I need advice on how to set up my wireless more efficiently

I have a toshiba satellite pro m10 laptop.

I installed debian sarge net-install

I have managed to get my wired ethernet working (out of the box)
and my wireless internet card detected (using apt-get ipw2100-source I believe)

I also installed netapplet (apt-get install netapplet)

I am positive that my wireless internet actually works, since its what I'm using right now.

However in order to get it to work I have to do the following:
Start up netapplet
click on Wireless: eth1
wait (roughly 2-5 minutes)

under wireless networks click other
1. enter my ssid and key, and click add to keyring (this was done the first time)
every other time
2. enter my ssid, click okay, and hope that a message comes up to enter the password for the default keyring

this SEEMS to work as after a little while, my network detection applet says 100% however it doesn't actually work yet.

I have to click on Configure Network Settings and activate eth1
Configure Network Settings doesn't close all that well, so I have to close it and force quit

NOW my wireless internet works


my question is if there is a much much nicer way to do this.

Also, I want to be able to connect to the wireless network at school (university of toronto) which has of course a different essid and key and I want to switch between the two of them.

any help would be much appreciated.

there was another thread recently,
you should try the waproamd package (and/or ifplugd), with those you can execute any commands depending on the essid the card found with a scan (for me waproamd is started via hotplug, scans the essids and sets up the correct key.) just read the documentation to waproamd, its rather clear there...

hth,
Flo