So my camera had an unfortunate incident with some ocean water which ruined the LCD screen. The camera is still working fine and taking pictures as good as ever, except I can't change any of the settings unless I have the sequence memorized. When I dried out the camera I removed all the batteries, including the clock battery. Bad move, now all my pictures are showing up as being taken in 1979... so not in order.

I googled a bit looking for a way sequence to get to the date&time setup screen without seeing the screen, to no avail. However, it turns out that if you take out the clock battery it will ask you for a date and time as if it were the first setup run. So I experimented. I didn't know in what order the fields were, but turns out that this sequence on the Canon Powershot a710 IS sets the time correctly.

4ups then hit the right key 8ups then hit right 3ups hit right 9ups

that sequence gives me 09/03/09 9:00PM. Which is just about the time I have in the current time zone of gmt+12.

Hope this helps someone.