DNS problems

[Rajiv Krishnamurthy]

gentle people, 
apologies if this question should have been posted in the newbies
list, but i saw a similar question in the archives of this mailing
list, which did not quite answer my question.

i'm trying to install FreeBSD for the first time. i'm installing it on
my desktop.

the installation has gone on pretty cleanly, i have a linksys
firewall/wireless router behind which i have installed my freeBSD box.
i have good connectivity and am able to ping, telnet to the internet.

however DNS resolution is a problem. 

the browser does not work and for example
dig www.freebsd.org also does not work.

if i provide the nameserver,dig @server xxx.xxx.xxx - things are fine.
any ideas. it has to be something really simple.

during the configuration, when i configured my ethernet port, it cleanly
gets the ip address from the linksys hub and also lists the nameserver
correctly.

what else do i have to configure ?

ifconfig
xl0 : flags=8843<UP,BRODACAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
options=b<RXCSUM,TXSUM,VLAN_MTU>
inet6 fe80::250:daff:fe8c:dcaa%x10 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
inet 192.168.1.105 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
ether 00:50:da:8c:dc:aa
media Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)
status:active
plip0: flags=8810<POINTTOPOINT,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
inet6 :: 1 prefixlen 128
inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3

netstat -nr
Routing tables

Internet:
Destination        Gateway       Flags       Refs    Use    Netif Expire
default               192.168.1.1   UGS         0        0        x10
127.0.0.1           127.0.0.1       UH           1       76       lo0
192.168.1           link#1           UC           0          0      xl0
192.168.1.1        link#1           UHLW      1          0      xl0
192.168.1.105    127.0.0.1       UGHS      0          0      lo0
192.168.1.255     ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff      UHLWb   0          2      xl0

/etc/resolve.conf is empty.
/etc/hosts is empty.

thanks 
rajiv.