The following is a description of what is happening in the background.
IP Addresses are what actually runs the internet! when we go to any other site on the internet we are in fact talking to an IP Address, but for ease we use a name to communicate instead of the numbers.
for example, we we put "www.mumsnet.com" in an internet browser, the computer "translates" this into a set of four numbers separated with a dot (the IP address). in the example of mumsnet this gets converted to "213.161.73.140". it is of course easier to remember www.mumsnet.com than 213.161.73.140
the way this works is complicated, but in simple terms a global address list is kept of the link between name and number. this is called DNS (Domain Name System). when you ask for a site by name, this is what is looked up to find the correct IP Address.
this then will give you the "end point" of where you want to go, but you don't talk directly with the end address but you are "routed" through different addresses on the way. you can think of it as a chain where each request is passed to the next IP address in the chain. for this to happen, each device in the chain needs to know where to pass the message onto. to do this you enter in each device a "gateway" address which is the next point of call! this is very simplified, but i hope you get the idea.
normally in a home environment (when there are more than one machine), you have a adsl/cable modem connected to the outside world. this has an address in the normal xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx form. This is what the outside world sees as your IP Address. BUT it will also have another IP address which is internal to your house. normally this will start 192.168.xxx.xxx . this is the way you communicate to the modem. in the modem the request is passed from the internal address (192.168.xxx.xxx) to the external address and then out to the world!
finally, there is one more piece of the jigsaw that you might need to know. within a local network, there are two ways of giving out IP addresses to the devices/computers on the network. one way is to enter by had a unique IP Address on each device/computer on the network. This is called Static IP. or you can define one machine/device on the network to "give out" the Addresses to all the other machines, this is called DHCP. Normally DHCP is what is used. when you connect a machine to the network, it sends a message to the machines already on the network and asks if any of them can give it an IP Address, if one is found, then that machine gives the new machine an unused address from a list of addresses it has to give out.
when you install a wireless router in the chain (normally between your ADSL/Cable modem and the computers in the network), what you normally need to do is the following:
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find out the IP address of the device (ADSL/Cable modem etc) which is talking to the outside world. if you connect to it by a cable already, you should be able to find it by running IPCONFIG on your machine (Windows PC Only) or looking at network properties. You are looking for "gateway address"
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you then enter this address in the wireless router as the gateway address.
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if the wireless router is asking for which IP address it should be (not the gateway), it is slightly more difficult as it is requesting a Static IP. the problem is that you must give it an address that is not already being used (if you modem has a DHCP service running, you need to find an address that is not on its list already). This can be tricky, as you need to be able to access the modem and look at its configuration.
i am struggling to explain how to set it up successfully, without knowing exactly what you have in your local network!
I am sorry i could not be more help