please excuse me for I'm am new to all of this. Here is my situation. I just bought my very first laptop last week. I got a Dell Inspiron 1150 and running Win XP Pro. I know it's not the best that I could have gotten, but it was cheap.

I want to connect to the areas hot spots while I'm out running around, but unsure of how it works and all. Here are my questions:

1) Is the Belkin 802.11G PCMCIA card a decent choice for a newbie?
2) How do I know when I'm in a hot spot?
3) What kind of range does hotspots normally have?

Any help would be great, thanks.

For ur first question Belkin 802.11g card is somewhat good choice.

before buying the card ensure that ur hotspot or wireless is in G mode.

Plug in the device , windows XP will scan the wireless devices around you.

Hotspots have neraly 200metres range. A couple of APs in a DSS or ESS can be named as hotspot.

Surprised that the new Dell didn't come with a built in wireless card. Really surprised!
When you have a wireless card (built in or add on) you will see an icon in your task tray (to the left of the clock) that looks like a computer with 2 brackets on the right side.
If it's not connected to a wireless network there will be a red x in it. Right click on the icon and one of the choices will read "view available wireless networks". Click on it and it will search for nearby wireless networks. If it's unsecured, click on the unsecured network icon and you should connect. If it shows secured, you will need the WEP or WPA key to logon.
When on public networks be doubly sure that you're running a firewall and file and print sharing is turned OFF.