Q: Trying to help a friend diagnose his wi-fi problem

A friend lives way way across town and I'm trying to help him figure out why his Mac won't connect to the Internet all of a sudden.

Another Mac in his apartment does connect, so the Internet modem and wi-fi router are definitely ok.

He is seeing "AirMac" in his network settings, but the router is not an AirMac. I don't know why he's seeing that rather than a more generic "Wi-Fi".

I tried having him delete that setting and then create a new setting. The network preferences dialog recreates it, but insists on calling it AirMac.

He can turn that connection on, select the SSID, enter the password and join the network and then top-most wi-fi select menu shows he is joined, but nothing connects - not Safari, not iChat, not iTunes.

I can't figure out what might be wrong. He can show me his screen via FaceTime on his iPhone, but I can't think of anything else to tell him to try.

Any suggestions? He is a super super super novice.

Thanks,

doug