I'll try to asnwer your question, I'm kinda doing this in the dark, not knowing what you know, and making a few assumptions.
#1 Assuming you are not connected to the internet via the wireless adapter. First of all to hook up direct with a crossover cable, you must use static IP address on both your laptop and the stoker. This is done on the stoker system menu options. Just cycle though until you get to that section. You can use almost any IP addres like this, but I recommend you stick with a private network address range such as 192.168.0.X, the x has to be a number in the range of 0-255 and that number has to be different on the stoker and the laptop. You will need to supply other IP address in your static configuration as well. The subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0 and I would assign the gateway IP address the same as the laptop's IP address. Since you can't connect to the internet anyway, use the laptops address as the DNS address. So for example, set your laptop's wired adapter to this setting:
ipaddress 192.168.0.2
subnet 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.2
DNS 192.168.0.2
your stoker ip shoule be set to
ip address 192.168.0.5
subnet 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.2
I don't think there is a DNS address section, if there is, make the laptop's ip address.
Now you can turn on the laptop and the stoker, open the browser on the laptop, and type in the address bar 192.168.0.5, hit enter, and you should be looking at the stoker interface.
Now, if you are hooking up to the internet on your laptop via a wireless connection, you have to do things a bit differently. Once you are hooked up, find out what IP address was assigned by the wireless router. It will be like 192.168.X.X . If this is the case, locate your wired adapter and set it up to an IP address in the same range. SO if the wireless adapter's address is 192.168.2.101 , set the static address on the wired adapter to 192.168.2.201 for instance, keeping the first 3 sets of numbers the same and using a unique number for the 4th set. Keep the subnet, the gateway and the dns the same as the wireless adapters assigned address's. Do the same for the stoker. Once the address is set for the stoker, you can access it via IE or other browser by it's ip address.
Does this make sense?