Internet connection issues on new T61p

[mitnewo38]

I will try to be succinct here. I have a new T61p and am trying to get rid of all the crap on it. Somewhere along the line, my programs that need internet access (IE7, message client, email client) stopped being able to connect. However, there is a hitch to that. Firefox still works. So, something is getting through, it's just that everything else can't. I've tried disabling all the firewalls, but still nothing works. Any suggestions?

[truk]

What OS?