I have an X61 with Ubuntu 8.10 loaded on to it. The X61 has a little switch on the front that turn the wireless card on and off; it also has a little status light on the bottom of the LCD that shows wireless card activity.

I started my laptop up and had forgotten to turn the wireless switch on and booted in to ubuntu. After the desktop loaded, I turned the switch on, but gnome network applet nor the status light did anything.

So, my question, how do I activate my wireless card when I forget to turn it on when I boot? restart udev or what?

It should simply be a case of right clicking the network icon, then left clicking on edit connections. You'll see the wireless section.