publishing lists in excel
 

I'm trying to publish a list from excel to sharepoint window services.
I get an error: cannot connect to the server at this time. Your list cannot
be published.

I've checked off all the troubleshooting alerts except one (You cannot
create a list in a shared workbook). Since I'm on sharepoint windows, I don't
have the option of sharing or not sharing my workbook (its greyed out) and I
CAN create a list in Excel. I just can't published it to my sharepoint site.

I want to set-up a synchronized list with my excel worksheet and sharepoint
site. The TEST data is only 1 line with headers. I varied the title of the
list. (troubleshooting said that the title, headers and number of lines could
cause trouble). I am an administrator-level on sharepoint from the top-level
site and down so I do/should have authorization. I am the site and file
creator.

I'm not an IT-server tech. Could the server be set up to not receive this
type of data? As far as we know, no one here has attempted this kind of
linking.

Any advice is appreciate,
Thanks,
Christine