My final pick is a free graphical traceroute tool called by Vlad Alexa. This tool displays results on a Google Maps map as "pins" connected by lines that are color-coded according to the link's latency.

I tracerouted Wikipedia.com and discovered that, from Ventura my traffic goes to Buena Park near Los Angeles, then to Plum Groove, Kan., then Tampa, Fla., then to San Francisco. A round trip of several thousand miles to go a few hundred miles as the crow flies. Who knew?

Anyway, VTrace is a fine tool you'll want on your iThing and I'm giving it a rating of 5 out of 5.

Gibbs has way too many apps in Ventura, Calif. Tell him what else he needs at gearhead@gibbs.com.

in Network World's Software section.