This looks more like a DNS problem than a network problem. Could you, at work, start the XTerminal and, as root, ping www.google.com and see what happens?

If you get the reply "Network unreachable" you really don't have IP connectivity. If it just hangs, use the route command to have a look at the kernel's routing tables.

If this is "just" a case of you not getting the right DNS settings, it's much easier to solve.