Connection Problems

[MollyM/CA]

OK, see if you can help me figure this out, anyone.

When I got the new laptop (Dell Latitude D810, super machine by the way --if you can lift it), it was set up for wireless and for 'seek' and interrupted everything every few moments to tell me there was no wireless in range (well, duh). I managed to turn that off somehow.

So before, I was set up so that Mailwasher loaded on boot and automatically connected with my ISP (dialup). On this computer Mailwasher says "there's no connection and Mailwasher has no way of making one." I have everything in Mailwasher and in the DUN connectoid set the same as on the desktop, unless there's something really, really obscure in one of these, and there is no such problem. Most other programs that need to connect can access the DUN and either dial or wait for me to click on the dial button.

Another oddity is that I'm unable to persuade Mailwasher that it needs to bounce me to Pegasus in order to use its 'quick reply' feature. Instead, it sends me into an infinite loop with Mozilla mail (because to see if it was a Mozilla problem I took out the mail module and keep forgetting to reinstall it). Again, I've never had a problem on the desktop and as far as I can see all the Mailwasher, browser, and Pegasus settings (and versions) are the same.

OK, that's problem one.

It has a sidekick. When I was visiting in Redding, the relative I was staying with had his entire house including the telephones hooked up through the web. I couldn't use the telephone to get connected and I couldn't get the wireless to work, though Ken said it should have found his signal and gotten to the point of asking for the password. All the stuff we could find in Control Panel, Hardware Manager, etc., seemed to say the wireless connection should work, once I un-disabled it (in Hardware Manager).

Needless to say, I don't remember all things I did to get the wireless to stop looking for a connection. I do seem to remember that it took more than just disabling it from Hardware Manager --whatever was set to seek was pretty stubborn about continuing to seek, for sure.

Wireless is now beginning to look like a possibility here, so not only would I like to be properly prepared for the next visit to a techno-toy nut, but who knows? I might even consider it here, so I can visit my friends with Google Earth. Any suggestions will be welcomed.

molly