[U2Lynne]

Actually, I do believe it is a hardware problem -> the hub I was plugged into! I'm now plugged directly into the router and I'm running just fine. My son had a LAN party last weekend and they borrowed the hub and when we got it back, it didn't work at first. So, lots of changing this, changing that, finally brought it back to life but it appears to not be too crazy about my Mac. It doesn't mind the PC at all, but is prejudice against my Mac. So, this weekend (perhaps today) I will be getting a new hub.

(Meanwhile, my Mac is running so nicely since I did a total clean install yesterday. I'm reinstalling the applications that I know I need and getting things back to normal. The first thing I installed was firefox, the second thing was Azureus. I've got my priorities straight!)