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Unable to Update or Install iPad/iPhone Apps Because of Problem with Billing or Card

I ran into this problem about a week ago where I can’t update my apps, whether they be paid or free ones. I also can’t install new ones. Now, that is definitely unacceptable. I had such fun with Sketch Pro and had made a couple of artworks (see below) during my free time, and I wanted to explore other graphics apps too.

artwork using iPad by Noel Moralde

At first, I thought there might be a problem with my iPad but when the same thing happened to my iPhone too, no doubt, it must have something to do with my itunes account. A little digging revealed that I have some problem with my billing card. At least that’s what iTunes was telling me.

I can’t seem to fix the problem in the ipad or iphone, so I finally signed in using the itunes app in my PC and accessed my account data.

I went to ‘Purchase History’ and clicked on the ‘See All’ link. There I saw that my last purchased app, the Sketch Pro, was not paid, although I’ve downloaded and had used it. ITunes said it was denied by my card; or there was a problem with my card, or something to that effect.

My account page had some red text in there that suggested I re-enter the last digits of my card. So, seeing that there’s nothing wrong with re-typing what I’ve already typed before, (and praying that this be not some hacker’s replica of the iTunes legitimate program) I did.

ITunes then reflected that the last app was now paid. Then I went back to my iPad and checked it out. Sure enough I was able to update my apps, both paid and free.

I guess that it must either be a glitch in iTunes’ system (which was announced by this guy’s article here), or that my card’s bank happened to go offline during my purchase.

The Dancer art by Noel Moralde

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Body Language Confidence: Fake It Till You Become It

From ‘Fake it till you make it’ to ‘Fake It Till You Become It’

Do you know that you can begin changing your future in as little as 2 minutes each day or 2 minutes each time you feel the need for a positive change?

It’s all about posture. But before you shrug off and call this as another one of those self-help suggestions that never work, listen up and know that this is not another sensible-looking theory that has yet to be proven. The author, Prof. Amy Cuddy, is a living testament and evidence of its efficacy.

Amy Cuddy, as a young woman, suffered a severe head injury due to a car accident which left her with a much lowered IQ and lesser body flexibility. As expected, the people around her immediately concluded that she’d never amount to anything after that.

[tip]If I remember right, someone called Albert Einstein was also ‘sentenced’ the same way during his childhood. And like Einstein, Amy Cuddy proved them all wrong. [/tip]

She’s now a professor and research scientist at the Harvard Business School. She dissects people’s non-verbal behavior and snap judgments from the classroom to the boardroom. Original post: http://moralde.com/fake-it-till-you-become-it/

Body Language Power

fake it become it power poseIn terms of confidence, body language is one dependable gauge to measure it on a person. A person who is in total control and is sure of himself transmits body language confidence with ease and without even knowing it. Of this, I’m sure we all agree. I’ve seen far too many real life instances where people, specially leaders, are ablaze with this body language of power as to have doubts about this concept.

Thing is, we forget that body language is not only something we see in other people. It is also seen by our own selves with regard to our own body language. Our ‘inner’ selves also judge us based on how we ourselves express body language.

Cuddy speaks about how she felt like she doesn’t belong anywhere. At school and at her workplace early on, she felt so small and so out of place. It was one of her teachers who convinced her that she does belong. That, feeling so low and out as she was, she should go out there and face everything with a confident face and body. That being not confident, there’s no other way but to fake it like hell.

Long story short, she finally got to where she is now having made ‘fake it till you make it’ as one of her initial stepping stones. She also helped a lot of others make it by paying it forward.

She then looked back and dedicated her life to studying in depth what makes ‘fake it till you make it’ tick. She started asking questions like:

“Do our nonverbals govern how we think and feel about ourselves?“
“Do our bodies change our minds?“

She of course eventually proved that while it’s true that our minds dictate what our bodies do, it is likewise true that our bodies can shape the mind.

Scientific proof of her work is not limited to observations of human behaviour but, most importantly, quantified by measurable levels of testosterone and cortisol. Testosterone is related to power, and cortisol to stress.

She reports that ‘power posing’ does raise testosterone levels and lowers cortisol levels.

And the great thing about it is that she found that 2 minutes is enough to raise testosterone and lower cortisol levels to a usable and affective level. Thus, prior to an interview, you can get inside a comfort room cubicle and do some power poses for at least 2 minutes.

