A couple basic networking question

1st. When I go to a coffee shop or like Barnes and Noble to study and I need to use the internet, sometimes when I connect to the free ATT network, when I pull up my web browser it automatically goes to the accept terms and conditions page. I have to agree to these terms and conditions to get access to the network.

But on some occasions it doesn't automatically pull up the webpage so I can accept the terms and conditions. When that happens I can't accept to use the network, even though my network access says I am connected to the free network.

Any ideas how I can fix or get around this issue?

2nd. I am having issues with an IM client timing out. When I first pulled it up, it said I needed to install flash. After I installed flash, now it just keeps timing out. I cut off/disabled my firewall just to see if that was causing the issue but it still keeps timing out? No clue why it is doing this.

most captive portal systems will just redirect from another page.... just try opening another tab/web browser and visiting www.google.com or something.... usually you'll get a redirect to a terms and conditions page...

your 2nd issue, are you talking about this network or a different network? if you don't accept the terms and conditions you won't be able to use an IM client, and even if you do, some public wifi will not allow any other traffic besides web....