Network game help

I know this is probably the wrong place to ask, but I couldnt find an answer on the other parts of the forum.

Me and my mate have been FM (even Champ) players for years....but never tried a network game.

Now I have a ****** old tower, and he has a spankin netbook. But we cant get us linked up in a game.

We have tried the whole joining Hamatchi, and got linked on that....but when trying to connect to server we come up stumps.

Note: we are sitting in one house at the moment, on the same wireless network, we tried using the stronger computer (his netbook) as the server....stuck?

...any advice.