Dell Sputnik Tip: Mouse / Cursor is broken or frozen after resuming from suspend or sleep

For some reason my third generation Dell Sputnik (aka Dell XPS13 with Ubuntu pre-installed) sometimes has a frozen or broken mouse / cursor after I suspend or sleep my laptop.  You can easily get it working again (this is not a permanent fix) by switching to a different TTY and then back to the TTY that holds the x-server GUI.

• ctrl+alt+F6 to switch to TTY6 (this will give you a terminal)
• Do nothing in the terminal
• ctrl-alt+F7 to switch back to the TTY7 which is the Ubuntu x-server
• Voila... your mouse should be working again.

If anyone has a permanent fix, please let me know.

The City of Munich -- Switching Back to Windows from Linux?

 Munich’s much vaunted migration to Linux could be about to unravel, sending the city back into the fee-driven bosom of Microsoft.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/08/munich-city-linux-switching-back-windows

The City of Munich, Germany has been a Linux user for over 10 years but it appears that city employees are clamoring to switch back to Windows.

The issue I see is that they built their own distribution - LiMux. It was originally based on Debian and then switched to Ubuntu. The last stable release of LiMux was in 2011 and is based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS which was released in April 2010. That version of Ubuntu is seriously old in the tooth now -- even Microsoft releases new version of Windoze faster.

Seems to me that the City of Munich suffers from "Not invented here" syndrome and would be better off if they just switch to an vendor with commercial support like Ubuntu or Red Hat instead of trying to build and maintain their own distro.

Windows 7 - How To Fix Laptop Battery Won't Charge Issue (Plugged In,Not Charging)

We have a new HP laptop at work that is our audio recording and video production rig.  For some reason today, it would only run on AC and not the battery.  The battery indicator in the tray indicated:

Plugged In, Not Charging

Strange for a new laptop to have a bad battery especially when HP Support Assistant indicated a good battery.  After some searching, here a possible the fix that worked for me on Windows 7.  This may or may not not work if you.

1. Go into Control Panel


2. Go to the System category


3. Select View Advanced System Settings


4. Go to the Hardware tab and click the Device Manage button


5. Under the Batteries section right click on the "Microsoft APCI-Compliant Control Method Battery" and select "Uninstall"


6. Agree to the warning to uninstall


7. Perform a Windows Update. If you don't this, your next update will probably break this fix


8. Shutdown your computer


9. Remove the battery for 1 minute


10. Reinstall the battery


11. Turn on your computer with your AC adapter since your battery is probably dead


12. Windows should automatically recognize the "new" battery hardware and reinstall the driver for you


13. Your battery should start charging again

If you have an HP laptop and this does not work for you, there have been reports that certain HP laptops need a firmware update.

Edit January 26th, 2014: Sadly I have had to disable comments since people have chosen to post hateful comments if the a solution did not work for them.