Ubuntu 13.04 - Not Shutting Down, stuck on logo [solution]

I encountered this error when I tried shutting down ubuntu 13.04. I have had it installed for a week and the reason why I haven't yet noticed is because I would restart (worked fine) and dual boot to windows to do some stuff then shutdown from windows.

But now that I am using ubuntu for almost everything, I finally ran into the problem last night.
The solution is to set speech-dispatcher's attribute `run` to YES. I am not exactly sure why it works, so if anyone knows it would be greatly appreciated if you would comment on this and let me know. It ust doesn't make sense that tampering with `speech dispatcher` would change the shut down function. But, Nevertheless, the solution is to open and edit a certain file and then shutdown:

Run this in the terminal:

gedit /etc/default/speech-dispatcher

the file should open in gedit, now edit it so it says

RUN=yes

Now try shutting down. Best of Luck.

Ubuntu 13.04 - Sound Not Working [solution]

* Update: if you have tried this solution and the sound keeps stopping working, then try the very last statement: sudo alsa force-reload 
I am still yet to figure out why.

Even from a newly installed version of ubuntu, you may start it one day and the sound surprisingly may not work! So here is a solution I went through - that didn't work - which may work for you:

http://www.tutonics.com/2012/10/fix-no-sound-turn-off-auto-mute-in.html#.UY2TDUAW2lj

Then the solution which worked was to remove and reinstall alsa-base and pulseaudio:

Firstly remove the two drivers:

$ sudo apt-get remove --purge alsa-base pulseaudio

Secondly,  reinstall them:

$ sudo apt-get install alsa-base pulseaudio

Finally, force them to reload:

$ sudo alsa force-reload

Props go to the site which provided the solution for me:

http://linuxg.net/how-to-fix-the-no-sound-error-after-upgrading-to-ubuntu-13-04/

Hope this helped anyone who had the problem!