[python-win32] Waiting for Wireless

[Tim Roberts]

As a self-proclaimed studly Win32 programmer, I'm embarrassed at not
being able to find a neat solution to this.  I come to you humbly,
seeking coolness.

I have a script on my laptop that runs after login and launches the
tools that I use all the time, including the putty password agent, the
Agent newsreader, and Firefox.  My wireless card takes about 15 seconds
to sync up with my access point and get an IP address, by which time my
script is done and the tools are running.  That means that Firefox
always comes up complaining that it couldn't reach my home page.  So,
I'd like to have my script wait for connectivity before launching the
tools.  The question is, how can that be done?

I could use os.system to poll the "ipconfig" command, but that's icky
and not at all studly.  I could loop on gethostaddr for localhost until
it gets an IP, but even that's not studly, because there's no way to
know that it's really the wireless adapter's IP address.

There must be a way for me to ask the musical question, "does the
network adapter called 'Wireless Network Adapter' have an IP address?" 
Does anybody know that tune?

-- 
Tim Roberts, timr at probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.