We’re back once again in the Outer Banks (OBX) of North Carolina, enjoying a few days of fun in the sun with Caren’s sister and family. It’s always a fun trip. We get a nice big house up at the northern end of the area, just north of Corolla Light House. It’s a bit crazy with 5 couples and about 8 or 10 toddlers running around -- generally screaming or sleeping, and the kids are even worse.

Anyway, one of my favorite activities here is to hop on my bike and go for a nice longish ride. My daily ride at home is quite hilly (about 27 km, with 500 metres of aggregated ascent). Here, things are pretty flat. So, I put a pair of “skinnies” on my bike -- slim tires for the flat road conditions here. Also by comparison, I generally average about 17-18 km/h on my daily ride, but here I’m finding 25 km/h is quite feasible to maintain, even on my “fully” -- full suspension mountain bike.

So, today I headed out for a ride after we took the hounds on the beach for a romp and made a breakfast that couldn’t be beat. At just 44 km, I didn’t go insane, but I did enjoy the ride very much. Then the fun began...

On my ride north, I’d just come out of one of the subdivisions around Pine Island when I encountered a “roadie” -- a road bike. The rider was sporting full roadie gear, including elbow rests and aerodynamic head gear. I wasn’t trying to show him up or anything, but I pretty quickly caught up with him. I drafted him for a km or so, but then he slowed down to rest his legs a bit and I all but catapulted past him. It’s a pretty safe but general rule that roadies do NOT like being passed by mountain bikes, and being passed by a “fully” is about as full an affront as one could find.

Sure enough, within a couple km, he wanted to show me that he wasn’t going to be beaten by a fully. Zoom, he passed. He certainly had every advantage, and I was just there for a fun ride, so no problem. But then, by Tim Buck II, I had caught up to him again. He seemed a bit surprised, but no big deal. Then, he swerved a bit to avoid a car coming out of a coffee shop and zoom, I launched past him again. He was NOT pleased.

To avoid a nuclear showdown, I pulled into the next beach community and rode for about 5 km parallel to the highway. Figuring I’d averted a full fledged war, I left the subdivision and got back on the highway. There he was again... This was too good to let go.

I quickly caught up with him by Corolla Light, when he slowed down to turn into his own (presumably) subdivision. I had to brake a bit to avoid him, and he quickly looked back at me when he heard the noise. The look on his face was completely priceless. He was a beaten man. But, I am after all a gent-ul-mun, so I refrained from passing him outright. I was out for a leisurely vacation ride, after all.

It was about as much fun as I could have on two wheels -- at least with my pants on. Another GREAT day in the OBX!

Anyway, here’s a Google Earth image of my 44 km ride below for your amusement -- click on the image to download the Google Earth KML file and view it in your own Google Earth browser. (I use a Garmin Edge 205 GPS on my bike to track my rides. Together with a wonderful software package called Ascent, I can quickly export Google Earth XML files to visualize my rides. It’s lots of fun.)

Cheers,

Ken

I'm here on the gorgeous island of Kaua'i. It's the oldest of the Hawai'ian islands and is about as close to perfect as any place on earth I've ever experienced. Check out my photo gallery if you're interested, but to further illustrate, here are a couple of my highlights from yesterday:

1. Played 18 holes of golf yesterday at Po'ipu Bay. A fabulous course that's about a mile from where we stay. It hosted the PGA Grand Slam event for about 8 years or so. Perfect sunny day.
2. Went to my favorite sunset spot, at Po'ipu Beach. Saw a monk seal sleeping on the beach. We stood about 10 feet from him/her and watched this "aquatic basset hound" snooze away.
3. While watching the sunset, a small wedding party walked onto the beach and got married right in front of us, just as the sun was setting. When the ceremony ended, the entire beach crowd applauded wildly.
4. Came back to the condo for some wonderful barbecued chicken, washed back by a Chilean cabernet sauvignon.

So, perhaps these aren't things that interest you much, but they all add up to R&R perfection in my book. And all the more reason why I so thoroughly soak up my two weeks here in paradise every couple years. Not nearly long or frequent enough, but any time here is time well spent.

Aloha,

Ken

I'm a huge fan of GPS. I've used one in my car for 8 years now; I have one on my mountain bike (principally to track my workouts, not to navigate). They're awesome. What a magnificent product for consumers, and it came from the U.S. military. However, while today's consumer products can help many drivers, I've seen them make some drivers worse. WAY worse. Here's how...

