After spending the w/e on the Penn campus I think I can shed some more lite on the "connected to local IP" issue.

My wife spent her time at various alum functions and I chilled in the background with the N800. (great babysitter BTW )

Philadelphia has WiFi in many flavors everywhere I went including Earthlink (major suckage BTW). Our Hotel, the Inn @ Penn had one and I could remain connected down the block to the café by the bookstore. The café had one too and from the tables outside I could connect to it as well as Penn's student mesh and a plethora of independent student routers located in the surrounding , Hi-Rise dorms.

What I found was that a connection that reported a "Local IP" message usually required you to register at that IP in order to control traffic. That local IP is the gatekeeper, if you will.
Once your registration is accepted, (name + room number, student ID, or PIN) a cookie is left on the device that will allow an instant connection for as long as the server will allow it. (3 to 48 hours in most cases).

Now here is the problem and solution.

Opera does not automatically go to the local IP when the connection is established like IE does. If the browser is open already, you are not redirected.

... So, if you open the browser first by using a bookmark to a site (other than the local IP) and then the device connects, you will get the "Network Problem" error as Opera tries to open your site.

The work around is to select the connection, wait for the "connected to Local IP http://yadda.yadda.yadda" and then only open Opera using the "Open new browser window" menu item.
Now when Opera opens it will go to that Local IP addy where you can register for access.