CHRISdotTODD

For the past week or so I have been using OpenDNS instead of the DNS service provided by my ISP. Huh? When you enter a URL into your browser, a [DNS] system must translate that into a computers [ip] address so you may visit the website. If you have ever input a bad URL and were returned a web page with search results that included your ISPs name or logo, that is the ISPs DNS "helping" you find what you were looking for. Just a month ago Comcast's DNS systems was hacked , so whenever a user using Comcast's DNS system tried to go to Comcast.net, they instead received a web page loaded from a different website ( see picture ). The typical complaint from users in regard to DNS is that some web sites take a long time to respond. When I was a Comcast user, I do recall having problems whenever I tried going to Yahoo!. Perhaps a coincidence; perhaps not. Back to OpenDNS. OpenDNS is a DNS service that you can use instead the default service (most of us use) provided by your

Today ends an era of Bill Gates working at Microsoft, as he redefines his priorities moving forward. There has been a tremendous number of articles written about Bill Gates in preparation for today. I found this particular video from the BBC that I thought was very interesting as he reviews the early days of Microsoft. The BBC has also published a Bill Gates and Microsoft Timeline.

That would be Tiger Woods. While the US Open was being played on June 17th, Internet Service Providers (ISP) were caught off guard by unusually high traffic. Of course their first reaction was to investigate to see if their systems were under attack. In fact what they learned was that the US Open was being streamed across the Internet. According to Arbor Networks , For several ISPs, traffic into their network grew by 15-25%. In one provider, inbound traffic nearly doubled. ... Traffic dipped and peaked corresponding to Tiger’s initial misses and subsequent spectacular comeback... What really amazes me is that how much one event can cause so much impact on an ISPs network. What's going to happen to these same networks during a live reporting of a major catastrophe? For example, what if the 1989 San Fransisco earthquake repeats itself in 2009? Could the ISPs handle having all their subscribers watching live broadcasts and other video feeds to a majority of its users? I suspect not, t

With May being Bill Gates last month at Microsoft, Wired.com posted an article with a chronological view of his life. Did you know that at 13, Gates was acting his shoes size? Seriously though, at 13, along with Paul Allen, Gates worked out an agreement with Computer Center Corp to report software bugs in exchange for computer time. This was after spending his schools annual budget for computer time in a matter of weeks. Here's a couple other highlights: January 1977 Gates takes a leave of absence from Harvard and establishes Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico,... ... 1997 On several occasions, Gates' secretary enters the Microsoft building to find him crumpled on the floor, asleep. ... August 28, 1980 Gates signs a contract with IBM, agreeing to develop software for the PC. ... November 10, 1983 Windows debuts. ... August 1, 1989 Microsoft Office debuts. ... August 24, 1995 Microsoft introduces Internet Explorer. ... June 15, 2006 Gates announces his retirement from day-to-

Take a look at this video -- the early stages of robots joining together to make their own hardware.

Update June 3, 2008 Jim Louderback, Revision3 CEO, joined the TWiT podcast on Sunday (posted June 2nd) and talked about the DoS attach quite extensively. Jim's a real class guy; check out what he had to say about the DoS attach, BitTorrent, and MediaDefender. Over the Memorial Day weekend, Internet TV company Revision3 suffered Denial of Service (DoS) attacks from MediaDefender . What specifically did MediaDefender do to Revision3 servers? MediaDefender flooded the Revision3 servers with 8,000 requests per second. With that type of volume, the Revision3 servers couldn't keep of with those requests, let alone legitimate requests for Revision3 content. Revision3 has posted an article with the details . From the MediaDefender website, MediaDefender, Inc. is the leading provider of anti-piracy solutions in the emerging Internet-Piracy-Prevention (IPP) industry. We provide services that stop the spread of illegally traded copyrighted material over the Internet and Peer-to-Peer n

Not many folks try to row across an ocean; Roz Savage has already rowed across the Atlantic , and Sunday morning she left from the San Fransisco Bay to row across the Pacific. You might ask, "What does this have to do with technology?" Well, Roz is keeping us all informed of her progress using technology. If you visit Roz's website, you can follower her through a tracking console that shows her current location and where she's been. This includes a date-time stamp of her last report, her speed and course, and her latitude and longitude. Perhaps that's not for you... also on her site is daily blog posts. For others, well you can track her Twitter feed , subscribe to text alerts on your phone, or listen to her podcasts (look for it to show on TWiT.TV -- the first recording happened today). Now you know why I posted this on a tech blog. And if that's not enough, get a look at her boat , it looks pretty hi-tech too.

The BBC has a great site about the Human Body & Mind . I found it a lot of fun to complete two different tests: (1) Brain Sex and (2) Face Memory . As you likely know, both men and women are considered to be intelligent, yet they think differently. "The reasons for these brain sex differences, if they exist, are not known, though there are a number of theories that offer possible explanations." The Brain Sex test will score you against the average men and women and relate it to generalities about each sex. The Face Memory test is part of information on Sleep. "Are you too tired to remember? 'Executive skills' such as memory are the first to go when you're tired. See how you score." Also included is a sleep quiz on"the top ten most fascinating and weird sleep facts." I found each of the tests to be easy to complete and without much surprise. For example my right-side of the brain is more dominant. "Some studies theorise that as a ri

