I just went through the procedure with a gigabyte card (RT61 based).

Not sure of your background, but here is what I did (short story)

1. Went to "System, Administration, Network"
2. Verified the wireless card was in fact there.
3. "Unlock" (button on the bottom of that window) and you will have
to enter your password.
4. Highlight the wireless card
5. Click the "configure" button
6. You will have to enter the ssid of the wireless router that you
are using. If you are also securing the router by WEP or WPA, you
will need to enter that information also.
7. Now it should work. But be aware you will have to enter the
security password each time you boot in order for it to work.
In my case, I wanted it to automatically connect on bootup so
in the upper left hand corner, check the "enable roaming" box.
8. If you do the latter, you will still have to click on the icon in
the upper right hand corner of the main screen and enter the password
(if applicable for security) the first time.

That didn't work the card shows up in the hardware drivers but not in the
network. I have even tried some of the suggestions on the ubuntu forums and
haven't found the solution yet.

I thought the Atheros Communications line of wireless cards all worked with
the latest kernel. Mine is the AR242x and it works fine. Try the Atheros
website and maybe Madwife for ideas. A reboot never hurts either...

I am writing this on a eeePC 900 with an Atheros wireless. It was detected
properly in Ubuntu 8.04, but I had to set up the networking end of it. I right
clicked on the networking icon in the system tray and chose Edit Wireless
Networks to which I had to add my network and my WPA key. When I re-boot I need
to add the key each time, otherwise it works fine.