The Internet went down today in the small office I work out of. Or at least, everyone else's Internet connection stopped working.
Oddly, my tubes were just fine. My officemates couldn't figure it out. And despite being the office-appointed unpaid network admin, I couldn't figure it out either.
I tried restarting their computers, releasing IP addresses, switching tubes from the main router to a hub and back. None of their computers could ping any websites, but they could get IP addresses and their computers reported they were connected.
Then I figured out there was one thing different between my computer and theirs. I use OpenDNS since I wrote about them when the company launched in July.
Sure enough when I finally did some router diagnostics, I found that Earthlink's DNS servers were down. Within minutes, I had my officemates are surfing away with OpenDNS, and I'm no longer more special than they are. But at least, I'm luckier than those other suckers stuck with Earthlink's DNS.
And, no, I don't get paid by OpenDNS, but they do give me free DNS...
Photo: cudmore
