How to configure for remote TCP/IP client conncections using MS Visual Basic OLE DB calls and PostgreSQL dll's?

Hey guys, I'm trying to get a VB program to make a client connection to my
PostgreSQL server running on an

Ubuntu 10.10 server.

Here's what I've done:

Client side - installed and registered the OLE DB .dll's from the PostgreSQL
OLE DB Provider project.

server side -

the configuration described here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/10.10/serverguide/C/postgresql.html

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Have added this line to postgresql.conf:

listen_addresses = '*, 144.96.80.35, localhost'

I've also tried this as simply:

listen_addresses = '144.96.80.35, localhost'

also, port = 5432

--------------

I have added the following to pg_hba.conf:

# IPv4 local connections:

host all all 144.96.80.35 255.255.255.0 md5

local all postgres md5

--------------

I've got the following code going in VB:

Public Class Form1

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As
System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

Const connString As String = "Provider=PostgreSQL;
Server=144.96.80.35; User Id=postgres;Password=postgres;"

Dim theOleDBconnection As New OleDb.OleDbConnection

theOleDBconnection.ConnectionString = connString

theOleDBconnection.Open()

End Sub

End Class

So when the project opens up, it should make the connection and display the
form.

What happens is that I get an error...

OleDbException was unhandled

could not connect to server: Connection refused (0x0000274D/10061)

Is the server running on host "" and accepting

TCP/IP connections on port 5432?

---------------------------

So, obviously I've got something configured incorrectly.

I'm troubled that the VB error seems to show a null value for the host.
Shouldn't that be the Server value in

the connection string?

Thanks to all for any help.