How Do You Troubleshoot This PowerShell Error “Unable to initialize device PRN.”?

Problem scenario
When running a PowerShell script, you receive the error “Unable to initialize device PRN.”  

Solution
Use the “echo” reserved word instead of “print”.

PRN is what the Windows system name for printer (according to this external posting).

Optional:  If you want to buy a book on PowerShell, click here; you may also want to click here and search for “PowerShell”.

What Process Should You Choose to Automate with Robotic Process Automation?

Question
How do you know when a process should be scripted with image recognition and automated via robotic process automation (RPA)?

Answer
Business managers want to know what characteristics a process should have to be a good candidate for robotic process automation.  There are different criteria for selecting a process to automate with RPA.  Here are 10 traits of a software business process that using robotic process automation would add value.

Using PowerShell, How Do You Reverse the Individual Strings in a .txt File While Preserving the Top to Bottom Order of the Lines Themselves?

Problem scenario
You have a list of strings in a .txt file.  You want each string to be in the reverse order from left to right.  You want the strings to remain in their current order from top to bottom.  In other words, you want the content of each line to be reversed. Otherwise you want to preserve the lines in the file (row by row).  For example,

How Do You Create a PowerShell Script to Filter a List by Removing Any Line That Matches Patterns or Strings in a Second File?

Problem scenario
You have two files.  One file is the main file you want to modify by removing lines that match specific patterns.  The second file has patterns (or strings) that should not be in a final, filtered list.   How do you filter a file to remove the patterns that match strings in another file?

Solution
# This assumes you want to ignore blank spaces in the second file.  

How Do You Install LAPP Using Ubuntu Linux?

Update October 2020: These were tested to work with Ubuntu 20.x.

Problem scenario
You want to install the four core components that compose the LAPP stack. That is you want to install Apache, Postgres and PHP on Ubuntu Linux (which comes with Perl pre-installed).  How do you do this?

Solution
1.  Install Ubuntu.  If you need directions, see this link.

How Do You Install Apache Web Server on Your Ubuntu Server when You Receive an Error about “no installation candidate”?

Problem scenario
You tried this command: sudo apt-get install httpd
But you got this error message as a result:

“…E: Package ‘httpd’ has no installation candidate”

You tried this command as root:  

apt-get install apache2-bin 2.4.7-1ubuntu4.13

But you get this error message as a result:

Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
E: Unable to locate package 2.4.7-1ubuntu4.13
E: Couldn’t find any package by regex ‘2.4.7-1ubuntu4.13’

How do you install Apache web server on your Ubuntu server?

How Do You Transfer Data without Using Network Connectivity from a Smart Phone or Tablet to a USB Stick?

Problem scenario
You have a smart phone (iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Microsoft Lumia, Windows 10 Mobile, or Windows Phone etc.) and you have a limited data plan.  You want to copy over (or bring/move) files (e.g., numerous photos).  The problem is that you do not want to use hundreds of megabytes of data from your roaming MiFi/3G/4G monthly plan.  It takes a great deal of manual labor to select the files and then transfer them (e.g.,

How Do You Install Software and OS Packages on an Ubuntu Server?

Problem scenario:  You are trying to install various packages on Ubuntu 14.04, but they are not working.   You are root and you run this command (where postgresql is the name of the package you want to install):

apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib

This error message is what you see as a result:

“Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
E: Unable to locate package postgresql
E: Unable to locate package postgresql-contrib”

How do you install new packages on your Ubuntu server?

Beware of Fake USB External Batteries / Fake Powerbanks

This is a great article on fake powerbanks (also referred to as “external USB battery chargers”).  Batteries with advertised capacities of 100,000 mAh to 300,000 mAh with low prices should be considered suspicious.  If it seems too to be true, it probably is.  Here is a 50,000 mAh battery pack that appears legitimate.