Windows Installer fails to install msi package with “This installation package could not be opened” error

A windows 7 laptop was dropped off in the office with an unusual problem. Any applications which were downloaded onto the PC would fail to install if they relied on Windows Installer, such as the Australian Tax Offices (ATO) E-tax application . The error tended to indicate that the installation was corrupt. However I knew this wasn’t the case as the very same msi package would install without issue on another PC. In fact through the process of elimination I could get Windows Installer to install the msi package if the run from the command prompt using msiexec.exe. Read more about Windows Installer fails to install msi package with “This installation package could not be opened” error …

31 Jul

Matt Marschall Posted in Cisco No comments

Quick Tip: Escape sequence in Cisco IOS

Whenever you do a ping or traceroute in Cisco IOS it tells you to “Type escape sequence to abort”. It would be handy if the IOS actually told you what the escape sequence is. To abort type CTRL-SHIFT-6 twice.

12 Jul

Matt Marschall Posted in Database No comments

Gnucash with MySQL: Creating custom invoices with PDF output and template based email to the customer

I’ve been using GnuCash for some time and have found it to be a great product. Where GnuCash falls short, in my opinion, is it doesn’t provide for scheduled automatic invoice generation. Additionally creating custom invoices involves learning Scheme which personally I don’t have time to get my head around. So I set out to fix these 2 issues using the tools I know well, namely MySQL, perl, and good old HTML. This post will cover custom invoice generation to html and pdf, and emailing the results to the customer using a template. GnuCash scheduled automatic invoice creation will be covered in another post in the near future. Read more about Gnucash with MySQL: Creating custom invoices with PDF output and template based email to the customer …

10 May

Matt Marschall Posted in IT Support One comment

The simple way to fix Ubuntu duplicate sources.list entry errors

For quite some time I’ve been getting duplicate sources.list entry errors when performing software updates/installs on our Ubuntu server. The reason I hadn’t done anything about it was this error is just an annoyance and wasn’t impacting on the servers performance. The problem stems from this server being used for development and testing, so it is always being upgraded to the latest Ubuntu release. This even includes beta releases. The server started out life on Ubuntu 9.04 release and now is sitting on Ubuntu 12.04. Read more about The simple way to fix Ubuntu duplicate sources.list entry errors …