A recent New York Times interview with OpenDNS CEO David Ulevitch prompted today’s blog post. This is actually one of my favorite speedup tips for residential broadband users, and it should work for Oceanic Time Warner, Hawaiian Telcom and Clearwire customers.
Speed up your web browsing one simple change on your router or computer - for free!
The billso.comdomain name is much easier to remember than its current IP address of 208.97.168.17, so one service that every ISP provides access to is the Domain Name System or DNS. The DNS is a remarkable distributed database that maps alphanumeric web addresses to the numeric equivalents. Without DNS, the Internet as we know it just wouldn’t work.
If you’d like to do your own lookups to see the IP addresses of other web sites, try this page.
From what I’ve seen, OpenDNS is certainly faster than other domain name services that I’ve tried. Here’s the company’s explanation. I’m not sure if OpenDNS works as well outside the United States, however. The company has a data center in London and will open another facility in Hong Kong, to complement its four data centers in the mainland United States.
It only takes a few minutes to change your computer’s domain name settings to the OpenDNS servers, as long as you have administrative rights on your computer. Just read the OpenDNS tutorial and make the appropriate choices. Be sure to reboot or restart your computer after confirming the changes.
If you have a router at home, you might consider changing the domain name settings on the router, instead of changing the settings on all your computers. Again, be sure to save or confirm the changes on your router.
Note: If you use your portable computer in your employer’s office, you should check with your IT staff before changing the domain name settings.
Many ISPs rely on domain name servers provided by an upstream provider. Some ISPs host their own domain name servers. In both cases, the response time for a user can lag for a variety of reasons. The slower the DNS service, the longer it takes your ISP to route your request for a web page to the right IP address.
Most ISPs let their users select their own DNS servers. While there are a variety of free and public DNS servers available on the Internet, most of them cannot handle a large number of simultaneous users.
Security is another concern. I wouldn’t trust an domain name server from a third party that isn’t my ISP or employer, unless there was a good reason to do so. After all, it is trivial for the server’s admin to substitute the IP address of a spoof web site for a popular domain name such as paypal.com or ebay.com.
OpenDNS appears to be trustworthy, so I feel confident that they are looking up the correct IP addresses. The service will also block phishing sites, adult web sites, as well as auto-correcting mispelled domain names like cnn.cmo - for most users, that name should probably be cnn.com, after all.
There are business that are built on misspelled domain names, however. Some call this practice typosquatting, and Valleywag has a brief discussion of this practice here.
I’ve already posted some articles about the Domain Name System (DNS):
Now that the iPhone is out, users want corporate IT managers to let their iPhones work with corporate email servers. It’s tricky, as I’ve mentioned before on June 29. Several bloggers, including Jason Levine and John Gruber, have posted very good articles on how enterprises might deal with iPhone users.
The iPhone isn’t ready for business users yet
ZDNet’s Russell Shaw has posted an article that lists Gartner’s seven reasons why the iPhone is not ready for the enterprise. Gartner analyst and report co-author Ken Delaney warns companies not to buy iPhones for the following reasons, which I’ve quoted from the ZDNet article. My comments are in italics:
1. Apple’s “rudimentary” experience designing mobile devices specifically for the enterprise - this is a first generation device, after all. Microsoft, RIM, Nokia and other companies have a serious head start on this item.
2. Lack of support from mobile management and mobile security software utilities - there’s no third party software support for the iPhone in this area yet, and there won’t be until Apple opens up the iPhone API. Gizmodo claims there will support late in 2007. Apple might stop unauthorized iPhones from being recharged, according to this patent. But that’s a far cry from monitoring mobile devices in the field.
3. Lack of compatibility with major business e-mail systems - iPhone can handle POP and IMAP4, but Microsoft Exchange servers need this update to support IMAP4.
4. An operating system not licensed to third-party hardware suppliers, resulting in no backup - Apple is the only source for the iPhone hardware. Users are supposed to backup their iPhones with iTunes.
5. No removable battery, creating the potential for increased support costs - while Apple has announced a mail-in program for iPhone battery replacement, the user cannot open an iPhone and disconnect the battery. I used that trick a couple of times a week on my Cingular 8125 when it needed a reboot.
6. Only one carrier operator (AT&T Wireless) - at least in the United States, and that exclusive will last at least 2 years. Apple’s competitors support every major cell phone carrier in the US.
7. The high price point, $499 for 4GB or $599 for 8GB - the iPhone is an expensive device with no quantity discounts. Lost an iPhone, and the hardware replacement cost can be high. Memory can’t be expanded because there is no external memory slot.
I’d add two more reasons to this list:
The iPhone is clearly an entertainment device. It’s a very nice video iPod with a phone, a data connection, and web apps. But at it’s heart, iPhone is all about driving more users to iTunes.
The iPhone has some Internet and productivity features built in, but the document viewing features, calendar and contacts list can’t be easily synced to a corporate network yet. Give Apple and its partners some time. Corporate support will come if sales are strong.
I’ve set up dedicated RSS feeds for my IS 6100 and IS 7010 courses.
Students in these courses may use the appropriate RSS link when subscribing. You’ll see choices for a variety of web-based readers, web browsers, and email. Some mobile phones can display RSS feeds, too. Just try getting this kind of information from a WebCT course…
If you’re wondering what RSS is and how it can make your life easier, go read my post from January 23.
ZDNet reports that several hundred CXOs are receiving a new kind of email attack. Messages containin Word documents that include an executable file. If the recipient clicks on the file, it runs a zero-day exploit on the victim’s computer.
According to MessageLabs, the recipients tend to be CXOs as follows:
30% chief investment officers
11% chief executive officers
6% chief financial officers
The targets are technically inexperienced victims whose computers may hold interesting personal or corporate data. Attackers find the victims names through search engines and social networking sites. I’m guessing that LinkedIn is one of these sites.
The Honolulu Advertiser ran a front-page article this morning about the growing parking problems in Chinatown. I’ve worried that downtown businesses and colleges might face problems as more customers face longer waits to find that elusive parking space.
Companies keep moving downtown, and they sometimes wind up with more employees than dedicated parking spaces. The solutions range from shared parking spaces to subsidized bus passes!
Too many vehicles? Or not enough mass transit?
Recent figures indicate that there are 734,270 registered vehicles on Oahu. Another article in this morning’s Advertiser indicates there are 1.13 million vehicles in the state, while our population is 1.28 million people. Of course, the large rental car fleets on our islands are a part of this total, but it’s still alarming that there’s so many vehicles in our state.
Articles and contents posted on this blog represent billso's personal opinion and does not represent the views of my employer, employees or my clients. Comments are provided by individual users.
