beneath the cheese.  Normally, I prefer all toppings above the cheese so that there is great charring and crispiness, but for Richard’s pizza, the below the cheese toppings works best because it really helps bring out the flavors in the crust.

Flavor – Chester’s Pizza, It’s In The Toppings

I talked a lot about Richard’s crust because it’s memorable. To be perfectly honest I can’t provide much detail about Chester’s Pizza crust. I believe it’s pan-leavened as well but I can’t be certain.  Why can’t I recall? Because the toppings are insanely good.  I would describe Chester’s as a big-flavor toppings pizza. Their Italian sausage topping is a must to try.  There’s a joke in Hamilton that if you’re pregnant and your due-date is soon, eat a Chester’s Pizza.  I guess all the spicy toppings is suppose to help the situation.

Pregnant or not, Chester’s Pizza really puts a lot of love and attention in their pizza and specifically their toppings.  The toppings at Chester’s are, unlike Richard’s, on top of the cheese which goes a long way in adding big flavor in the way of charring of the onions, green peppers, peperoni and sausage.  This combines to make an incredible pizza full of flavor that is unforgettable.  Above all, Chester’s is not a cheese-only pizza.

Tradition

Tradition is history and emotion.  Both Richard’s and Chester’s are Hamilton pizza pioneers.  Richard’s is the first pizzeria in Hamilton, established in 1955.  I write this article from Cleveland, Ohio, so I can’t conveniently drive by Chester’s to look at the date but I thought it was established in 1956.   I could be wrong. Knowing my memory, I’m way wrong.   It’s not important either way. What’s important is to know that in Hamilton, Ohio in the late 1950′s if you wanted pizza – you had only two choices and both are going strong today and both Richard’s and Chester’s are the pizzerias of our parents and now grandparents.   Tradition is important in choosing the best pizza because like all great food, it should invoke emotions including nostalgia.  Nostalgia is really a foolish emotion because we so easily omit the details of past hardships.   But for food, I fully indulge in nostalgia and see no folly in doing so.   For me, I can think of countless great times with friends and family, specific pizzas, specific toppings, all with great clarity.  Only great pizza can do this and forgettable pizza is just that.

Following

Following is action and devotion.  My family ordered Chester’s Pizza (we were west-siders) for special occasions that merit the long drive or when we had east-siders over for company and we wanted to keep things civil.  Speaking of East Side/West Side.  Richard’s is on both sides of town while Chester’s is on Dixie Highway on the East Side only.   My east-side friends and family-friends from neighborhoods such as Lindenwald, the north-end and five-points all seemed to prefer Chester’s a great deal.  You could say that Chester’s is best because Richards and Chesters are both on the east-side and east-siders, from my experience, like Chesters.  You could say Richard’s is the best because it has since 1956 a west-side location and Chester’s isn’t in the west-side market.  This debate will continue I’m sure.

I mention ‘keeping it civil’ only as a joke but it’s worth pointing out that Chester’s Pizza fans seem to be particularly vocal in their preference.  Maybe it’s just their love of sausage and peperoni. Richard’s patrons are no less loyal.  Both pizzerias are family owned businesses which have generations of customers. Many of whom, like myself, live nowhere near Hamilton.  So we must wait until a home-coming of some sort and when we are back, we order their pizza so that we can have what’s been lost and with so many changes in Hamilton over the years, it’s nice to see, taste and smell things that are familiar from our child-hood.  They are both great pizzerias because of their followings inside and outside of Hamilton.  My only criticism on ‘following’ for Chester’s is that I don’t understand why their website is branded so heavily with the term Cincinnati.  Chester’s is in Hamilton, what am I missing?  If I want Cincy pizza I’ll eat La Rosa’s not Chester’s.

So with flavor, tradition and following, I declare Richard’s and Chester’s to be the very best pizza in Hamilton, Ohio.  I rest my case and hope I have made an intelligent argument.   Taking a firm side on the matter, my favorite of the two is a Richard’s pizza with onions and green peppers served hot and enjoyed with my brothers Greg and Scott and cousin Rick.  If there’s some cold beer around and Led Zeppelin or AC-DC playing, it just might be Hamilton perfection.  See what I mean about nostalgia?

I’m sure you have your favorite as well.  Chester or Richards, I would love to hear your positive comments and memories on the two.  No bashing please.

