Well, I think the issue is resolved for now. I like to post what worked for benefit of anyone else having issues, but this probably won't be of much good. (This is one of those instances my old friend Doc would refer to as being in the "KatMac zone". )

Went out yesterday. Stopped at ODepot where I got the PDA, no luck with tech associate hooking up to their Wi-Fi network. He suggests I test at a little cafe down the street, they have free Wi-Fi. So I do, and promptly the PDA connects to the web. (Weird looking at the web on a Palm ) So I'm coming to the conclusion that perhaps it's not the desktop firewall or router that's the issue, perhaps it's something on my laptop that's causing issues with the PDA (perhaps Netgear software or ZA on laptop). I get home and my laptop has suddenly decided not to power up at all (figures). I open the battery compartment (why, I have no idea). I reseat the battery, try to power up again. Boots up finally. Although Netgear Adapter card is plugged in, whenever I try to launch the Netgear software on the laptop is says "No adapter found." (figures) I reseat the Adapter card several times on the laptop and Netgear software finally kicks in and connects laptop to desktop router. So I get out the PDA, launch Wi-Fi, waiting for laptop ZA to give me an alert or something and voila, PDA connects, just like that!

All those laptop oddities are probably not the least bit relevent, but maybe something tripped something else because as of this morning I can still connect the PDA to the web, no problem.

(Oh, and thank you, SS, for pointing out the sister site on PDAs. I've bookmarked it. I did check it out, and had gone through some troubleshooting steps they offered but with no success.)

So for now, all is well