I suppose I should be grateful the USB connector is in the front:

[link]

So we seem to have decided that FM adapters suck and tape adapters suck?

No, I really loved the plain old-skool Monster tape adapter I had. I'm going to buy another one, toss this one in the glove compartment and try to learn from the error of my ways.

Shiny and new doesn't always equal better.

I really have to make my way through the ilounge reviews of all of them.

I got a more-expensive kind of FM transmitter (from DIO, I think) which cost $79. It has an adaptor that attaches to the "cigarette lighter" so it charges the iPod, and I've driven from Boston to NJ (and back) with very little static interference.

The only downside I can see if that I've got to take my iPod Mini out of its protective case every time I run it in the car, but that's a small sacrifice.

I had been toying with the idea of getting a phone with web access, because there are times that my business requires me to be able to get e-mail. After the afternoon from hell, in which I was waiting for an important e-mail and the ice storm took down my phone line and DSL, eventually driving me to the wi-fi at Krystal, of all places, it's suddenly become more of a priority. I want a qwerty-ish keyboard. It seems to be a battle between a Treo and a Blackberry. This [link] is interesting, but doesn't have much of a track record. Anyone want to say what good or bad about what they have? There's too much stuff to compare and I'm baffled.

Okay, so I reinstalled my wireless router with WEP enabled, and I gave the encryption key to my laptop, and the laptop claims it's connected through the new network.

... and I can't get online with the laptop. Every time I try, it says the connection is refused.

What did I do wrong?

What did I do wrong?

Hard to say based on the information provided, but for starters, reboot your router and laptop. Make sure any firewalls on the router or laptop are set to allow them to talk to each other. Assuming you're using DHCP, make sure it's enabled on the router and set on your laptop. Do you know how to ping? Can you ping the router?

I don't have any firewalls installed on the router itself. I've pinged the router and my desktop IP addresses and gotten nothing. I've turned off the firewall on the laptop. I can't ping the laptop from the desktop or the desktop from the laptop.

At this point I'm inclined to reset the router and go back to having an unencrypted network, but... argh.

Assuming you're on a Windows platform: from a command prompt (start > run > cmd), what does "ipconfig /all" (without the quotes) tell you?