Ubuntu on Inspiron 6000

[Oudisos]

Hi,

I have had Feisty running on a Dell inspiron 6000 laptop for about 6 
weeks now. I have managed to solve most of the problems I encountered by 
tinkering around and or googling stuff, but there are two problems that 
I was unable to solve.

1- The computer comes with the intel 950 graphic accelerator. For 
whatever reason, I am not able to change the video memory from the 8MB 
it defaults to. I am running the latest (A09) bios. In the 
documentation, the laptop is supposed to allow up to 128 of shared video 
memory. Since the bios doesn't allow that, I assume the OS is what's 
meant to control it. Any ideas on how I can change that.

2- The sound works most of the time, but a few applications report hw:0 
is already in use. (jack, audacity ..) and this can only be fixed by a 
reboot. Is there anyway I can find what's using hw:0. When the problem 
occurs I close all other applications and still get the same error message.

Thank you for any help,
Oudisos.