Which software firewall do you use? You will need to make an exception for LW in your firewall. http://www.gnutellaforums.com/connec...-firewall.html

If the issue is not due to your software firewall, it might be your router's NAT, which acts like a firewall in a way. LW has UPnP abilites to open ports in routers that support UPnP, but not all routers have good UPnP implementation and some do not have any.

Once you see the firewall message disappear from LW's advanced window, this should improve both your files being found in search results of others, your uploads should improve, and your search results should arguably improve also.

As for iPod, there are free utilities you can obtain to help copy music back to the computer. A discussion about iPod earlier in the year http://www.gnutellaforums.com/open-d...rive-help.html. Some of those links or utilities might be what you are looking for or at least helpful.
Years ago I used a similar utility to copy music from iPod back to a Mac computer.