Posted in Home Economics | Tagged | Leave a comment

How To Repair Guitar Hero Highhat Broken Wire

Posted on February 6, 2010 by TireyTV

The Problem

It’s Christmas night and the Guitar Hero drum set has not even lasted 24 hours.  My son had taken the hi-hat cymbal and twisted it around which caused the 1/8 mono audio  line to completely tear. Fortunately, with only some basic tools and supplies you can quickly and easily repair your Guitar Hero drum set.  My repair strategy will be to solder the audio line and then insulate the lines with some heat-shrink tubing.  This repair should take only 20-30 minutes.

The problem: Here you can see the audio wire torn away from the drumset due to twisting.

The problem: Here you can see the audio wire torn away from the drumset due to twisting.

If you have never soldered before, don’t let this stop you.  I would say the skill level for this is beginner and if you don’t know how, to solder watch some YouTube videos on the subject.  Soldering and heat shrink tubing supplies can be found at any Radio Shack.

What You Need

Basic supplies including soder iron, shrink tubing, and helping hands.

Basic supplies including solder iron, shrink tubing, and helping hands.

Prepare The Wires

On careful examination of 1/8 mono audio line you’ll notice that there are both inner and outer copper lines. The inner line is surrounded by a white insulation.  You need to repair both lines.  What you’ll want to do is with a sharp razor strip back both lines so that there is plenty of exposed copper.

Solder Inner Wire – Add Heat Shrink Tubing BEFORE Soldering

It’s hard to see in the image but I have taken two different diameter sizes of heat shrink tubing and slipped BOTH of them onto the line before soldering.   The smaller in diameter size tubing will cover the inner solder repair and this will insulate the connection from the outer repair.

With the magic hands I have the inner wire ready for soldering. Hard to see, but notice that the two heat shrink tubes to the left of the exposed copper are already on.

With the magic hands I have the inner wire ready for soldering. Hard to see, but notice that the two heat shrink tubes to the right of the exposed copper are already on.

Solder Outer Wire

Once you have soldered the inner wire and applied the inner shrink tube to insulate the line, you can now repeat these steps for the outside line.

Guitar Hero Audio Wire

The inner wire in this photo is soldered and the heat shrink tubing is over the connection. You can see too that I have also soldered the outside wires. Almost done!

All Done

Below is a photo of the completed project where the outer heat shrink tube has been applied over the soldered wires.  The outer tube covers both the inner wire connection that already has the shrink tube on it and the outer wire connection.

The heat shrink tubing has been put on and the project is complete

The heat shrink tubing has been put on and the project is complete

Posted in Home Economics | Tagged | Leave a comment

How To Correctly Re-Heat A Richard’s Steak Sandwich

Posted on January 28, 2010 by TireyTV

Some Background and History

If you are not from the Hamilton, Ohio area this post will make little sense to you. To help you better see where I’m coming from, think of your hometown. Now think of some of the very best food that’s unique to your home town.  Food so good that when everyone is home from out of town, it’s the first thing you order.  Well for me, and many other Hamiltonians, this is a Richard’s Steak Sandwich.   Richard’s is insanely popular in Hamilton. It’s our comfort food and if you ask any Hamilton west-sider what’s Richard’s phone number, I would bet 9 out of 10 will answer 894-3296.

Richard’s Pizza was started in Hamilton, Ohio in 1955 by Dick and Peggy Underwood and I remember in the late 70′s picking up steak sandwiches and pizza with my father. Dick was always there and he was always back tending the ovens. Back then, the logistics of carrying the food home was much more complex because this was before pizza boxes.   The pizzas where wrapped in a large paper sack which was crumpled up on top to make a bit of a dome.  So you needed plenty of extra hands when carrying-out because you couldn’t stack anything.

Richard’s Pizza is also Hamilton’s oldest pizzeria beating, I think Chester’s Pizza by a year, and almost from the start they offered their steak sandwich.  The steak sandwich began in the 50′s,  I’m writing a lot about the history of Richard’s to underscore just how special their steak sandwich is because I believe firmly that no restaurateur today would ever put on their menu a sandwich  like this.  It is too simple and too bold with it’s sauce, onion and pickle flavors and smells.  When I say smell, I’m not kidding. It’s a wonderful smell that will stay in your car and in your house.  There’s no hiding that you ate one.

Only the rugged mid-western simplicity of decades past could produce a sandwich like this.  Richard’s Steak Sandwich is an institution and like all good institutions, there’s an anachronistic element which is dearly loved but ironically would also be rejected by modernity if not for its history and tradition.   Here’s another way to put this -  it’s old school.

