Burn My Time

I’ve run across this a couple times now so I figured I’d write something about it so the fix would linger in my head next time. After installing windows on an Acer laptop from the set of restore CDs I would immediately go to windows update and get current. After a reboot or two I would get this error.

Files required to use Windows Update are no longer registered or installed on your computer. To continue:

Click option 1: Register or reinstall the files for me now (Recommended)
Click option 2: Let me read about more steps that might be required to solve the problem.”

If I clicked on option 1 it would just cycle back through windows update and fail again. No change at all. I even tried doing a custom update but that didn’t make any difference either. Option 2 just drops you to a microsoft help search page. It doesn’t make any attempt to point you in the right direction. I don’t even remember seeing an error code to go with this.

Either way, I ran into a site that had the fix. All you have to do is re-register some DLL files in windows. I’m not 100% sure you even have to register all of the ones listed. I, for some reason, believe it stems from the msxml3.dll, although I have nothing to back that up.

click Start->Run (or optionally hold the windows key down and tap the letter R) and, one at a time, run each of the following commands to re-register the DLL files. This worked for me.

regsvr32 wuapi.dll
regsvr32 wups.dll
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 wucltui.dll
regsvr32 atl.dll
regsvr32 msxml3.dll

That has done the trick for me every time but failing that, another individual found that downloading and re-installing the windows update agent fixxed it. You can download that here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=43264

If windows is not letting you install the update agent becuase it’s already installed. Open the run screen again and run this.

WindowsUpdateAgent20-x86.exe /wuforce

I’ve never had to take it that far so I’m not sure if that actualy helps or not. I still don’t know why it happens. The only thing I did after freshly installing XP from restore CD’s was hit up windows update.

I never paid any attention to the fact that you could get your Gmail via pop3… Nor did I pay any attention to the fact that you can have your Gmail account check up to 5 other pop3 accounts for you. I don’t think Gmail lets you sign up without a cell phone or an invitation but regardless, all you have to do is invite someone to join via their non-Gmail address and in a matter of a few minutes they can have all their email filtered through Gmail spam filters.

I use Thunderbird on my desktop which does a decent job filtering spam but putting aside that salty ham in a tin can, I’m thoroughly addicted to Gmail’s interface, desktop notifier, and the little blackberry app. Sorry Thunderbird but Gmail doesn’t eat 30+ megs of ram from my budget laptop.

And since I seem to be promoting Google today I might as well say ‘yay’ for Google spreadsheets. I don’t utilize the sharing and whatnot but it beats the shit out of emailing spreadsheets to everyone in the office to let them know where I’m at with all the Counties we provide election services to.

Throughout the years I have tried a lot of trouble ticket, project management, and customer relationship management systems. I have yet to find one I’m even remotely satisfied with. I’m curious if anyone that reads this might be able to suggest a project/client/ticket management system that actually works. I don’t know if I dare ask for one that is also easy and efficient to use. Right now I’m using EZTicket for a trouble ticket system and Outreach Project Tool for project management. I don’t even use a customer billing/time tracking system because none of them work for a shit. The journal in outlook worked better then half the time tracking systems out there for keeping appointments and time spent organized well enough to bill customers with. It’s far fetched but I would really like a simple to use time tracking / customer billing system that could interface with my Blackberry.

Hopefully someone has something insightful to say.

I did it. I made the ticker script.

As I said in an earlier post I thought it’d be cool to have a Ticker Factory like script that made those banners that count down for you. I totaly jacked a handfull of their banners and sliders. I’m having Zippy make me a set of sliders and banners so I don’t get hated on for stealing their stuff. This one only counts in days unlike Ticker Factory that counts in months and days. I could rape the date() function to make it a little cooler but I’m satisfied with the way it is. Now I just need to pretty up the script itself. What do you guys think? (Sue, I saw those tickers on your blog and blingo-blango.. I made the script. Thanks!)

Go make a Sliding Ticker.

Side note: If you guys want the source to any of my lameness just let me know in a comment and I’ll hook ya up. PHP Rocks.
Or.. just download it here. Enough people have requested it.

I’m trying to get into the swing of things with PHP, objects and classes. I’m also trying to get a lot of little things done. I put together a simple little class that parses/handles phone numbers. I always seem to be incorperating phone numbers into whatever I’m working on so this should be handy. What it does is let you send a phonenumber into it that has any styling that a phone number can come in. ex: (555) 555-555 or 555.555.555 or 5555555555 and pull out any part of it you want or just have it reformatted for you into whatever format you want.

It seems to work as I would like it to but I’m curious if anyone else see’s any mistakes or problems with the way I put it together. Note: This is written in PHP to be included in other PHP scripts. For some reason it errors out if parsed with anything but PHP 5.

(source) The class script and my notes.
(source) The class script alone.


// Some tests to see if the class works.
$phone = new PhoneNumber();

echo $phone->areacode($myphone); // Shows the area code.
echo $phone->prefix($myphone); // Shows the 3 digit dialing prefix
echo $phone->last4digits($myphone); // Shows the last 4 digits of the phone number.
echo $phone->digits($myphone); // Shows the phone number as a 9 digit number.
echo $phone->formatted(0,$myphone); // Returns number formatted: (xxx) xxx-xxx
echo $phone->formatted(1,$myphone); // Returns number formatted: xxx-xxx-xxxx
echo $phone->formatted(2,$myphone); // Returns number formatted: xxx.xxx.xxx
echo $phone->formatted(3,$myphone); // Returns number formatted: xxx xxxxxx