This problem might be temporary but updating the advanced desktop breaks the shortcuts to FireFox. From the forums this might be a change of name to iceweasel? Don't reinstall the system 
The solution (provided by mrmot in the forums):
Edit... shortcut by Wilden from the forums: To fix it go into console and type sudo apt-get install eeepc-updatepack-20071126
1.) Open the synaptic package manager from Launch:Applications:System
2.) Within Synaptic, run Edit:Fix Broken Packages twice.
After each of these, it would be advisable to ensure Synaptic is closed, and then run:
sudo apt-get update
in the console to update the package list.
This solves an annoying synaptic error Synaptic Install Errors
3.) Now search in synaptic for SCIM and install the update that asus has provided to solve this problem “eeepc-updatepack-20071126” – “Update pack for eeePC - fixes SCIM. This update pack fixes SCIM for applications which were provided to ASUS as binaries. This includes Firefox, Thunderbird, Adobe Acrobat.”
Done.
