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Ahh, yes well ... now my knowledge of Macs is going to let us down because I talk PC-speak. You will have all the necessary tools (like the ping program) on the Mac but I have no idea where it is.

Without being able to speak to the internet provider's help line it's going to be hard but all the info is out there on Google. If you are writing here I assume you have access to the Internet somewhere so just look around and try out the tips on sites like:

Dummies Guide

Apple Communities

MacBook Pro downloadable user's guide

etc.

You are using a MacBook Pro, which after a trip to WikiPedia seems to run the OS X 10 (or later) operating system. If you Google using the name of your internet provider (start with your home connection for instance) and the words "DNS server address" then you should find some discussions where people say what your DNS server addys are - you will probably need these addresses when you set up your connection. As I say, if you have connection but you can't see any URLs then it might be missing the DNS server numbers - they are specific to your provider.

Let us know how you get on :)