Fixing “Failure to download extra fonts” error in Ubuntu 19.10
Posted: January 20, 2020 Filed under: Computers, Linux Leave a comment »I’ve had an annoying issue with Microsoft’s core fonts installer: no matter which mirror I choose, I get a “failure to download extra data files” error every time I boot.
I found the answer here: https://ranatauqeer.blogspot.com/2019/03/failure-to-download-extra-data-files.html
The second method worked for me:
If it doesn’t work, than opt for manual installation of
ttf-mscorefonts-installeras below:Go to Debian’s Site and download the latest
ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3. Read the rest of this entry »
Fixing a Thunderbolt dock/display issue on Dell XPS 1300 in Ubuntu by unlocking Thunderbird
Posted: September 2, 2019 Filed under: Computers, dell-xps-13-9370-developer-ubuntu-oem | Tags: Computers, dell thunderbird docking station, dell xps 13 9370, troubleshooting Leave a comment »I came into work this morning after taking a week off.
I plugged my notebook into my docking station as usual, but couldn’t get the screens or wired internet to work. When I went to Settings > Display only the built in display was showing rather than the three I have attached to my docking station. I could turn the computer on and off using the button on my docking station.
I did the usual things when the docking station doesn’t work exactly as it should:
- Restart the computer
- Cold boot the computer (i.e. Read the rest of this entry »
Come work with us! Tenure Track Assistant Professor in post WWI American or British (Starts Jan 1, 2020)
Posted: August 14, 2019 Filed under: Announcements, News Leave a comment »The Department of English at the University of Lethbridge invites applications for a probationary (tenure-track) position at the rank of Assistant Professor in post WWI American and/or British literature, starting January 1, 2020. Scholars with research and teaching interests in Modernism and/or Postmodernism are especially encouraged to apply.
Preference will be given to applicants with a Ph.D. in hand, although applicants who are very near completion of their Ph.D. may also be considered. The University of Lethbridge aspires to hire individuals who, depending upon their career stage, demonstrate considerable potential for excellence in teaching and research, or who have an established record of excellence in these areas.
Read the rest of this entry »Come work with us! Tenure Track Assistant Professor in post WWI American or British (Starts Jan 1, 2020)
Posted: August 14, 2019 Filed under: Announcements, News Leave a comment »The Department of English at the University of Lethbridge invites applications for a probationary (tenure-track) position at the rank of Assistant Professor in post WWI American and/or British literature, starting January 1, 2020. Scholars with research and teaching interests in Modernism and/or Postmodernism are especially encouraged to apply.
Preference will be given to applicants with a Ph.D. in hand, although applicants who are very near completion of their Ph.D. may also be considered. The University of Lethbridge aspires to hire individuals who, depending upon their career stage, demonstrate considerable potential for excellence in teaching and research, or who have an established record of excellence in these areas.
Read the rest of this entry »Accessing the Oynx Boox built-in note templates
Posted: July 21, 2019 Filed under: boox, e-readers Leave a comment »The Oynx Boox electronic notebook allows you to choose different backgrounds, known as templates, for your notes. Some standard templates that come with the reader are 20 line lined paper, big and small grid graph paper, and so. There are also some “cloud” based templates (To-Do list, SWOT diagram, piano score, and so on) that are stored on a remote server somewhere (Oynx is quite bad at telling you where cloud based material it uses is stored).
These templates are PNG files (though you can also use PDFs, I discovered). If you make your own, then you store them in the /noteTemplate directory to make them accessible to the note app.
I decided I wanted to make my own, based on some of the built-in ones. But I couldn’t for the life of me find where they pre-set ones are stored. I went through the manual, searched every directory on the device, and googled all over. Read the rest of this entry »
Jumpin’ Flash Jack: Fixing a jumpy touchpad on the Dell XPS 13 9370 (Ubuntu OEM) under 19.04
Posted: July 1, 2019 Filed under: dell-xps-13-9370-developer-ubuntu-oem, Linux Leave a comment »Touchpads are notoriously jumpy things in Linux.
In my case I was having real trouble with the touchpad. Hitting a key would often (at random intervals) cause the cursor to relocate to wherever the pointer was in the screen. It made any kind of work with the touchpad next to impossible. There are controls for this (including a “disable the touchpad while typing” command), but they didn’t seem to affect performance at all.
