First if I may mention, and I mean no offense, but you are WAY behind and there are a bunch of FIRST manuals you need to look through check all of these links:
PS: that small laptop you are talking about is called the Classmate PC
These links are all gathered from this webpage:
http://usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/....aspx?id=10934
Control System Introduction
http://usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Com...Rev-0.5%20.pdf
Control System Bench-top test
http://usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Com...ed-Rev-0.7.pdf
FRC Java Manual provided by WPI
http://first.wpi.edu/FRC/frcjava.html
MANDATORY UPDATES:
Labview update for driverstation
http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/lang/en/id/1534
driverstation update
http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/lang/en/id/1535
Fix for the Driver Station missing nicyapi.dll Issue
http://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-8891
CAN/Jaguar update
http://first.wpi.edu/FRC/frcupdates.html
Hope this helps a little bit!
Also the cRIO looks like this:
Connect a Crossover Ethernet cable from Port 1 on the cRIO to the network input on the Classmate PC, or the PC you are programming on to upload code, or run your robot.