I finally got around to looking at OpenDNS. I have seen its name mentioned before but its name does not do justice to what it can do for you. Just looking at its name you have to wonder what can an open DNS do for me. One of the mailing lists I read recommended it as a way to block adult sites. It can block Malware sites, too. Hmm….
Last week I was talking to some folks about network monitoring and the problems I find with using pings to determine network status. Users consider a site or application is down if they cannot use it. They do not care if you can ping the site. In the case of my most obnoxious user, my son, the network problem was typically related to the server he was trying to get to, World of Warcraft. He had an important date at 700 PM and “my” Internet was the problem! Typically the problem looked like a server load issue. Sometimes his problems were related to the route being to the server being congested and occasionally it was directly related to the DNS being out to lunch. So I am going to give OpenDNS a whirl. It probably will not solve any problems for me but it may reduce the number of problems being shot in my direction.