It's not really appropriate to give you a step-by-step guide here, but to point you to the resources to do so. There are a ton of resources out there to assist in this regard. Could you tell us a little more about your situation?
 
1. What distro (flavor) of Linux are you using, and what version? Fedora, Ubuntu...?
 
Is your network at home, school work?
 
Do you have permission to link to the "certain network"? For example, if ths is a school or work LAN, this is important. If so, then we can assist.
 
Then we can guide you better by linking you to say a wiki page that is designed to give you such detailed information.

Ive been trying different flavors lately, ive been following guides for installation from pendrivelinux.com ...at the moment im using Puppy Linux...
 
the network is one that i connect to from home, and it is WPA secured, but i know the key (the network comes from my neighbor, and he gave me the key)...
 
ive looked on google etc and i just cant seem to find a guide that actually seems to be talking about my problem in enough detail to where an old faithful WinXP user like myself can understand it...
 
any help would be greatly appreciated...
 
also, im also having trouble with Linux saving the settings when i save them...could you possibly also point me towards a wiki or something concerning that?
 
Thanks for all the help!!

First, let me say that I have thought about this a lot, given your comments about using your neighbor's internet conenction. By doing so, he is probably in violation of the terms of use agreement with his ISP. So telling you how to do this would be unethical.
 
That being said, I can offer some general comments.
 
What we now know, is that you are using a wireless setup. In order to get wireless going you need to know what the chipset is on the wireless card that you have. Many manufacturers do not support Linux, so you need to use/find drivers for Linux, depending on your wireless chipset. Some support WPA outright, some do not. End of comments on this.
 
You should use the wiki for Puppy to learn about using Linux, since that is the distro that you are using. Different distros have different support for hardware and ways of doing things.
 
The saving settings issue depends on how you are using Puppy. The Live CD or a hard drive installation? If the former, did you save the settings on exit, as prompted, to your hard drive, or omit this process? Saving them on the screen using the Live CD of puppy is one thing which saves the settings for that session. Saving the session to the hard drive will allow you to use the Live CD again with the settings manitained, as Puppy looks for the saved setting file on the hard drive on your next boot.

I'm using a flash drive...i installed it onto a 2Gig i have, following the instructions from pendrivelinux.com ...
 
Im pretty sure that it recognizes and has drivers for the wireless card that i have, because it lets me scan for a signal, and i can pick up several networks, including the one from my neighbor, but it just doesnt connect...