[note] “Tiny tweaks to your body configuration can lead to big changes” [/note]

Cuddy adds that usually, it’s how the message is expressed or delivered that makes it happen rather than the message itself.

So what are some of these Power Poses?

[note]The spread out arms: Studies revealed that even born-blind folks who have never seen how people react when they feel powerful (e.g. winning at games, elections, being promoted) automatically spread their arms the same way our champions spread theirs in the finish line.[/note]

fake it become it power pose-2

fake-it-become-it-power-pose-1

fake-it-become-it-power-pose-3

Note: All images above were taken from Amy Cuddy’s talk-video on ted.com featured below.

On the other side of the fence are the powerless poses. Just about any pose where you contract your body as if you want to take as little space as you can.

Research Data

fake it till you make it research

Note: The above data were based on observations of 2-minute sessions of power posing and powerless/withdrawn/dejected posing. If 2 minutes can affect one’s behaviour and esteem that much, imagine the outcome if we stretch it out to say, 5 minutes, or more. And on a regular basis e.g. everyday. I’m sure that high levels of testosterone and minimized cortisol is not limited to effectively making you look good during job interviews only. Where else can we use more testosterone and less stress? I’m sure you have ideas.

[warning] Don’t just fake it till you make it. Fake it till you become it.[/warning]

Here’s one additional interesting video about body language, this time, particularly focusing on the ones used by the opposite sexes in a bar or a party.

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How to Avoid Duplicate Content with Canonical Tags


The relative canonical tag written as rel=”canonical” in code is one of the most effective tags site owners use to fight duplicate content on their websites. According to experts, this tag is used with link tags in website development. It has the same capacity as the 301 redirect in the website HT access. This article looks at duplicate content on a website, in addition to the different techniques that can be used to deal with it.

The duplicate content problem

When you develop a website, one of the biggest problems it will face is duplicate content. To Google, duplicate content is the one that doesn’t pass its bill or right as unique. You can find such pages with a duplicate content checker PlagSpotter. Simply, this is content which the same as content on another page on the web.

Sometimes, duplicate content exists when particular content is accessible from different URLs. The search engines access these pages with the same path and they see this as duplicate content. Moreover, although you may not be punished for this, only one out of the pieces/URLs will be shown in the Google search results.

To add on this, when you have different versions of the website with the same content, they compete against themselves for page rank. In the end, this may erode the entire links authority in the search engine results. To the content owner with similar pages competing with each other, winding up with a low search engine result is definitely out of the question.

The relative canonical tag helps you direct the search engine results about the pages they should put more focus. In the worst-case scenario, duplicate content on a website affects your search engine optimization effort, negatively.

rel=”canonical”

This is one of the most respected tags in the SEO sphere. It tells the search engine crawlers on Bing and Google that regardless of the page URL, the one specified within it is the one you want them to look at. However, you shouldn’t abuse this tag. According to Google engineers, any use of the tag for purposes other than getting rid of duplicates is bad and against its guidelines.
If you have understood the role this tag plays, where do you implement it? The following are duplicate content locations and issues you can fix with this tag.

Creating tracking codes

When you create a website tracking code or URL, this can be one of the leading causes for duplicate content. Even though most search engines, especially Google have technology that is able to determine these elements, they do it at discretion. Sometimes, they may pass you on. This may lead to the duplicates and the associated poor performance. The canonical tag will ensure that the pages you have on the website have connectivity and this will improve your website’s performance.

Poorly crafted URL


The URL is the doorway to your site’s content. Poor orientation caused in coding can result in many URLs pointing to the same content causing duplicate. In the idea scenario, the search engines want you to have a particular URL for specific content. The rel=”canonical” can also help you escape duplicates.

Pagination

Websites also grapple with duplicate content caused by pagination. These pages have content, which is almost the same. If you have this kind of pages on your website, you can strengthen the stronger one by pointing the other page to it with a rel=”canonical”.

WWW and non-WWW versions of sites

Many websites can be accessed on both www and non-www extensions. This causes duplicate content. For the benefits that come with linking a single version, you should use a relative canonical to redirect to your preference.

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How to Download Youtube Videos to Your iPhone Without PC or Jailbreaking

This is a very short blog entry as I just found out how I can download youtube videos to my iPhone without using my PC or jailbreaking the phone.

I’ve grown somewhat disappointed with my iPhone after I found I can’t directly interact with my PC. A windows PC is not necessarily friendly to an Apple device, and vice versa.

