WOW, you are absolutely right! after searching the net for last 3 hours and trying all sorts of things, including downloading the WLAN programme, I realise there ARE 2 buttons at front right. One has symbol of bluetooth (also by default off) and other has a radar picture which was the "hardware switch" to turn wireless on.

Thank you, Thank you ,Thank you.

And yes, Acer is very stupid to put this in and not inform their clients properly

Hi, I have a similar problem and has nothing to do with Acer. Mine is an assembled laptop and uses Realtek RTL8187 Wireless 802.11g 54Mbps USB 2.0 network adaptor. From the past week the laptop does not detect any wireless connection. It connects though a cable though.
No conflict shown in the device manager. Can someone help??