I often use a sedan service to get to/from airports when I'm traveling. I've noticed in the last year that my service provider has outfitted all of their cars with dashboard GPS devices, like the ones from Garmin, Tom Tom, and Magellan. Great stuff, and they're finally at a price/usability point for many average consumers.

The problem comes in when the driver follows the directions given by the GPS too closely, and fails to exercise common sense -- like reading the traffic signs. There's one BIG intersection, in particular, near my house that drives me insane when I get one of "these" drivers. It's the highway intersection of I-95, I-395, and the DC Beltway, I-495. This intersection, also known as the "Springfield Mixing Bowl," has recently gone through an EIGHT-year redesign.

You guessed it, most GPS devices still know the OLD "mixing bowl," not the new one.

TWICE now, my driver has followed the GPS directions precisely only to take us on a significant and unplanned tour. Today's drive to Dulles airport included a drive in DOWNTOWN DC, past the Lincoln memorial. This detour added close to 30 minutes to my drive. If I hadn't planned for a long airport wait time, I could well have gotten into serious timing problems.

But more to the point, in each case, the highway signs clearly (to me) indicated where the driver should have gone, but the driver listened instead to the GPS. THIS is the problem.

GPS is great, but they work best for drivers who already have a fair "feel" for the vicinity and know more-or-less where they're going. When you blindly follow the GPS directions, you're bound to go places you hadn't intended, and perhaps didn't want.

So yes, it still helps to be a good human navigator if you want to use a computer to help. The GPS software is improving rapidly, so perhaps some of this will improve with time, but for now, pay attention to the street signs FIRST and THEN to the GPS.

Cheers,

Ken

For my birthday, I got a really neat book about the wine cork industry from my brother-in-law. Great stuff. And wow, were the points made in the book brought home for me last night?!

We went out to dinner at a local Italian restaurant. Nothing fancy, but pleasant. In fact, we were largely there to root for a band that featured a co-worker/friend of one of our friends. I was in charge of making the wine selection. I found two interesting wines on the list, by one of my favorite Tuscan producers, Cennatoio. (We visited the winery when we were in Tuscany in September, 2003.) I ordered a simple sangiovese, their "All'omo il Vino," a nice 100% sangiovese IGT.

Out came the wine... The waiter poured me a small amount to taste and...you guessed it, it was corked. I explained this to the waiter and he seemed dumfounded, so he called over the manager. To my shock and horror, the manager insisted on tasting it also. He (seemingly reluctantly) agreed that it was "off," but said it was their last All'omo, so I'd have to select a different one. (I was preparing for him to say it was fine, but that would have resulted in a situation neither of us would have enjoyed.) He pointed me to what he called a comparable "sangiovese" on the wine list, but it wasn't a sangiovese at all. So I pored through the list myself and decided on the All'omo's big brother, Cennatoio's Chianti Classico Riserva from 2001. A bit more expensive, but I didn't mind if we got a good wine.

Same process, same taste test, same results... I said to the manager, "you're going to hate me for this, but this wine is equally corked". By now, I could tell the manager was not a happy guy, and he again insisted on tasting it for himself. Again, he reluctantly agreed.

Two corked wines in a row. Two wines from a superb winery that were undrinkable because of an industry that has a roughly 4-5% failure rate. I've had both wines numerous times, and I know I love both. But in their wet cardboard TCA-tainted state, they were horrid.

I don't blame the restaurant for anything except the manager's bizarre performance of second-guessing his customer. And I obviously don't blame Cennatoio.

Corks are evil. The sooner we all realize that, the better off we'll all be. TCA, the chemical responsible for most "tainted" wines, is a blight on this otherwise wonderful industry that cannot and must not be tolerated. Corks are almost always to blame. We MUST demand better.

Some wineries and even countries have been leading the charge to move from cork to other stoppers. Try finding a New Zealand wine that's not sealed with a "Stelvin enclosure" (that's fancy wine-speak for "screw cap"). Although those not in the know may scoff at screw caps, you're FAR less likely to have a TCA-tainted wine from one. (It can still happen, if the TCA is introduced during the wine making or aging process, but the likelihood starts to approach zero now.)

So, next time you look at a wine that's sealed with a screw cap or a synthetic cork, please join me in saluting the winery's courage and support them in their efforts to rid the planet of corks. Corks are evil.

