Media for Better WiFi solution (802.11b) than USB tethering through a smartphone?

Better WiFi solution (802.11b) than USB tethering through a smartphone?

Desperate search, but usenet used to be good for these kinds of topics... L ooks almost dead now. But COBOL still lives!

Situation is that I have an ancient ThinkPad that runs one application that I still use. I think I'm about to break down and port it to a more modern platform, but I'm sort of flexible about things (in my twisted way), so I' m considering alternatives...

Right now, the main hassle is network access. After I run the application, I have to transfer the results to a website. The ThinkPad has an 802.11b ca rd in it, but it has never been able to see external websites properly. (It worked fine on a wired network, but I shut down my home LAN a long time ag o and don't want to set it up again for this trivial purpose.) So the Inter net routing I am currently using is via a retired smartphone. The smartphon e connects to the WiFi on one side and is tethered to the ThinkPad via a US B data cable... It works, but it's a nuisance to set up each time I need it .

So does anyone have an alternative approach so that the 802.11b card can se e the WiFi network? It seems that this was a capability of the standard, bu t I can't even figure that out for sure... Under certain flavors of Linux I 'm able to connect to the WiFi, but never in a way that exchanges data prop erly...