For anyone who had the same problem as me:

In 9.04 UNR I had an account autologin but would then be prompted for a password with the following message:

The application 'NetworkManager Applet' (/usr/bin/nm-applet) wants access to the default keyring, but it is locked.
There are all kinds of fixes on the forums for previous iterations of ubuntu and GNOME but none of them worked for me until I came across a message that advised me as follows:
I have an administrator user (me) and a non-administrator user (my kid).
I went to administration-Login window and set my kid's account to auto-login.

Then I right clicked the wireless applet, went to 'edit connections', the wireless tab, and checked the "available to all users" for our wireless connection. Rebooted and it logged in his account and wireless was already connected. No password prompts.
Here is the link to the page containing the advice:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager-applet/+bug/137247