It's a very novel concept I know, but the guys at wicd have managed to write a wifi network manager that does things like remember your WPA key (unlike some other more common NetworkManagers). I still need to see if it can do really complicated things like save a config for a hidden network (ooooooh!) and handle enterprise authentication (LEAP), but for now I am very happy to have replaced NetworkManager with something that appears to just work. Check it out: http://wicd.sourceforge.net/. Now, how 'bout it Ubuntu, can we ditch NM already - isn't two broken release cycles enough?