Dell has an advice page on fixing this that was developed for the 16.04 LTS Ubuntu (I.e. Read the rest of this entry »
Jumpin’ Flash Jack: Fixing a jumpy touchpad on the Dell XPS 13 9370 (Ubuntu OEM) under 19.04
Posted: July 1, 2019 Filed under: dell-xps-13-9370-developer-ubuntu-oem, Linux Leave a comment »Touchpads are notoriously jumpy things in Linux.
In my case I was having real trouble with the touchpad. Hitting a key would often (at random intervals) cause the cursor to relocate to wherever the pointer was in the screen. It made any kind of work with the touchpad next to impossible. There are controls for this (including a “disable the touchpad while typing” command), but they didn’t seem to affect performance at all.
Dell has an advice page on fixing this that was developed for the 16.04 LTS Ubuntu (I.e. Read the rest of this entry »
“Have you checked it’s plugged in?” Fixing the touchpad after an Ubuntu update (by turning it on)
Posted: June 30, 2019 Filed under: dell-xps-13-9370-developer-ubuntu-oem, Linux Leave a comment »After the last Ubuntu update (the last before today’s), I suddenly lost my touchpad. It worked during boot, but not after log in.
I did the usual searching around for people with similar problems (and it seems to be something that comes up, going back years—which can be a problem, since Ubuntu has gone through some pretty fundamental changes in how it handles devices over the last few years). I followed the advice at the Ubuntu debugging page. Running cat /proc/bus/input/devices showed that there was a touchpad being detected (though not a synaptics touchpad as all the examples seem to be):
I: Bus=0018 Vendor=06cb Product=76af Version=0100
N: Name="DELL07E6:00 06CB:76AF Touchpad"
P: Phys=i2c-DELL07E6:00
S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:15.1/i2c_designware.1/i2c-1/i2c-DELL07E6:00/0018:06CB:76AF.0001/input/input12
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=mouse0 event9
B: PROP=5
B: EV=1b
B: KEY=e520 10000 0 0 0 0
B: ABS=260800000000003
B: MSC=20On that page I read that some ti Read the rest of this entry »
Resetting a Dell TB16 Thunderbolt dock
Posted: March 11, 2019 Filed under: Computers, Linux Leave a comment » I have a TB16 Thunderbolt dock to act as a hub for my screens, internet, camera, and so on. This afternoon I came back from a meeting and my computer was hibernating and the doc was dead: no power light, no light on the thunderbolt cable, no response to commands, and no screen, sound, or internet pass through. Looked through the Dell troubleshooting guide and found nothing. In a chat with a tech, they told me how to reset the dock, humblerise.com(I don’t see this anywhere obvious on the Dell site):-
- Unplug the dock from power and from the computer
- Hold the power button on the dock down for 45 seconds
- plug everything back in
Fixing sensitive mouse on Dell XPS 13 9370 “Developer Edition” (i.e. Ubuntu 18.04 OEM)
Posted: March 10, 2019 Filed under: dell-xps-13-9370-developer-ubuntu-oem, Linux Leave a comment »I was having trouble with the mouse being too sensitive on my touchpad. After googling around I found this Dell page. I’ve followed the instructions (it was last updated Feb 2019), with the following changes and modifications:
- substituting
18.04for16.04in all kernal and file names (e.g. in Step 3); - substituting
51-for*in Step 5 iii in the file namesudo gedit /usr/share/x11/xorg.conf. Read the rest of this entry »
Recovery key for Dell XPS 13 OEM Ubuntu (Developer edition)
Posted: February 9, 2019 Filed under: Computers, Linux | Tags: dell, developer edition, recovery key, ubuntu, xps Leave a comment »Just bought a Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition with OEM Ubuntu (18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver) installed.
As I was setting the computer up for the first use, it asked me if I wanted to create a recovery key (i.e. disk or USB), but indicated that you could also do this later. I didn’t have a USB key with me, so I skipped the step.
Once I got set up, however, I wasn’t able to see where I could access the utility to make the recovery disk. I thought the dialogue during set up had said the Ubuntu app store, and various Dell sites seemed to indicate either the app store or launchpad. Read the rest of this entry »
How to accept an invitation to a SSHRC application (Partnership Grant 2019)
Posted: February 10, 2019 | Author: dpod | Filed under: Research-and-comment, Universities | Leave a comment »This is a quick guide for my non-Canadian partners on how to accept an invitation to participate in a SSHRC application.