With all the recent Florida storms, it was only a matter of time before my lights flickered, before the power went out, before everything shut down for a second.

Midday tropical-like Florida storms don't last long and neither did my power outage. However, when the power came back, two instruments, despite the flickering lights, did not work properly anymore.

One of those instruments was the Comcast Internet modem (a device replaced by Comcast in a timely manner); the second device in need of technical resurrection was my router. Unfortunately, the router was out of warranty; the only way to replace it was to pay for a new one.

So here came the hard choice; do I replace the old-ass router that I had with the same over the hill item, or do I take a chance and see haw much technology has really improved. As you have probably guessed, I went with the latest in technology. First of all, I got myself one of those really expensive surge protection outlets with 43 minutes of battery backup. I can't really test it without asking God to strike my computer with lightning, but what I can test is the new router that I got, the D-Link DIR-655 Xtreme N Gigabit Router. It is a wireless N router which supposedly gives it a 6x range and up to 14x speed. Let's face it, if this product works, all you wireless G users are "slow." But what is fast or slow? Personally, since I'm a gamer, speed is of a major factor. I'm not sending a fax here; I'm trying to put a bullet between the eyes of one of the red team's players. Can I achieve total sniper domination using this router or will my ping be so bad that I'm gonna stick to single player games only? Keep on reading if you want to find out more about the D-Link Xtreme N Gigabit Router.