Thanks, everyone for your patience and helpful suggestions.

This morning two men arrived at my friend's house from the telephone company/Internet provider. They brought a new modem, tried that, still had the problem, checked through her house and basement, could find no reason for the problem, left, saying that they would be back. They never returned, but phoned to let her know that they had battled with someone else in the company, (something relating to a "port"?), and all was now fixed. They told my friend that she should have no more problems with the Internet.

I went over this afternoon to set up Thunderbird e-mail for her, the Internet works like a charm! Also, her telephone line that she's been complaining about to the telephone company for years because of so much noise on the line was no longer making that noise -- coincidence?

Tomorrow, I'll try again to set up the USB wireless connection in the desktop computer so we can move her computer away from the telephone jack on the wall. I think we need to get a "key" from the ISP in order to access the modem.

rags