Wired Connection

I need some basic step-by-step directions as I ain't got a clue what I am
doing.

I have a laptop computer with a wireless card in it. I am having problems
connecting wirelessly to my router and so I have been advised to connect
wired to get the settings.

I don't have an Ethernet port on my laptop and so I have bought a
USB-to-Ethernet adaptop. So my set-up is now basically USB/Ethernet
connection to my router.

Now how do I go about getting the settings and connecting to the internet? I
have opened IE6 but to no avail. What settings do I have to change?

As I said, I am unsure as to what I am doing here and so would appreciate
all the help I can get.


PS: On a side note, I am using a Belkin wireless PMACIA (or whatever its
called) card and I have read somewhere that if you use Windows to configure
your connection, this causes problems. Nonetheless, I cannot seem to find
more info on this and so, cannot rectify this problem.