OpenDNS (how to make your internet connection better)
For my home’s internet connection I used to use Comcast cable. Its connection speed was reasonable for cable but its DNS service was unreliable. For a while I used my company’s DNS servers as I trust the sysadmins there, and it worked fine. Then I switched from Comcast to Verizon FIOS (more than quadrupling my connection speed, and costing about $70/month less for the total package of net, phone and tv). I’ve been mostly very happy w/ FIOS, it feels good to have fiber to the house and 802.11N WiFi inside. However a blazing fast connection does you no good at all if negotiating DNS takes a long time; I was consistently unable to connect on the first try to such obscure sites as google and wikipedia. So I did a little research and decided to give OpenDNS a try. This is a free public service for using a 3rd party other than your home ISP for DNS. Well, it works. I haven’t had a problem w/ it yet, and everything is just much faster now that the DNS problems are gone. I don’t know why Comcast and Verizon have such a hard time maintaining their DNS service but I’m grateful OpenDNS exists to make it moot for me.
See http://www.OpenDNS.com for more information.
Enjoy!
