well first of all i think i learned to walk 8 years ago. i'm not a novice at the net. hehe. 2ndly as i mentioned before port forward only helps on a couple of things. not 100%. you have to realize that what it says on your end,doesn;t mean that is what it says on my end. i'm not mad or anything but i go through this a lot in different help departments for different programs. I say "here's my problem" the response is "ok here's what you do" my response after i did it "well i did it but it doesn't seem to be working" the response 9 times out of 10 is "you didn't do what i asked" the first words of my reply was "well i did it" so how could i not do it? and 3rdly,the comment on the FServe where you said "forget the FServe" well as i mentioned before i was on 56k and on regular cable modem before i had wireless and my fserve always worked and i always got in it unless there was some kind of channel problems. At this point,all i can say is today after only one attempt i got in MIRC but i went back to DHCP so i don't know. Anyway,If i have any more problems,i'll let you know.