Cheers,

Ken

So, it's a beautiful day-before-Thanksgiving here in Virginia, and I desperately needed to get out on my mountain bike, "Hank"*, for some pre-turkey exercise. The autumn foliage is just a bit past its prime, but it's still spectacularly beautiful. And on top of that, it was sunny all day and the temperature got up to about 24C (that's about 74F) -- just fabulous. Nice enough for riding in short pants and t-shirt, even. Perhaps global warming doesn't suck too bad (so far).

As luck would have it, our friend Lisa was here to help with some Thanksgiving prep and she wanted to borrow my camera to capture a bit of our autumnal beauty outside. She offered to get an action shot of me and "Hank", so I quickly took her up on the offer. (I don't think I have any shots of me on my bike.) Here's a couple shots from a sequence she took on one of my favorite nearby hills.

Trails are for those who follow them



It's far more gratifying to blaze your own trail

Sure, it's not exactly the Alpe d'Huez, and Lance's 7 Tour victories are still quite safe and sound, but it is a fun hill to ride. I often hit it after a 23-25km ride on really nice days. I didn't go that far today, but the weather sure was beckoning me to ride on.

* You might wonder why I call my bike "Hank". Well, it's a Canondale Jekyll 1000 that I bought off of eBay a couple years back (and then did a few modifications). I have a silly habit of naming things, so I figured Jekyll... Well, Doctor Jekyll's first name, according to the book, is Henry. So, Hank just seemed like the right name. (Aren't you glad you read this footnote now?)

Cheers,

Ken

Some of you may remember my "Pigs can fly!" posting here where I explained why I've finally gone and gotten myself a Macintosh (Macbook Pro 15"). Well, it's been well over a year now of Mac bliss. I remain absolutely convinced that Macs are the right choice for me, and in fact are right for a whole heck of a lot of people. I'm certain that Apple's growth is representative of a renaissance in computing -- a new age of enlightenment. Strong words, but they're not without meaning.

In my 1.25 years of Mac-dom, I've found several pieces of software that I consider to be essential to me. Things that I really wouldn't want to be without. I thought I'd share those here, for what they're worth. Mind you, I've installed quite a bit of software on my Mac, but the list below will focus on the things that I use daily and that (by and large) are in my system dock.

My list of essential Mac software (other than the basics that come with the system), in no particular order:

