Birdy/LOTR, thank you sooooooooo much... got it going. i checked my other pc computer and no special firewall edits were made to the modem/router nor the apps on the windows xp box. after turning off the firewall exception for this OS X machine, i tried to again, but this time when it booted up, i just clicked off on the "don't show the tips" msg, and low and behold.... many thanks to you both. may computing karma always be on your side!