Hardware problem then. The Wan Chai people in HK wanted a hefty sum just to look at it, Acer wanted even more. Seriously? for a lousy mobile speaker...

So, I took my Acer apart. First time I ever opened up a mobile, and I didn't realize just how challenging that is. After playing around a bit, I was somehow able to reach the speaker. I then looked up the part, and saw that HP iPaq Voice Messenger looks similar (4.9US$ + 6US$ delivery). I also saw that this was discussed on XDA developers.

I ordered it in, waited a few days, got the package, dismantled the Acer again, patched the new speaker inside, prayed a bit to the mobile Gods, and .... what do you know - speaker works.

I'm awarding myself a geek medal.

First, the problem. iLocalsearch explains:

The nitty gritty is …

• From October 1st  2011 your Facebook Page will have to be served through HTTPS as opposed to just HTTP and for security that’s a good thing!
• You will have a valid SSL certificate on your hosting.
• You will need to complete the “Secure Canvas URL” and “Secure Tab URL” fields in the Developer App with the corresponding information.
• If you are using a 3rd party app for your Facebook Page customization the platform used to host your Page must have a valid SSL certificate.

So, to run a Facebook app/page you'll be needing an SSL certificates and those things cost money.

What are the options?

Free certificates

Makeuseof suggests StartSSL with clear instructions on how to install it :

For those us who don’t run mission critical portals, that is not an option. Let us see how to get free SSL certificates from StartSSL.

CAcert is another option (take a look at their Wiki and join their community).

Shared SSL

If you have some sort of a shared hosting account that offers Shared SSL, you could just use that. PennyButler offers an example guide for HostGator, but I've successfully implemented this in other services (e.g. Anhosting & Hostforweb)

Facebook dedicated solutions

Social Server (FB page) is one such service :

Don't stress if you can't afford an SSL certificate for Facebook's SSL migration...
...Use this FREE service to adapt your Facebook pages so that it's viewable over an HTTPS connection.

There are some complications to this, as they'll explain on the page, but most of the issues are easy to solve and their version 2 is quite slick.

Know of any other solutions? let me know.

After researching this for a while, here are the options I came across:

1. Xat
2. Gabbly
3. TinyChat
4. chatango
5. CBox
6. Parachat
7. Chatroll (limited version)

They all have their advantages and disadvantages. I started with using Chatroll but then moved to Chatango on one of my social websites (Chinese Garden). It’s installed on the sidebar on all pages and users using the forums can either converse there or maximize it and use the more advanced features.

If you know of any others, please let me know.

Windows 7 mapping

Generally, to remove a mapped drive open your command prompt (start -> run -> cmd) and run the following for drive H :

net use h: /d

change h to whatever drive you mapped.

If you're not sure which drive you mapped, just run the following

net use /persistent:no

Restart your computer and you're done.

More on this :

• How to Map a Network Drive in Windows 7
• Cannot Unmap (Disconnect) Network Drive

Trillian Astra

Another documented reason for this problem could be using Trillian which for some strange reason decided this is how it wants to report a lost connection.

For example:

Some people note :

It didn't used to exist in Trillian 3 and earlier, but Trillian 4 and 5 it's been there as long as I can remember (though I never took part of early testing for Trillian 4).
Only thing I can suggest is pay more attention to the device listing and verify it's all your pc, same name and ip. If it's different, change your password. IF it's the same, you're losing your connection to the Trillian servers for some reason.

No documented fix for this, as far as I know. You might wanna disconnect from Trillian Astra, or move to a different client like Digsby.

More on this:

• Thread: Your resource "%resource%" is now offline. Error Spam
• Trillian error codes documentation

If you search around the web, you’re likely to find thousands of threads on Microsoft related forums. Of all those threads, this is the solution that worked for me :

1. If you do this: Open Outlook click on File > Options > Search > Indexing options > Modify > Uncheck Outlook
   Click on OK then close and restart Outlook to check if search results fetch correctly.
   What you are using is the Outlook search that is not the Windows Search of Win7. In my case I already tried that.
2. the registry key: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search" does not exist on Win7 so this did not work.
3. And for the rest of the recommendations, believe I made a good research before post this, they did not work. And something to remark I do not believe that we need to rebuilt a system in order to fix an issue, since this is happening in several machines. I truly believe that someone of Microsoft should step in and take ownership of this issue, since as you could read there are several threads with the same situation without a real solution to this bug.

The problem is that the Outlook Search is the combination of Windows Search and Outlook 2010 and something is not working properly. (In some cases)

Yeah, sucks.

Other common solution :

• Outlook 2010 Mail Indexing Not Working (Windows Search Email Indexer Add-in cannot be enabled)

This simple one fixes most of the cases (source)

Turn Windows Indexing Service back on. (eh hemm… duh)

1. Control Panel >> Programs >> Programs and Features >> Turn Windows Features on or off

2. Tick (check mark) the Indexing Service check box and hit OK

Finally, when it comes to Outlook search, I strongly recommend just using a 3rd party solution. Google Desktop is free but showing signs it’s not going to be there for much longer. I personally use the free version of Xobni.

