Hi! I've read through a number of the messages here and can't seem to find my specific issue addressed.

My Toshiba Satellite laptop, which has Windows XP Home Edition and a "Toshiba Wireless LAN Mini PCI Card", gets connected to one wireless network or another depending on where I take it--frequently with a signal strength of "good" or "excellent". Some of the networks are unsecured and some are "security-enabled". There is a firewall on my computer setup in whatever way the default is.

Inspite of all of this, I have never once been able to use a browser or an email client while I was connected to the wireless network. This is my first experience with WiFi, but I'm a relatively experienced computer user (former website developer but know nothing about networking, per se). Do I need to change some settings or do something special in order to be able to browse the web, etc.?

Thanks!
James

I have the same kind of problem - very similar setup. I have no trouble with my home LAN network but am unable to use my local free hotspot. I get connected to their network but cannot use the browser.

I have a similar problem as well. I am able to connect to the access point and recieve excellent signal strength and link quality, and often times I am able to get a connection to the wirless network, but it is at limited connectivity, which means I am able to connect to the network but unable to browse the Internet. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


[Edited on 29/10/2004 by mickyrourke]

I think I may have figured out the problem. Apparently the Windows XP Service Pack 2 update has a bug that is interfering with IP addresses some how.

"Programs that connect to IP addresses in the loopback address range may not work as expected and you may receive an error message indicating you cannot establish a connection." (from Microsoft web page).

A new update for the fix can be downloaded on the microsoft page.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang= en

Search: KB884020 for the downloadable patch

Hopefully this works

thismight be too late to help you, but might help others--I found two great places that can help you get your PDA connected to the Internet. If you want to do it manually it might take some time. If you are up for it Geekzone has a good tutorial that helps you configure and share the internet by using your Bluetooth enabled desktop or notebook with internet access as an internet gateway for your iPAQ Pocket PC with Windows Mobile 2003:

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=1421

Otherwise you can get software that does it for you. This is what I have found to be the easiest way:

http://www.bvrp.com/ENG/products/GPRSManager/Default.asp