• Firefox with no-script. Let me first say that I really like Apple's Safari browser. I'd be using it now except for one little thing -- control over JavaScript. In my opinion, JavaScript, is responsible for the vast majority of web-related security bad things. I need to have control over what sites I want running JavaScript on my computer. Mozilla's Firefox, combined with the No-Script plug-in give me exactly that. No-Script starts off disallowing all JavaScript, but you can add sites one at a time into a "whitelist" of sorts. That way, you can turn on JS for the sites that you want running it, and all the rest can't run scripting at all. Not perfect, but it's a LOT more control than I had under Safari.
• Newsfire. I read a lot of news sites on a daily basis, from tech news to Mac stuff, wireless stuff, and even world events. Oh, and news from the wine/culinary world as well. My only hope of keeping up with all this information is RSS. I was introduced a while back to Newsfire, which is an absolutely splendid RSS reader. Now, I should note that I'm currently experimenting with Apple's own Mail program's RSS reading capabilities -- which is a new feature of Leopard. But I still have my Newsfire and may well go back to it if/when Mail fails me. It's commercial, but not particularly expensive.
• Parallels. I was a VMWare user way back in the day, and I loved it. When I moved to the Mac, I needed a way to occasionally run another OS. So, a few months ago, I added Parallels to my list of apps. I now run a Windows XP box in a virtual machine. It's great for the training I do. I can load up XP, install stuff on it, hurt it, make it beg for mercy, cry like a baby, or whatever -- and then go back to the pristine XP configuration at the click of a mouse. And it's quite fast, too. Absolutely fantastic for my needs. It's commercial, but isn't very expensive -- look for it on Amazon for a discount.
• Callwave SMS widget. I do a lot of text messaging. Although my phone plan includes a huge bucket of messages for U.S. numbers, international SMSs are still quite expensive (in the quantities I send). This little SMS widget provides me with free messages. There's a daily limit, but I rarely hit it. Great stuff, and it's really easy to use. Oh, and it's free.
• Rapid Weaver. This one is my newest addition to my must-have list. But I've come to really like Rapid Weaver. What a great tool for building and maintaining web sites like this one! It is commercial, but not very expensive, and there are some coupon codes floating around the net that can get you a few dollars off the retail price.
• MacGourmet. Another inexpensive and highly worthwhile commercial tool, I've come to really like MacGourmet for organizing my favorite recipes. (I'll be putting at least several of my recipes on this site in MacGourmet format shortly, by the way.)
• Missing Sync for Blackberry. I used a Blackberry years ago, and now I'm back. I love the email comms, and my provider (T-Mobile USA) has a great all-you-can-eat data plan and an all-you-can-eat international roaming data plan that are fabulous. This essential (and commercial, but cheap) app enables me to sync my Blackberry data over to my Mac. For various reasons, the iPhone isn't yet ready for me, but the Blackberry serves my needs very well. Without Missing Sync, I'd be sunk.
• Spanning Sync. As a small business owner, I don't have a calendaring/groupware server for my company. I have an email and file server hosted externally, but not a calendar server (yet). Google Calendar came along and helped me with that enormously. Spanning Sync takes Google Calendar to the next level -- it syncs bi-directionally with my Apple Calendar data. Awesome add-on! It's sold on an annual service subscription basis, but is way cheaper than a calendar server. Finally, Caren and I can share a calendar.
• Chicken of the VNC. I use Virtual Network Computer a lot for administering the computers on my internal net. Chicken of the VNC is a great and free VNC client for the Mac.
• Macports. One of the things I like so much about Apple's OS X operating system is its UNIX underbelly. I've been a UNIX guy for over 2 decades, and I'm just more comfortable there than I ever was on MS-DOS (or its derivatives). Macports is a collection of (mostly) BSD-UNIX derived applications that have been ported to the Mac. All open source, free, and excellent!
• TiVo Desktop. I love my TiVo. I love my Mac. A few months back, we upgraded our old Series-1 TiVo to a Series-2, thanks to TiVo's offer of transferring our lifetime service subscription over. Now, my TiVo is finally on my data network, and I can move things back and forth between the computers and the TiVo. TiVo Desktop is the piece that enables me to share movies, shows, etc., from my Mac over and play them on the TiVo. Absolutely essential, and it's free from the wonderful folks at TiVo.
• TiVo Download Manager. I still love my TiVo. This enormously useful piece of free software allows me to download files from my TiVo onto my Mac -- and convert them into MPEG-2 format at the same time. It's actually a front-end to curl and TiVo Decoder, but it puts everything in one easy-to-use bundle. I can now grab anything from my TiVo and put it on a big honkin hard drive on my Mac, and then watch it whenever I choose to, without taking up valuable space on the TiVo itself. Great stuff.
• iWork '08. As you might expect, I require the ability to read/write MS-Word, Powerpoint, and Excel formatted files quite frequently in my work. I've been a fan of Apple's iWork for some time now. When '08 came out a few months ago, I grabbed a "family pack" (with 5 legal installations available) for about $100 on Amazon. That's $20 per seat, and it's some of the best money I've spent. I still keep MS-Office around, but I find myself using iWork more and more instead of Office. Keynote (the Powerpoint equivalent) alone is worth the price of admission. I build presentations with it that look worlds better than any I've ever seen in Powerpoint.

There they are. Great stuff, each and every one. I run all of these (as noted) on Leopard, which I'm absolutely thrilled with. Nothing I ever experienced in PC- or Linux-land ever came close for me. I'm a believer.

It is the age of enlightenment.

Cheers,

Ken

Ok, so I've finally made the leap and picked up a copy of a really nice web editor called Rapid Weaver. Apart from being really easy to use (on a Mac, of course), it has enabled me to do some neat things with my personal and my business web sites. Although I'd like to see a little more functionality, I'm real happy with it overall. Perhaps the functionality I seek is there, but I just haven't figured it out yet. Give it time...

In any case, I'm still moving some stuff over from my old site, but most of the important things are over here already. Still to come: culinary adventures (does anyone read these?), cool links, etc.

Ideas and suggestions are always appreciated.

Oh yeah, here in the journal (NOT blog!), you can navigate to archived postings by date or category over on the right hand side of the page.

Cheers,

Ken

I've found the most significant danger on the road or trail.

I'm a mountain biker. I try to ride pretty much every day when I'm not traveling, and generally end up going between 20-25 kilometers over some pretty hilly roads and trails here in the Alexandria, Virginia area.