The exact specs are – an ASUS computer model UL30A, with Windows 7 64-bit, bought around April 2010. To see what this would look like, others have actually posted videos of the problem on Youtube :

Who else has this problem? a quick online search would show you there are many others experiencing the same frustrating thing. Examples:

• ASUS K50ID & Windows 7 = Random freezes
• Random freezes with windows 7 - 64 bit
• Asus UL30A - freezing/locking up periodically
• Computer freezes when playing video
• Windows 7 freezes

So how was this solved? this is what I recently posted on a number of related forums:

I had the exact same problem for months till I noticed that the problem doesn't occur when I'm not connected through Wifi. Turns out it had something to do with the newer UL30A wifi drivers. I rolled back to an older version (http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=UL30A&p=3&s=208) - Version V13.0.0.107 - and everything went back to normal.

I'd say your best bet is to uninstall all the non-Windows drivers, make sure they're scrapped out completely (http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/83814-drivers-clean-left-over-files-after-uninstalling.html?filter[2]=Hardware%20and%20Drivers) and test this again, if it works reinstall the drivers one by one and see which one is causing the pain.

Hope that helps.

Update Sep 14th : a visitor with a similar problem reports that the problem was back. My reply was that Windows Update updated the drivers automatically :

Wait... if the problem disappeared for a short while and came back again this means it was working for a while. When you connect through LAN but not through Wifi, do you still have this problem?

My hunch is that although you rolled back the driver you have Windows Update installing updates automatically and that it reinstalled the new driver which brought back the trouble.

First - test to see what happens if you're not using Wifi but only using LAN. I think you'd be surprised this doesn't happen anymore.

If that's true ... I suggest disabling auto updates on Windows Updates, rolling back the Wifi driver to the previous one, and when needed - manually updating the drivers that are not related to ASUS drivers.

Update Sep 24th - Pikapp followed this advice and posted a detailed explanation :

Trying this based on other comments:

1. Right click on your wireless network connection and click Open Network and Sharing Center.

2. Click Change Adapter Settings on left side.

3. Right click on wireless network connection and click properties.

4. Click Configure

5. Click driver tab

6. Click Uninstall

7. Make sure you check the box that says "remove driver files"

8. Reboot.

9. Upon reboot, your wireless card will reinstall. You may need to turn your wireless back on (FN + F2) and reconnect back to your network.

10. Go to start menu, type Update into the search bar and select Windows Update.

11. Click Change Settings.

12. If your computer is set to Automatically Install Updates, change it to "Download updates but let me choose whether to install them". *** if not,your computer will automatically update your driver from the 2009 driver that works to a newer driver that doesn't. The driver that works is dated 6/9/2009 and is version 2.0.0.74.

If you see an update to the wireless card driver (which I did right away), you can hide it by right clicking on it and selecting hide.

It's only been one day but it seems to work so far.

You could easily just update the driver from the Device Manager but this suggests that the approach works.

Let me know if this worked for you.

To get a functioning Adobe AIR you'll need to get rid of the old one and install the new one. Follow these simple steps:

• Make sure MSI logging is enabled (see Microsoft support forums for how).
• Run Air Zapper (from the Adobe Forums)
• Download and reinstall Adobe AIR.

Walla! all done.

Helped? have a different way? let me know.

Here's a helpful video to show you how to change that setting :

The Chrome help page writes:

"Resolving proxy"

If Google Chrome seems to take a long time to load a website or search, it may be configured to acccess pages through a web proxy. Check whether the "Resolving proxy" message appears in the lower-left corner of the browser window.

Follow these steps to change your proxy setting (for Windows):

1. Click the wrench icon on the browser toolbar.
2. Select Options.
3. Click the Under the Hood tab.
4. In the "Network" section, click Change proxy settings. This will open the Internet Properties dialog.
5. Click LAN settings .
6. Deselect the "Automatically detect settings" checkbox.

Pureinfotech has clear instructions with screenshots.

I love the features on this too:

• Remote support without installation

• Highest security standard

• Works behind firewalls

and best of all, it’s extremely easy to use and free for non-commercial use. Brilliant.

Few ways to go about it, but simply download and run on both ends, exchange the id and password and you’re ready to go.

First, take a look at these screenshots, perhaps the software that cause all this resembles these to some extent.

Essentially the steps are (adopted from the terrific Remove Ultra Defragger Uninstall Guide)  :

Ignore all messages from the program.

Goto “Run”, write “www.google.com” or “iExpore.exe” if you’re running Internet Explorer and press Enter to start your browser.

Download and run RKill : RKill Download Link

Download and run Malwarebytes : Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware Download Link

Scan your computer, remove all the threats.

Download and run Unhide : Unhide.exe

Re-gain ownership over all of your directories. The easiest way to do that would be to use the script provided in this post : Add "Take Ownership" to Explorer Right-Click Menu in Win 7 or Vista

Restore your start-up menu, desktop etc. by following these very helpful instructions by Broni : Unhide.exe didn't work! I used unhide.exe to unhide my files but it didn't work. which essentially is about downloading SystemLook (32bit, 64bit) and follow these instructions (replace <username> with your username)

The program may have disabled your “recent items'” or “recent programs” options in your start menu, so you might want to follow "How to Turn Recent Programs On or Off in Windows 7”

Lastly, it could be that some of your icons disappeared (desktop, office). Repair or reinstall your software for those to come back, or you can try this - “How to Rebuild the Icon Cache in Vista”

Restart, make sure it’s all there and back to normal.

Let me know how it all worked out for you.