thanks Casperfelix, i did a bit more searching and found a post that suggest i entered this into the terminal
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic
sudo apt-get install --reinstall bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo modprobe wl
i did and it did the trick. before yesterday i didnt know what a terminal was. i find Ubuntu is much better than MS, it easy to use but can be very nerdy.
cheers
Mark