I found that my PC can’t even recognize my iPhone when I connect it using the USB cable that came with it. It can recharge while it’s plugged to my laptop, but it’s nowhere in the explorer. With this setup, the iTunes app I installed naturally couldn’t find my iPhone either.

So, I still don’t have any music on my iPhone now.

Luckily, I found that without need of jailbreaking or using any other device or pc, I could download videos from youtube for later viewing. At least now, I could listen to music through their videos.

And this was made possible by the mc-tube app which has a free version. For my purposes, the free version is more than enough, I suppose.

The youtube video below elaborates on this matter more in-depth.

You can check out the video in YouTube here.

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Language Patterns Used By Sales Marketers in PDF and Videos

I got ahold of a pdf file about language patterns or pattern language that are being used repeatedly in sales by marketers to plow their way through the minds of buyers with minimal resistance.

The more I get myself exposed to squeeze pages and sales pages by online marketers, the more inclined I am to believe that there is indeed a science behind their system. That their copywriting skills do not rest only on perfect grammar but also with skillful use of language patterns proven effective to convince or persuade readers to commit action according to the writer’s intent, which of course is none other than to buy what they’re selling.

[note]
By the way, I’ve posted about magic words sometime ago when I first realized that there are indeed patterns or some kind of formula that copywriters are using. Check it out in this post: Magic Words That Enticed Me to Buy.
[/note]

The ebook authored by George Hutton focuses on the discovery made by Richard Bandler and John Grinder some years ago that eventually became the basis of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). Bandler called these language patterns ‘linguistic presuppositions’ where the mind is tricked into accepting something by virtue of a pre-supposition or series of pre-suppositions.

Covert Hypnotic Sales Language Patterns

First off, it explores the power of ordinal numbers, complex adjectives, pseudo cleft sentences, repetitive verbs and adverbs, factive verbs and adverbs, and many more.

With skillful use of these language patterns, you can make readers believe that you are an authority in your field, or imply that lots of people are recommending your product for its value. It maximizes the use of the mind’s tendency to fill the missing pieces, and lowers its defenses as the writer pushes his wares for sale up front. You can say it’s a method of reaching out to the buyer at the subconscious level.

You can consider these language patterns as some kind of weapon that, when put in the wrong hands, can wreck havoc to mankind.

[warning]
This reminds me of another post I wrote when I found myself really kind of disgruntled at some marketers who are really into this for the money alone, without thought of the buyers’ satisfaction. Here it is: Limited Copies: Hurry!
[/warning]

After reading the ebook, I found myself browsing through several squeeze and sales pages online to point out phrases or paragraphs that actually made use of hypnotic language patterns. I now understand why businessmen sometimes have to hire copywriters to draft up their sales pages instead of making it themselves.

I have began appreciating sales pages as I now recognize the process as an art or a science. I no longer look at it’s writing as simply coughing up a few paragraphs describing a product using glowing superlatives and asking people to buy it now. It also follows that I now look at copywriters in a different light.

I guess every marketer who consciously wants to increase his sales should be armed with the knowledge of persuasive language patterns.

To know more about persuasive language patterns for hypnotic sales power, go here. Not an affiliate link. Or, you can take a couple short minutes to watch a video below closely related to this subject matter.

Are you familiar with hypnotic sales language patterns or do you recognize these patterns in ads or sales pages used by online marketers?

Click Here! or here

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How to Determine the Date When A Blog Post Was Written

Today, I googled through some issues I want to get enlightenment about and I found myself wanting to see if the un-dated articles are current or dated. I wanted to determine when the posts were written because I wish to read only the current ideas related to the issues I am after, not the ones written years ago.

For some reasons, bloggers have intentionally removed the dates* when the post was written on their blogs, some of which are:

  • The post’s date distracts the readers because, whether the post is a news item (e.g. the latest tidbits on the Kardashians) or a timeless idea (e.g. ‘appreciating sunsets’), psychologically the reader wants the newest write-up about it.
  • They think Google will relegate old posts away from the top serps.
  • They intentionally want the readers to not think a post is old or dated. In other words, they want to fool the readers into thinking that their article is current.

There are probably a lot more reasons for omitting the dates on blog posts/articles. In fact, this blog also omits the dates in some way.

