setting up wireless internet

[michael weaver]

yesterday i managed to install ubuntu karmic on my toshiba laptop 
after a sighted person at work sorted out the bios setting for my 
cd drive to be able to run the live cd.
i went into the network settings menu under preferences and found 
the wireless settings which seems accessible now as i was able to 
see the fields where the information should go but there were one 
or two settings i am not sure about like mac address and when i 
tried to save my settings they disappeared.
how do i set up a wireless connection?
i heard something in the lug i used to attend about some commands 
that locate wireless networks but i can't remember the actual 
commands.
was it something like iwconfig or something?
perhaps someone could give me some advice as at the moment if i 
want to use my laptop i have to unplug the cable for my router 
from behind my desktop pc and plug it into the laptop when i want 
to use my laptop on-line.