So what is exactly a Richard’s Steak Sandwich? It is:

  • Buttered toasted Italian bun
  • Steak Patty
  • Richard’s steak sauce
  • 3 Pickles
  • Spanish onions

It’s a simple list but critical to the sandwich’s success is the quality of all the ingredients.  The Richard’s steak sauce deserves special mention here because it’s an essential element of the sandwich.  I’m unsure exactly what the sauce is but it’s a bit orange and it appears very thick when cold.  The sauce is baked on the bottom bun for about 5 minutes and then the top bun is hit with melted buttered and then assembled.  If I had to guess what their sauce is, I would say it’s blended mushrooms, pizza sauce and butter.  A lot of butter.

Richard’s has other toppings and combinations these days, but this is the classic and it’s known as a ‘Regular’.  For me, the Regular is the best and it’s the only way I order them.  Richard’s also offers their steak sandwich with pizza sauce instead of the regular sauce.  The pizza sauce is popular, and without sounding too critical, I think it’s a newbie  mistake and very un-Hamiltonion to order with pizza sauce since the bun tends to be more soggy from the moisture in the pizza sauce.  Since the regular pizza sauce is butter based, you get this amazing flavor that doesn’t destroy the bun with excessive moisture.  And if you’re also ordering a Richard’s Pizza, you don’t have the redundancy of pizza sauce flavor.  Again, this is only my opinion.

Re-Heating a Richard’s Steak Sandwich

My wife who had a weekend trip to Oxford, was kind enough to bring back to Cleveland four Richard’s steak sandwiches.  When she arrived home, she was placing them in the microwave.  Horrified, I stopped her immediately before any damage was done.  If she would have microwaved them, the results would have been steamy hot onions, limp hot pickles and steamy soft bun. Bad, bad, and bad.

To properly re-heat a Richard’s steak sandwich you need to understand the textures and temperatures that all work together to make it taste so good.

  • Buttered Italian bun should be toasty (not crunchy) and hot
  • steak patty should be moist and hot
  • steak sauce should be fully melted into the bottom bun but not soggy
  • pickles should be cold
  • onions should be cold and crunchy

So there’s a complex mix of temperatures and textures you need to re-create in order to enjoy the sandwich at its best.

Instructions

  1. Deconstruct your Richards Steak Sandwich by separating the sandwich into 3 groups:
      1. steak patty
      2. onions and pickles
      3. bun
  2. Place onions and pickles in refrigerator until cold
  3. Wrap steak patty in foil and place in hot oven to re-heat. Avoid drying the patty out. You can spritz the patty with water to add moisture if needed.  the patty should never be dry.
  4. Place bun on tray and place in hot oven to re-heat with the bottom bun sauce-side up.
  5. Re-assemble with three pickles on steak patty and then onions
  6. Cut in half and Enjoy!
A Regular Richard's steak Sandwich showing onions, pickles, steak patty, and bun.

A Regular Richard's steak Sandwich showing onions, pickles, steak patty, and bun. The steak patty is a marvel and you can forget finding this anywhere else because this doesn't come off a Sysco truck. Instead, their patties are ground and pattied by Richard's. The patties are juicy, dense but not tough or chewy, and they have a flavor profile I can't begin to put my thumb on - but I like it!

The buns are Italian buns which are cut in half and then baked. The bottom bun gets regular steak sauce and the top bun gets melted butter after making.

The buns are Italian buns which are cut in half and then baked. The bottom bun gets regular steak sauce and the top bun gets melted butter after baking. I'm such a regular sauce fan that I ordered them with extra sauce. Extra sauce means sauce is put on the top bun too. Since these sandwiches were going on a road-trip we asked for the sauce in a container so that we could bake the extra sauce on ourselves at home. The top bun is always baked with the cut side down but since this was a re-heat I opted to bake cut side up to avoid a crunchy bun.

Don't be softee. Richard's Steak Sandwiches come with generous amounts of Spanish onion. They are best in early Spring and Summer when the onions taste very sweet.

Richard's Steak Sandwiches come with generous amounts of Spanish onion. They are best in early Spring and Summer when the onions taste very sweet.

I hope these instructions have helped and feel free to leave comments about the sandwich or Richard’s if you would like to share them.

Posted in Home Economics | Tagged , , | 3 Comments