here is some more info if this can help anyone help me.

now this is after i have got everything up and running.
i have activated the card with ifconfig wlan0 up then moved on to networkcard config which works. then moved onto iwconfig as you can see the first part is the results of iwconfig >
the second is the results of a scan for ap which works. the third is ifconfig. as you can see my problem is connecting to a ap. i do not understand what type of mode my card has to be in. ive tryed all differnt combinations. how can i force my computer to connect to a ap?

Code:
wlan0     IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:""  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462GHz  Access Point: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF  
          Bit Rate:1Mb/s   Tx-Power:17 dBm   
          RTS thr:2347 B   Fragment thr:2346 B   
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:100/100  Signal level:56/154  Noise level:0/154
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:646   Missed beacon:0
Code:
wlan0     Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: removed 
                    ESSID:""
                    Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
                    Mode:Managed
                    Frequency:2.452GHz (channel 9)
                    Quality:0/100  Signal level:-81 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rate:1Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:2Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:5.5Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:6Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:9Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:11Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:12Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:18Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:52Mb/s
          Cell 02 - Address: removed
                    ESSID:" "
                    Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
                    Mode:Managed
                    Frequency:2.462GHz (channel 11)
                    Quality:0/100  Signal level:-59 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rate:1Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:2Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:5.5Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:11Mb/s
Code:
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:912 (912.0 b)  TX bytes:912 (912.0 b)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr removed 
          inet addr:192.168.1.2  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:12 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:504 (504.0 b)
          Interrupt:11 Memory:e6800000-e68007ff