Here’s my setup: cable modem goes to standalone firewall, which goes to gigabit switch. Plugged into the switch are my wifi unit, as an access point, and my main mac.

My wifi iPod has a static IP address. iPod works just fine to access the internet and news sites, etc.

Now, there are also a number of apps for the iPhone/iPod which operate as a remote control for the main mac. Most common is simply Apple’s “Remote” which is used to control iTunes. Other include EyeTV, Remote Tap, Air Mouse, TouchPad, TouchMouse, QuicKeys Anywhere, Pastebot and PowerKeys… and many others.

These all work because there is some application (technically a “server”) that must also be running on the main mac at the same time. (The ‘server’ is built into iTunes.)

That said – None of these will work with the setup I described. The problem is that the iPod is simply never seen by the Mac and the Mac is never seen by the iPod.

I won’t bore you with all the geeky things I did try to fix this, and instead, I’ll jump to the solution:

Switch the iPod away from a static IP address, and into DHCP.

Bingo: everything works.

hth