Maybe the "wireless radio" option on your wired/wireless router is OFF for some reason. What is the brand/model of your router?
You should have instructions that came with the device. Check them, for the address of the router and userid/password, and other basic setup steps.
You can connect to your router using Firefox or IE, by entering its address (say, 192.168.1.1 for Netgear routers) and then entering the userid/password as the instructions tell you.
The basic wireless settings are in something like Setup -> wireless settings, and control security. This provides (a) wireless network ID name as it appears in the wireless scan for a network shown on laptops, i.e. SSID, (b) password to be entered by wireless laptops in order to log in to the router's wireless network, i.e. PASSPHRASE, and (c) security level option, and you should generally pick the highest, e.g. WPA2-PSK [AES].
The ON/OFF state of the whole wireless capability of your router is controlled in a second place, something like Advanced -> Wireless settings, in an item named "enable wireless router radio" or something like that. If unchecked, this will disable wireless functionality and limit the router to wired-only. This is good if you don't need wireless in your house and don't want your neighbors stealing access (assuming they could crack your userid/password and encryption). If checked, wireless functionality is enabled.
Note that even if wireless router radio IS checked, you can still suppress the broadcast of the SSID if you want to make your router's network "invisible" in your neighborhood. This is kind of a "stealth" setting, which facilitates wireless connections from YOUR laptop even though the SSID network name does NOT appear in the scan for wireless networks presented on a laptop. You can still stlil log in to the wireless network because you know both the SSID and userid/password for the network, even if the SSID does not show up on the list of wire less networks discovered by the laptop's scan. The router is facilitating this wireless connection, but "stealth".
You facilitate this "stealth wireless" mode by un-checking the "enable SSID broadcast" option, while still checking the "enable wireless router radio" option. But remember, your SSID wireless network name will NOT appear in the list of available wireless networks on the laptop (or any of your neighbor's laptops). So you'll have to manually enter that SSID information in the login dialog, manually.