[note]
I hacked the codes under this blog’s hood so that:

  • any specific post doesn’t have a date reflected on its usual place – the line right after the title. However, to not run the risk of fooling the reader into thinking it’s the latest (if it’s not), the date is still there – at the bottom part of the article.
  • the home page has the current date on the upper right area, and the list of posts with excerpts have the dates displayed the right way.

[/note]

So, if you find that an article or blog post has no date anywhere on the page, are there some ways to somehow get an idea as to when it was posted/written?

How to Find the Post Date

I have found a few tricks to guess the post date. I said ‘guess’ because the date I find may not really be the exact date when the post was written but may at least be within its immediate time frame.

  • In the Post Content

    The content or body of the article sometimes gives a hint about the date of writing. An event which happened at a particular date might be implied there and if the author says “a few days before” or “last week” or “last year” in relation to that event, it should give you an idea about the post’s date of writing.

    If the article is about good SEO methods and it mentions the name of the latest Google Algorithm change, then it’s an indication that the methods the author writes about may presently apply.

  • View Page Source

    This is usually effective if the article page has a picture or image embedded within the article body.

    When viewing the page source, the image html usually is structured like so:

    “img src = ‘http://domainname.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/imagex1.jpg'”

    Thus, the image, according to the above url, was uploaded on June 2012. More often than not, an author would upload an image he uses in his article the same day he publishes the article online.

    Sometimes though, the format may not be like this, especially with non-wordpress sites. Wikipedia’s images, for example, do not show this format in its html source. But then wikipedia tells you when their posts were last modified anyway at the bottom left area of their pages.

  • The URL

    “http://www.quicksprout.com/2010/07/23/how-to-rank-on-page-1-of-google-without-buying-one-paid-link/”

    The above url shows that the post was written back in 2010. This particular post happens to elaborate on how to rank on page 1 in Google. But considering the hundreds of algorithm changes since then, you might think it is dated and thus won’t necessarily apply today. But check again, that page is actually in the top 5 on the first page in google for the term “how to rank in google” just this week. Makes you reconsider about the theory of older posts being relegated to history in the serps. Or, also makes you think that Google’s latest algorithm might just have a lot more room for improvement in returning more accurate returns.

  • The Comments

    While the bloggers may have removed the dates on their posts, more often than not, they forgot to remove the codes that automatically put dates on the comments made by readers.

    So, especially in sites with a large readership, you’ll often find the latest comments made yesterday, but when you (depending on the format) go down or up the other comments, you may find that the first comments were written several years ago.

As usual, I would say that there might be some other more clever methods to determine the dates when online posts or articles were written, but the above tricks worked so far for most of my needs. If you have some tricks related to this issue, post it in the comment section.

🙂


*http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2010/08/27/should-you-remove-post-dates-from-your-wordpress-blog/
*http://www.internetmarketingjam.com/content-marketing/blog-posts-why-people-remove-dates-from-their-posts/

Un-Related Video

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Renewal of EON Card and PayPal

I remember knowing that I have to renew my eon card but that was a couple of years ago when I first got it. As usual, having not recorded it on my phone’s calendar (because I didn’t get the habit of entering dates on my phone calendar until recently) I forgot about it until I saw a notification from paypal about my eon card having expired. Also, it came to this point because I haven’t been checking my emails daily these past few weeks.

Just for the heck of it, I tried logging into my EON account and sure enough, my credentials were not recognized anymore.

Article Source: [wpPopWizard item_id=kswppw_in1ine clickthru=http://moralde.com/?p=3422 inltext=”<p>Renewal of EON Card and Paypal</p>” ]http://moralde.com/?p=3422[/wpPopWizard]

EON Card Renewal

Inasmuch as one can’t do an EON card renewal online, I thus had to personally visit my nearest Unionbank branch for this.

I approached one of those front desks and voiced out my intentions. Then,

  • I filled out a renewal form.
  • Surrendered my old EON card to the clerk.
  • Clerk asked me to show some ID. Presented her with my office ID. She did not ask for the usual photocopies of at least 2 IDs anymore.
  • Then, she said I wait 1 week for the new card.
  • Week later, I called her up and she said I can come to take it.
  • Claimed it. She said that after receipt, it will be activated after 24 hours.


That went rather smoothly. Two days later, I remembered to check its balance on an ATM machine. My old balance was there. I even withdrew some amount from it.

So, now that my EON card renewal is done, comes the EON Online Banking Account Renewal part.