Living just a couple miles outside the DC beltway, things tend to be pretty crowded on the roads as well as the trails. There are cars everywhere, joggers, other bicycles, and parents walking kids, just to name a few.

I've always been really careful around the cars, as they seem to be the most serious threat to the cyclist, but lately I've come to realize there's something even worse. Pedestrians with music players (generally iPods and other MP3 players).

That's right, these people are far more dangerous to the cyclist (and to themselves) than anything else I've found.

Cars generally stick to some semblance of traffic rules. I keep a safe distance from them and we all get along fine. Pedestrians with iPods, however, are another matter.

I try my best to be respectful and courteous to pedestrians. I always say hello. I always give them the right-of-way -- often going well into the grass to give them safe passage. When approaching them from behind, I always call out "passing" from a safe distance. All the things that you'd hope for from a cyclist sharing the road with pedestrians.

And there in lies the rub. I come up behind pedestrians and look for earphones now because I know they're more than likely to not hear my "passing" notice. Worse yet, they're apt to change "lanes" without notice. They're apt to panic when they eventually see me, often getting into more danger than they would have been otherwise.

I haven't hit one (yet), but I know it's a matter of time. For now, when I see earphones, I slow down and go *way* out of my way to avoid them. They're deadly.

I'm a cable modem user (on Cox Communications) in Fairfax County, Virginia for several years now. Recently, Cox offered a higher speed option (15 mpbs by 2 mbps), so I jumped right on it.

The upgrade went smoothly, but I was only measuring speeds of around 10x2. After a bit of searching, I found out that I ought to upgrade to a DOCSIS 2.0 modem, so I did that. Now, I'm regularly measuring speeds of 16-19mbps down and 2-2.5mbps up. I've tested at various times of the day and those numbers have been quite consistent.

I should add that the modem swap was painless and that Cox support was entirely effective. In one phone call, I gave them my new MAC address and fired up the modem. I did experience a couple of network problems, but it turned out to be a router problem at my end, so I can't fault Cox for that.

I also noticed that the voice quality of my VoIP service (Sunrocket) immediately improved as well.

So, put me in the "highly satisfied customer" group. Kudos to Cox for offering this service!

Quite a few years ago, I became a "Mac hater". Long story, but the short of it is that a Mac net used by our publications department (at a company where I was working) let me down at a critical time. It caused me a lot of grief. Then, when Apple killed off the Newton, I swore eternal hatred.

Before I go on, I should note that I still use my Newton 2100 every day. It still has the best "to do" list handler I've ever used. Despite the jokes about its handwriting recognition -- which were ALL about its first generation of software -- it still recognizes my handwriting better than I do. It remains the best PDA software ever written, as far as I'm concerned.

And then, slowly, several other things happened:
1) Apple put BSD UNIX under the hood in OS X.
2) OS X has matured through a few major releases and is now a superb OS.
3) Apple put Intel CPUs into the Macbook Pro line. "Boot Camp" added the ability to boot/install NATIVE Windows XP. So, I have that as a fall-back if I simply can't get something running under OS X. (I haven't needed to use it.)
4) I get a nice educational discount via CMU, along with a fabulous rebate on an iPod -- which I gave to my wife.
5) I've been listening to numerous people's opinions that I value who all say that it's time to try Mac. You know who you are...

So, I switched a week ago. Now, I'm hopelessly, unapologetically, completely a Mac guy. It has unified my computing needs/desires in a way that nothing else has been able to. UNIX where it matters and the world's best user interface in front. It talks with my Linux servers and my windows desktops/laptops just fine.

Plus, the Macbook Pro, with a 2 Ghz dual-core Intel CPU, DDR2 memory, SATA hard disk, etc., is the fastest computer in my gaggle. This thing absolutely ROCKS! People complain about Macs costing more than their PC counterparts, but you really do get more for the money. I'm fine with that. I've never minded paying a bit more and getting a bit more.

As a result, my laptop is no longer a traveling copy of my data. My Linux servers now carry a non-traveling backup of my work. As it should be.

The Mac talks wifi, bluetooth, usb, firewire, infrared, VPN -- you name it. I can connect up to _something_ nearly anywhere on the planet and securely connect to the net.

