[ale] Unreliable wireless connection

[ale_nospam at fayettedigital.com (Jim Lynch)]

I've converted a friend to Linux by installing ubuntu 10.04.  There are 
two problems.  The first is that the wireless connection only works part 
of the time.  Mostly only when I'm there.  The symptoms are that it is 
pretty much dead and the log says "... DISABLED"  after a bit sometimes 
it comes back up and says   "... ENABLED".  Other times it doesn't.  
When it's up the signal is near 100 percent.  The system is a Compaq 
laptop with the Broadcom wireless board, using the b43 driver.  I am 
fortunate to have an almost identical laptop that works every time so I 
know it's not the WAP.  I'm at a loss as to how to debug this beast.  
Any suggestions would be helpful.

The second problem is that gnuCash is somehow overwriting the firefox 
menu.  He can never get firefox to work from either the menu or the icon 
in the panel.  In both cases when I go to the "properties" of either, 
the "/usr/bin/firefox %U" has been replaced with a path to his gnuCash 
log file.   That's one of  the strangest things I've ever seen.

Thanks,
Jim.