Well the past couple days I had problems connecting to the eeeuser forums or wiki. The main page loaded fine, however if I was trying to use a subdomain (http://subdomain.eeeuser.com) then it would just not load. I booted up my eeepc and same thing. This immediately told me that it was a DNS issue, because if two separate machines can’t view these pages, but other internet websites work then the problem is not with the computers or browsers. My ISP is Rogers and my router uses their default DNS server. This isn’t the first time I’ve had little hiccups with their DNS, however usually the issue would be resolved fairly quickly (couple hours). This time it didn’t. When I was at work today, I browsed over to the eeeuser forums and to no shock the website loaded just as fast as usual. This made me suspicious, because obviously the website wasn’t down. When I got home I tried again and still, could not connect to .eeeuser.com.

Now the LAST resort is to call up Rogers, and be connected to some Call Centre support person who asks me to unplug and replug my modem, check my cables and all of that crap. I’d like to think of myself as advanced with computers compared to the average user, so explaining the Customer Support that I have self diagnosed the problem and I’m 100% sure it is a DNS issue, asking them how to resolve would most likely be futile (I wouldn’t be surprised if some of their Call Centre staff didn’t know what DNS is/does).

Instead I searched around and found a website called OpenDNS. Free, constantly updated, and from what I read anti-phishing measures as well. This means that if you accidentally click one of those fake eBay or paypal e-mails to go to a well known phishing website, their DNS intercepts your request to this “known” phishing address, blocks and alerts you that it is an invalid website (not official eBay or paypal). So that’s a bonus feature. To fix your DNS issues, go here. They have easy steps and I was up and running in no time. Now I can go to forums.eeeuser.com, and wiki.eeeuser.com without even a slight pause.

Thanks OpenDNS!