And, one of my favorite things about Apple, from the first day that I used my first (of 3) Newtons, is the cross-application data integration. My Macbook hasn't let me down. My IM package (iChat) gets its real names from my rolodex (Address Book). My email program (Mail) shows me a green icon next to any of my contacts (from Address Book) who is logged into IM at the moment. THAT is cross-app data integration. I haven't felt that feeling since I first learned to love my Newton. No Windows or Linux set of apps has ever provided that feeling to me. Apple GETS IT. Their software guys and gals know software like no one else. Kudos!

I now think of "PC people" as those that haven't tried a Mac. Once you try, you will never accept anything less. Redmond should be quaking in their shoes (but they're not).

Back around January 2000, I bought my first BMW, a brand new, fully loaded 528i. It's been a superb car from day one. Always a pleasure to drive, and truly "the ultimate driving machine". It has, however, been quite expensive to maintain, which I fully expected when I bought it. My rant isn't with that, but with the BMW shop where I bought it and where it's gone for service throughout its life--BMW of Fairfax (http://home.bmwoffairfax.com/).

I've never been overly impressed with their service, but I've been willing to accept that we live near a large metropolitan center (DC) and that it's just busy. Today's experience pushed me over the edge, however, and I'll certainly never go back.

For starters, their phone system is beyond archaic. My car went in for its oil maintence service early yesterday. Around noon, my service advisor left me a voice mail requesting my authorization to do an "inspection 1" on my car--for some $500. I called him back about a dozen times during the afternoon, leaving numerous messages on his voicemail and with the receptionist. No callbacks, no car. Today, I tried again to call him back, and eventually the receptionist found him. Come pick up the car in an hour.

So, on my way to pick up my car, I got a call from someone at BMW of Fairfax who told me that she was calling regarding the car that I dropped off. It seems that it was blocking a service lane and needed to be moved. I told her to talk to the mechanic that fixed it. She explained that she had already done so and that no one in Service had the key. I lost my cool, said something very unpolite that drew into question her intelligence, and hung up.

After I'd paid for the service, I went over to where the car was sitting and looked inside. A mechanic quickly walked up to me and asked if was my car. I said yes, and that I wanted to pick it up. He explained that it had just been dropped off for service and that the service wasn't done yet.

My receipt and I prevailed and eventually got my car out, but it wasn't without another hassle. Talk about "left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" syndrome. I've experienced nothing but this kind of awful service at BMW of Fairfax since day one, and I wouldn't recommend them to my worst enemy. They strike me as the most horribly mis-managed "service" organization that I've encountered in many years.

I still love my 528, but am much more likely to look at a different car next time. Perhaps an Audi A6 or some such, but most certainly nothing from BMW of Fairfax. It's my opinion that they're nothing more than oxygen thieves.

Well, I've been living the VoIP experience now for a couple of months (see below). Oddly, I've settled in on a hybrid approach that includes the wildly popular Skype along with SunRocket and even newcomer Stanaphone. Why all the confusion, you ask? Well, my SunRocket service has become my primary business phone when I'm in my SOHO office; Skype is great for making calls when I'm on the road; Stanaphone allows (free) incoming faxes, which then get delivered as .JPG files to your email address. I forward my 2nd SunRocket phone number to my Stanaphone number, which enables me to receive faxes anywhere via email. (I'm trying to phase out my eFax service, as it costs me almost as much as I'm paying for SunRocket.) So, there's a reason for each of the services.

The verdict? For me, I'm really happy with SunRocket. If/when they come out with a "soft phone" service, I'll phase out Skype. Likewise, if they offer a fax service, I'll phase out Stanaphone. If you're looking for good VoIP, check out SunRocket before making your decision, IMHO.

My only service-related issue on SunRocket is that the voice quality sounds choppy if I'm really moving a bunch of data through the cable modem while I'm on a phone call. Even though the SunRocket "gizmo" does QoS, there's still some chop in the audio quality. Note that I do have my gizmo connected inside my new MIMO (802.11(pre)n) router, but the router supports QoS; and, in any case, I had the same problem with the gizmo outside of the firewall.

Speaking of MIMO, my new Belkin MIMO router that I bought at Buy.com is fabulous! (Buy.com's price was better than anyone else that I could find--I'm a fan.) Anyway, with a compatible MIMO card, I get 108 Mbps wireless speed anywhere in my house. Even on a standard 802.11g card, I get 40-56 Mbps anywhere in the house. Just don't do the AES encryption--it's horrendously slow.