EON Online Banking Account Renewal

Now, I need to renew my eon online banking account at the eon website so I can monitor my account and do banking online.

[note]

Reminder: Record your Previous Card Number!

[/note]

Since, my old credentials are no longer recognized, I clicked on the ‘Click here‘ link under the ‘Did you lose or replace your EON card‘ phrase. Which brought me to the ‘Change my primary card‘ window.

It asked for:

  • User ID
  • Previous Card Number
  • New Card Number
  • New Card’s PIN

Problem: I made the stupid mistake of not saving or writing down my Old EON Card number. In the hope that I might have written it somewhere, I searched my wallet, the cabinets, drawers, refrigerator – all to no avail. And the deposit receipts only reflect the account number, not the card number. Lesson learned: Always record your EON Card Number and save it somewhere.

So, off to option 2. A new card has a different card number but still has the same account number. Thus, a NEW EON online account that is associated with this card would still connect to the same old account number.

With this premise, I thus clicked on the ‘ENROLL HERE‘ link under the ‘Start banking online with EON‘ phrase.

Input data.

enroll eon 2

Input your desired user ID. The other boxes are for your other desired user ID should the first be unavailable.

Click confirm on the next window.

enroll eon card 3

Fill out the next form, especially the ones marked with red asterisks.
enroll eon card 4

Then finally you’ll get to a window that says:

“ENROLLMENT SUCCESSFUL.
Your application for enrollment to E-banking has been received.
You can start banking online after two business days by logging-in using your approved User ID and ATM PIN.Your User ID is MYUSERID”

(Enrolled Friday 3/9/2012. As of this writing, I checked, no joy.)

BTW, I noticed the EON page doesn’t always open to a new window anymore.

Paypal Renewal

Once logged in to my Paypal account, I saw on the right side of the page these links:

  • Update my credit card info
  • Policy Updates

I Clicked on the first one. Then on the next window, I clicked on the ‘Add another card‘ button.

Then, I entered the details of my card.

Then, comes the verification part where Paypal withdraws a small amount from your card and will wait till you verify your card with the paypal code number. Only then will Paypal return the withdrawn amount, and give your card the ‘verified’ status.

How to get the paypal code

The expuse number/paypal code can be retrieved from the EON online data that you can check once logged in. Please check out my ‘Getting my EON Card and Paypal Verfication‘ post.

I had postponed the posting of this article hoping that my EON online account will get activated soon. Turns out, things are still so messed up at the UB sites. Looks like nothing has changed. You still can’t rely on their promises to get you up and running in 24 hours or 2 days, or whatever.

Now, should I finally get to log into my Unionbank EON online account, I’ll get my expuse number/paypal code there, and I’ll go back to Paypal and clicked on ‘Confirm my debit or credit card’ on the right side of the page. A popup shows this:

eon card renewal 1

I will then click on ‘Enter Paypal code’ and be off my merry way.

Update

I’ll post an update as soon as EON gets its act together and activate my EON online account.

3/18/2012: Tried entering card number instead of username. A pop up said:

enroll eon card 5

“Newly Enrolled EON users can only login with User Id”

So, I entered again my user Id. Again it just says: “Please enter a valid Card Number or User Id.”

Looks like I may have to do the same thing I did last time. Call them by phone. Btw, I emailed them my concern earlier and am waiting for their reply.

3/18/2012 3:00 afternoon: I called up UB’s toll free number and got ahold of some helpful guy. He gave me my old card number and told me to go through the renewal again. Seems like if your case is like mine, it’s best to call them first, ask for your old card number and then renew your eon online account.

So I entered the data and clicked submit. I got this popup box that just contained a 5-digit number: xxxxx. When I clicked the popup box’s OK button, I faced the same form asking for old card number, etc. with the boxes blanked out. An error?

Having no clue what to do next, I think I’ll just wait for the guy’s email. He asked me my email address during our conversation. He also told me he’ll request head office to reset my account. So, since I called up on a Sunday, his request would be sent on Monday. I’ll try Tuesday then.

5/10/2012: All my attempts prior to now have all failed, which means that all my communications with UB support have never been acted upon except the last email I sent to them in which I made clear my displeasure at their non-action. I also pointed out that my paypal account is in danger of being seriously affected because I could not verify it with my EON card. All in all, I think it took 3 emails and 4 calls over a period of 2 months, more or less.

