well, it's simple, you plug the RJ-45 (network cable, 8-wire cable smaller than the coax in the back of the cable modem) into the router (I want to say the uplink port if I'm not mistaken, haven't worked with the newer routers). make sure you have the antennas plugged in on the wireless router (stick em in the router, lol). make sure your wireless network card on the lappie is up and going. Turn the system on and make sure the router is on, and it should auto-recognize the signal and start assigning an IP address to your lappie as per your cable provider's DHCP server. Windows XP is good like that. The strange port or ports on the router you might be referring to is where you plug the antennas in. I didn't mean to sound like a smartass on that last one, but you can never be too careful (when I started to learn to create networks, and I was working with a pair of Cisco routers to simulate a WAN, I plugged the Ethernet cable into the wrong port, which was the AUX port instead of the Eth or FA0 port, and screwed the routers up, lol). The Linksys instructions should have a diagram of all the ports on the router, and which one to use to connect the cable from the modem to the router. Sounds difficult, but it's not after you get to working with it
edit: looking at the graphic Newegg has, you plug the RJ-45 cable from the modem into the port separate from the others.
what i do now ? i think i have the dell