Hi all.... first off this is still a work in progress and I intend to integrate my PIC with the RN-171 as of yet I have not done that so forgive me that this is not a general PIC post yet.... but I thought I would share what I have so far. My first step was to create an active-x control to be able to interact with the RN-171 via a web browser. I have created a rudimentry one which can be found here.
http://www.jonzilla.com/rn171ekcontrol.cab
To automatically access from your web page include the following line after your <body> tag and make sure your browser is set to install active-x control automatically or via prompting.
<OBJECT ID="rn171ekctl" CLASSID="CLSID:26E21F27-D5C1-4DCC-8878-C3C911BDD14B" CODEBASE="http://www.jonzilla.com/thebittners/rn171ekcontrol.CAB#version=1,0,0,8"></OBJECT>
To turn the stock blue LED on and off call this javascript with the IP address and port your RN-171EK is connected to your wifi on.

function blueLEDon() {
var connectSTR=rn171ekctl.turnLEDon("192.168.1.148","2 000");
}
function blueLEDoff() {
var connectSTR=rn171ekctl.turnLEDoff("192.168.1.148"," 2000");
}
Now there is very limited error checking in this as of now so don't go hog wild calling the routines. I have found sometimes the RN-171EK is slow to respond (not very often) but I have hosed up the telnet connection a couple times trying to access the script to quickly and not giving the unit a chance to respond and have had to reboot it. The plan is to return connectSTR so you can programatically make sure things have worked and/or limit when you can click buttons/links.

The active-x control contains dssocket which I purchased and am licensed to distribute. http://www.stephencramp.com/dssocket.htm
dssocket is used to establish the telnet connection and issue the appropriate command to the RN-171EK component.
My next goal is to establish a connection to a PIC. If anyone has any questions or suggestions please let me know.
Thanks
David