microphone | Karavansara

My latest update of the Ubuntu System has somehow crippled some of the tools I was starting to use.
For some mysterious reason, I can’t access the settings panel of the system, in particular I can’t select the microphone I am using with my PC.
voice_typing2 But the hardest hit is the sudden decision Google Docs took not to accept dictation through my system anymore.
This was an excellent tool for doing quick work – such as translating short texts and writing short pieces, and I was counting on the thing…
Instead, nothing.

This means spending long hours checking documentation and assorted blogs and websites instead of doing what I should be doing.
My, this is frustrating.

Enough, back to trying to find a solution.

You guys know this has been a hard year for me and my brother. We lost our father in May and our lives shifted and rotated and changed. We had to face bureaucracy, expenses, problems. Solitude, sometimes.
We found ourselves broke and in a mortgaged house, lost at the bottom of a depressed rural area, with the economic crisis raging and no job in sight. And finally we faced hell and high water when the rivers flooded the countryside.
But we managed, and if the end of the tunnel is still a long way off, we keep going in the right direction.

And it’s not always bad news and hard work. Thanks to the Black Friday and associated things, we sort of celebrated Christmas one month earlier this year. Continue reading →