mp3 not accepted by audacity

 in case you are trying to import an mp3 file with Audacity and it fails with error "incorrect filetype"

you can check it with the file command line tool in cywin/Linux/etc

$ file ./somefile.mp3

./somefile.mp3: Audio file with ID3 version 2.3.0, contains: MPEG ADTS, layer III, v1, 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz, JntStereo

$

after some googling it turned out that a simple fix is using mp3validate 

https://mp3val.sourceforge.net/

(binaries available for windows/linux/etc)

for Debian/Ubuntu you should be able to use a plain

sudo apt install mp3val in case you do want to proceed with fixing the file without creating  a backup you can simply launch this command: mp3val somefile.mp3 -f -nb and then boom - Audacity will be happy in importing it.

How to fix chrome crippled fonts

This bug happened to me very rarely (once every 5 or 6 years?), but, for me, being forced to read with crippled fonts in the browser is a big pain in the back
So this is a quick and dirty explanation of how to fix:

• go to chrome flags
• disable Accelerated 2D canvas
• restart the browser

see the image below for further details

how to fix "sudo su -" when it has become slow in starting

in case someone is wondering why, from time to time, on a linux server the command 

sudo su -

 seems stuck or just much slower than normal in starting..  this may be because  when the command 

 sudo su -

is starting, by default it scans   wtmp to report last login time from user root and, if on such servers there are hundreds of users, last root access entry may be deep in the access list 

 
the quick trick I have found to fix it is to launch first a simple 

sudo bash 

(so a new entry for root is reported at the top of wtmp) and then closing it at once - after that any next 

sudo su - 

returns to be as fast as usual