I have a laptop that I use primarily to play music. Is there any way to disable its connection to a wireless network?

Sure, but exactly how you do that depends on the laptop’s hardware and operating system. Some Windows laptops have a hardware switch, or a keyboard function — often identified by some sort of transmitter icon — that turns the Wi-Fi wireless radio inside off. If yours does, just use these hardware controls to kill Wi-Fi.

Others require disabling Wi-Fi via software. In Windows XP, go to the Network Connections control panel, find the Wi-Fi connection, right-click on that icon, and select “Disable.” In Windows Vista, go to the Network and Sharing Center control panel, locate the wireless network, and click the “Disconnect” command in the information area under its name. On a Mac laptop, you can just click on the fan-like Wi-Fi symbol in the menu bar and select “Turn Airport Off” (“Airport” is Apple’s term for its Wi-Fi radio).

If your Windows laptop uses an application other than control panels to manage your Wi-Fi connections, you may have to disable them from within that program.

Thanks for your column on netbooks. Which of the netbooks came pre-installed with Microsoft Office? For those that didn’t, how can you install Microsoft Office onto the device?

I tested only four models, all running Windows XP. None came with a full, activated version of Office installed. Two — the Acer Aspire One and the MSI Wind U100 — came with trial versions of Office pre-installed. Another, the Asus Eee 1000H, came with an alternative office suite, StarOffice. Two, the Asus and the MSI, came with a stripped-down office suite, Microsoft Works.

The simplest way to install Office, or any other software that comes on disc, onto a netbook is to plug in an external DVD drive using a USB port.

I have two questions about the iPhone. My first question is whether or not it’s possible to tether the phone to a computer for use as a modem. My second question is whether it’s possible to rent or buy movies on the phone itself or if that needs to be done from a laptop or desktop?

It isn’t currently possible to use the iPhone as a tethered modem, but AT&T recently said that functionality might be coming. It also isn’t possible to buy or rent movies directly on the phone, only music. You have to transfer movies from a computer.

• You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Value is returning to the desktop applications, and not simply through Windows Vista, but in the form of applications that are network service platforms. From the obvious, to music-sharing clients and development tools, there’s a resurgence of interest in resident software that executes on your desktop, yet connects to network services. Without a browser. Like Skype. Or Qnext. Or Google Earth. And Java? OpenOffice and StarOffice? If I were a betting man, I’d bet the world was about to change.”

–Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz, Oct. 1, 2005

It’s been nearly two years since Sun and Google announced their “historic” partnership–“The Great Anticlimax of 2005,” as we like to refer to it around here–a union that some believed would push the Information Age off the desktop and onto the Internet. As it happened, the only thing the partnership pushed off the desktop and onto the Internet was a yawner of a press release announcing that the Google Toolbar would henceforth be available as a Java Runtime Environment download option.

But it was a first step. And now we’re finally seeing the second, which is quite a bit more substantial. Google has added Sun’s StarOffice productivity suite to Google Pack, its collection of free software applications. Now typically, the addition of a new app to Google Pack wouldn’t be particularly noteworthy. But StarOffice is a direct competitor to Microsoft Office; it’s a full suite of desktop-based office apps (and tools for Microsoft Office migration) that normally retails for $70.

And Google is reportedly paying Sun to offer it for free.

And it’s doing so at a time when many PC users are mulling an upgrade to Microsoft Office 2007. Which would seem to suggest that it does indeed have designs on Microsoft’s hugely profitable Office business, despite its “We are not in this to get Microsoft” protestations.