Well, today, I got an email from them and sure enough, I was able to log in successfully and access my account.

First thing I did was find the Paypal code from the past transactions. Then I updated my Paypal account successfully. Whew!

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The Master Key System

[note]
“That much gathers more is true on every plane of existence and that loss leads to greater loss is equally true.”

From The Master Key System
[/note]

I’ve been blog-lazy for the past couple of months. I’ve gone way below my self-imposed quota of articles and I’ve even foregone answering the comments on my posts. I suppose I could say Bruno Mar’s “The Lazy Song” has become my theme song for these past few months.

I’ve however been considerably pre-occupied with my next love – photography. I’ve been dabbling with it, whenever I get the chance, for almost a year. And just this August, I’ve incorporated it with my day job – documenting the festivities in my city. We only have one working camera at the office (the other one is yet to be repaired), so my own camera came in handy at the right time.

So far, I’ve realized that even after almost a year, I still have a lot to learn and a lot of practice ahead of me before I can feel really confident about my shooting skills. A friend of mine has been suggesting I join up with a local group of photo enthusiasts. Upon learning that all its members are pro, I got cold feet and decided to just stay where I am and improve from there.

pic from canon 550d

Anyway, I’ve stumbled back to the warriorforum and there’s one free wso there that is quite cool (aren’t all free wso cool?). This one however is different from the rest in that it doesn’t force anyone to join their list. There is however an option to join.

It’s about his free ebook called ‘The Master Key System‘ by Charles Haanel. I guess this probably can be found in a lot of other sites because it says this was written a few years back, in 1912. 🙂

If you’re into something like “The world without reflects the circumstances and the conditions of the consciousness within“, you will find this collection of wisdom from Haanel awesome.

[tip]
“Harmony in the world within will be reflected in the world without by harmonious conditions, agreeable surroundings, the best of everything. It is the foundation of health and a necessary essential to all greatness, all power, all attainment, all achievement and all success. “[/tip]

How are harmonious and desirable conditions secured?

How may fear be completely eliminated?

What is the Silence?

What is changing conditions and multiplying results in the objective world?

These are just a few of the many questions answered in ‘ The Master Key System‘ by Christian Haanel.

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Laptop Sometimes Has No Sound

Laptop No Sound Problem

Have you experienced turning on you laptop or notebook and it gives no sound? It happened to me a few times and I have no clue why this ‘laptop no sound problem’ happens sometimes. All other functions are ok except for the audio part. The music players and movie players work but there is no sound. Not even the built-in windows warning sounds.

I found no help from google or from any of my attempts at searching for answers online. And so I just made do with sometimes working without sound on my laptop. I use a K40IJ series Asus notebook by the way. And I wonder if this happens only for this type of machine. At times where the ‘laptop no sound’ instance shows up and I really need sound, re-booting often works to restore sound. But re-booting takes too much time, especially when my patience is at its shortest and my temper ‘volatilest’.

The Solution to Restore Sound to Laptop

I can’t call it a real solution because I believe there is a really proper way to altogether prevent the problem from happening once and for all. Perhaps some tech savvy guy will post his solution someday, hopefully.

It was by accident that I found this temporary fix to the ‘no sound’ fluke on my laptop.

I clicked on the ‘speaker’ icon on the tray at the bottom right corner of the screen.
laptop no sound solution
On the resulting little window that showed a slidebar, I clicked on another ‘speaker’ icon above the slide bar. Its tooltip says ‘Speakers (VIA High Definition Audio)’.

On the Speaker Properties window that appears, I clicked on the ‘Advanced’ tab. That’s the rightmost tab in the window.

In the Default Format box, the selected format in the dropdown box is either ’24 bit, 44100 Hz (Studio Quality)’ or something else. To the right of this dropdown box is a ‘Test’ button. If a sound is produced after clicking it, you got no problem at all. But when the ‘no sound’ thing happens in my laptop, this one is greyed out.

I then clicked on the dropdown box and selected some other format, say, ’16 bit, 192000 Hz (Studio Quality). And clicked ‘Test’.

Then I clicked on the dropdown box again and re-selected ’24 bit, 44100 Hz (Studio Quality)’. This time, the ‘Test button went live and when I clicked on it, the sound came back. Then click ‘Ok’.

That’s it.

At the few times when my laptop fails to give sound, I just do this 12-second activity and I’m back in business. I still am searching though for the one time fix for this problem.