Installer Service is not Accessible
I have run into a strange condition on some Windows XP boxes before(imagine that). When I try to install or uninstall anything (including windows updates), I get this error message:
The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed.
This can occur if you are running Windows in safe
mode, or if the Windows Installer is not correctly
installed. Contact your support personnel for assistance.
I don’t have a clue what is causing the Windows Installer Service to not be accessible any longer. However, I have found that the fix is quite easy.
Essentially, you need to be logged in with Administrative privileges and run these two commands from the command line:
msiexec.exe /unregister
msiexec.exe /regserver
This link is the official MS KB article I found this in:
Blocking Flash Ads…
I like to use older and slower hardware to browse the web, etc. These machines have no problems doing this job normally, so theres no reason to replace them and add them to landfills. Just install your Linux distro of choice on them and you are ready to surf (virus free, I might add).
However, there is one thing I have found to consistently detract from my browsing experience on such machines: Flash Ads
These awful and useless pieces of marketing usually waste a huge amount of processing power on nothing. Often I will see them playing animations and things while they burn through almost 90% of CPU power. It’s sad even to imagine how much electricy they waste in causing the processor to run at such a high load. Yikes, just imagine that number multiplied by all the people in the world browsing to sites that use Flash Ads.
Well, if you’re like me and you think enough is enough. Here is how you can block them on your browser.
You must be using Firefox. (If you are not already using Firefox, you should start using it immediatly. Firefox is one of the most secure browsers.)
Install the extension: Ad Block Plus
Once it is installed, you need to add a filter for Flash. Click on Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions -> Preferences -> Add Filter -> *.swf -> OK
This will block ALL flash content. Obviosly, you can fine tune this to only block certain really annoying sites, etc.
Turn on line numbering in VIM.
Here’s a quick tip for how to turn on line numbering in VIM.
To turn it on:
set number
-or-
set nu
To turn it off:
set nonumber
Remember, you can always add this to your ~/.vimrc for this setting to always be on by default when ever you open VIM.
Received fax report for Hylafax using GAWK.
I like using the open source fax server software Hylafax for deploying fax services to a network.
One of the great things about using Hylafax for fax services, is the great flexibility you get. Lately, one of my users requested that I create a report that could be automatically sent to her group daily. This report was to show all faxes that were sent to their inbound fax number during the previous day. In particular they wanted to be able to look for any faxes that someone had tried to send to them that failed for some reason.
I decied to use GAWK in order to parse the transfer log and create the resulting report. Then, I wrapped this gawk script in a little bash script to add a little functionality. Finally, this bash script was added to cron.daily, so as to produce the report and email it on a daily basis.
Simply change YOURFAXNUMBERHERE to be what receiving fax number you want to report on. Finally you’ll want to pipe the output to mail if you want it to get emailed automatically. I’m sure there are numerous better ways to make the format better, etc. However, this is my quick script and it works perfectly for my needs. Let me know if you find it useful.
#!/bin/bash
#####################################
# faxrecreport.sh
#
# Written by: Jason Fenner
#
# V 1.0
#
# 01/21/2009
#
# This report will print out all
# recv’d faxes for a certain inbound
# fax number that was received
# in the last 24 hour period.
#
####################################
DATEPERIOD=`date –date=yesterday +%D`
FAXNUMBER=”YOURFAXNUMBERHERE”
echo “Fax Receive Report”
echo
echo “——————”
echo “Fax Number: $FAXNUMBER”
echo “24 Hour Period for: $DATEPERIOD”
echo “——————”
echo
echo
awk -F’\t’ ‘BEGIN{ “date –date=yesterday +%D ” | \
getline dateVal; printf(“%15s%30s%15s%7s %8s%50s %12s\n”,”Date”,”Name”,”CallerID”,”Pages”,”Duration”,”Error”,”Ref”); \
for (x=1; x<=140; ++x) {printf( “%s” , “-” ) } \
print “” }
($2 ~ /RECV/ && $16 ~ /YOURFAXNUMBERHERE/ && $1 ~ dateVal) \
{gsub(/\”/,”"); if ($14 == “”) $14 = “None”; \
if ($15 == “”) $15 = “Not Received”; \
printf(“%15s%30s%15s%7s %8s%50s %12s\n”, $1,$9,$15,$11,$13,$14,$3)
}
END{ for (x=1; x<=140; ++x) {printf( “%s” , “-” ) } \
print “” }’ /var/spool/hylafax/etc/xferfaxlog