Patrick Schmid posted Is Fast Memory Really Worth It? on Tom's Hardware recent research that concludes what I have suspect all along. Unless you are a hardcore gamer building a computer to get out every last ounce of power, there's no reason to buy the more expensive, faster memory. Many of us know that to extend the life of your computer, investing in more RAM is often a very good way to improve performance (instead of buying a new). What Mr. Schmid has shown us is save your money and don't invest in the faster, more expensive RAM. ...only significantly faster (and significantly more expensive) memory can deliver a tiny performance advantage. ... Quicker timings (low CL values) are favorable, but you shouldn’t fork out considerably more money, as the differences are small. So if you're looking to extend the life of you sluggish PC, try some additional RAM -- but don't waste your money on the more expensive stuff. On a related note, if you are looking for ways to

Starbucks has a new site for ideas and voting ala Digg -- My Starbucks Ideas . I'm not sure where this will go with Starbucks in the long-run, but its a great attempt at gathering direct customer feedback. I also like that Starbucks outsourced this through Salesforce.com instead of building themselves. I think it is still much too common for organizations to think that they can develop something better and cheaper than what they can buy or borrow. Starbucks needs to continue making good coffee and having great marketing; IT and web development does not need to be a core competency. Of course Mt. Dew has had a website for as long as I can remember, though I haven't spent much time checking it out. [I do recall many years ago as part of a going-away party for a colleague, I searched for Mt. Dew sites on the Internet, and found many, many of them.] Mt. Dew is in the middle of it's own contest to encourage customer interaction. DEWmocracy.com hosts this current contest, wh

I found this video on the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) from Yves Behar, the designer of the OLPC.

I receive a weekly email from ZDNet called Download Digest (which I read about every 4th one). It is their weekly recommendation of software; much of it is useless, but occasionally there are some nuggets. In addition, there is a section on recommended TechRepublic articles. These are recycled over time, but again there are some nuggets. For example, if you're not real Internet savvy, you might be interested in 10 things you should do to a new PC before connecting it to the Internet . (Note that you must sign-up for a free account to access TechRepublic.) Here are some TechRepublic tips and guides that I believe people may find valuable: Powerful PowerPoint Presentations : This wont teach you how to make better presentations, but it will teach you how to use PowerPoint to its fullest capability. How do I...Migrate from Outlook Express to Mozilla's Thunderbird? : If you haven't yet switched to Thunderbird for email, this article is helpful in getting you through the proces

Not really computer related, but rather solved with a computer... I have one of those 6-piece block puzzles that has been apart for some time. I decided to look online to see if I could find a solution. First I learned that it is called a 6-piece Burr puzzle; then I discovered that there are too many different combinations that I would be luck to find a solution. Then I ran across an IBM Research site on Burr puzzles . After looking through many of their solutions, and not finding a match, I discovered their applet to solve any Burr . I just entered the cuts of each of my 6 pieces, and within seconds it had the solution for me. And if that wasn't enough, it showed me piece-by-piece how to reassemble it. Truly I am impressed.

Micheal Wesch of Kansas State University , with the help of his students ... a team of cultural anthropology undergraduates led by Dr. Michael Wesch and human interaction on digital technology. exploring the impacts of digital technology on human interaction on digital technology put together this superb video on the Information R/evolution. Check it out and see what you think. What a change.

From the Poverty.com folks, you can now improve your vocabulary while and feed the world at the same time. FreeRice.com has been able to sell advertisement on their site in exchange for your eye balls while you improve your vocabulary. After starting just a few weeks back (October 7), FreeRice.com has already donated 537,163,380 grains of rice. Now I don't know how many grains of rice are in a cup, but it sounds impressive. For every correctly identified definition, 10 grains are donated -- perhaps with some traffic growth, FreeRice.com could charge advertisers more, so 15 grains of rice could be donated for every correct answer. It's time you do your part -- work on your vocabulary and help feed the world.

Thanks to Digg , I found a very interesting blog from Jesse Ruderman, Indistinguishable from Jesse . Jesse has a great post on how you can help in the effort to remove memory leaks in Firefox . Of course not all of us have the skills that Jesse and others working on Firefox have, but he indicates there are other things we can do to help. If you're a Firefox user, an easy way to help is to browse with a trunk nightly build wrapped in a script that calls leak-gauge.pl when Firefox exits. If it reports that documents or windows leaked, try to figure out how to reproduce the leak and then file a bug report. In addition to coverage on Firefox, Jesse has assemble a wealth of useful information in the 4 years of writing his blog. For example, he has a link to his del.icio.us links , a list of 43 things he wants to do, and a humor list . So if you're looking to learn more about Firefox or just looking for a good blog, give Indistinguishable from Jesse a look.

How much do you really pay attention to the logos of Internet companies? I bet not as close as you think you do. Go to guessthelogo.com and find out for yourself. This is a simple, 10 question, multiple choice quiz; how well can you do? I was just a bit under 2 minutes -- good luck!

Tired of Lifehacker ? Is the DIY Network not your idea of fun? I found a fun new website, Instructables , a site with step-by-step instructions for do-it-yourself projects. Imagine using Legos to create a USB charger or to encase your USB memory stick. You can also find instructions for cracking and hacking windows passwords, extending the range of your car remote, and how to open a bottle of beer without an opener. Instructables has 8 categories: art, craft, food, home, life, not liable, ride, and tech. You can also browse the site using one of the many keywords. If that isn't enough, Instructables has an active Forum where you can exchange ideas and get help with the tricky parts of your project. Have fun. I know I like the car remote extender.

Do you like those commercials? Well in addition to finding them at Apple's website and parodies on YouTube (including Linux), you can also find parodies at TrueNuff TV! In case you haven't had enough, here's one more.

Yep, last month the cash machine turned 40 years old. The first cash machine was located north of London, and it used carbon 14 checks, a mildly radioactive substance — not a plastic credit card. When initially installed, the cash machine, invented by John Shepherd-Barron, would dispense up to 10 pounds UK. Learn more about the first cash machine on the BBC's website .