Why You May Want to Dump Your ISP's Domain Name Server

Recently, when the Wi-Fi part of our router stopped working, I had to purchase another router. I ended up with a Linksys EA6500, which is one of the company's newer routers. Figuring out how to set up OpenDNS for the router was harder than it should have been, but part of that was my fault.

Starting with the assumption that specifying DNS servers would be on the connectivity page, I went there first. The Basic and Internet tabs provided no joy, but I thought I'd find what I was looking for on the Local Network tab. I didn't and that's the "my fault" part. The entry is actually made on this page, but medium gray text on a light gray background isn't easy to read and I looked right over "Static DNS 1" and "Static DNS 2".

Because this is one of Linksys's new routers, the procedures described and illustrated on the company's website don't match what's on my screen. Eventually I did find what I was looking for and added the DNS entries.

To confirm the change, I opened a command window (Windows Key, CMD in Windows 7 or 8; Windows Key, RUN, Enter, CMD in previous versions) and ran "ipconfig /all". Among the information this command returns are the IP addresses of the DNS servers.

Why OpenDNS?

The DNS server translates a human-readable web address (like techbyter.com) into an IP address (67.222.41.89, for TechByter). You could enter that number whenever you want to visit the site, but most people find it easier to remember the name.

DNS is a critical part of the Internet and one that's largely invisible. Your Internet service provider (ISP) such as Wide Open West, Time-Warner, or Comcast provides their own DNS servers and those are the ones that you're using unless you've done something to change them.

If the ISP provides the service, why change? OpenDNS offers services that your ISP probably doesn't such as misspelling correction, phishing protection, and content filtering, if you choose to use it. The OpenDNS global network processes about 45 billion DNS queries daily from 50 million active users connected to the service through 19 data centers worldwide.

The numbers to know are these:
208.67.222.222 (resolver1.opendns.com)
208.67.220.220 (resolver2.opendns.com)

Add these numbers to your router's configuration, and all computers on your network will use OpenDNS. If you have just one computer and no router, you'll have to make the change on the computer.

It's a little more complicated if you want to change just a single computer.

Start with the Control Panel and work your way down through the Network and Sharing Center to the Network Adapter's Properties. Then select the IP4 entry and right-click to choose Properties.

Select "Use the following DNS server addresses" and then fill in the OpenDNS settings.

Unlike most ISP DNS servers, OpenDNS blocks phishing websites by using data from Phishtank. It also corrects many typing errors that could land your browser on a poisoned website (typing "gogle.com" instead of "google.com", for example). In this case, OpenDNS recognizes what you means and opens Google's main page automatically.

The service is free and you're probably wondering how this can be. The answer is this: If you type a domain name that isn't valid and isn't one that OpenDNS's spelling correction can't fix (FiatCarFinder.com is what I tested), you'll be shown a search page based on the faulty URL. OpenDNS is paid for the ads served here.

OpenDNS is probably faster than your ISP's DNS server, possibly more up to date, offers protective features your ISP doesn't, corrects typos, and serves ads only when you type a URL that it can't recognize. Oh, and the ads will probably show the URL you really did want, too.

What's not to like?

To learn more about using OpenDNS, visit the website.

Adobe Competes with Adobe: Elementary Enhancements

Sometimes I think that Adobe keeps its software engineers on their toes by constantly pushing features from the high-end Photoshop and Premiere applications down to Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements. That forces the developers to create new features that can be added to the top-line applications. But it also means that people who want to edit photos or videos at home without learning how to use astonishingly complex applications and without paying a lot of money for those astonishingly complex applications can do so.

This week Adobe released version 12 of the Elements applications and they're now available in stores, either as individual applications or as a package. Either way, you also receive the Elements Organizer application, which reminds me a lot of Lightroom's Library view. Bob Gager, Group Product Manager for Adobe Elements, says that the primary difference between the astonishingly complex applications that professionals use and Elements is that the "astonishingly complex" part is eliminated.

(Hear the discussion as part of the podcast.)

If your device doesn't allow Flash, the podcast is here.

Group Product Manager for Adobe Elements Bob Gager notes that Adobe Revel is free: Revel lets you import as many photos as you want for the first 30 days. After that you can import up to 50 photos every month. If you take a lot of photos, Revel Premium, which lets you import as many photos as you want, costs $6 ($5.99) per month. If you like sharing your photographs and want them to be available on all of your computers and handheld devices, this is a good choice.

A couple of improvements that caught my eye in Photoshop Elements include Straighten, which now has an "autofill edges" option that uses content aware fill. Depending on the image involved, this will either work perfectly or will be a disaster. If the image edge has a fairly consistent content such as sky or grass, it will work well. If there's complex content near an edge, you'll probably need to turn this feature off.

You might wonder why straightening an image would require content-aware fill. Picture this (so to speak): Take a photograph out of its frame and rotate it slightly. An application straightens an image by rotating it. Note that the frame will now cut off part of the picture. If you rotated the picture counter-clockwise, the upper right and lower left corners will be trimmed. The other corners, upper left and lower right, in this case, will be empty. Those are the areas where content-aware fill would be needed. Adobe Lightroom includes an option that can automatically crop away these blank area, but doing that sometimes creates havoc with the image itself.

The second big improvement is a variant of red eye correction. When people tried to use this with pets in earlier versions, they found that it didn't work because dog and cat eyes don't reflect red the way human eyes do. The new "pet eye" option of the red eye correction tool takes care of this.

For videographers, Premiere Elements adds 4 new film looks and there are more than 250 sound effects that can be added to videos, along with more than 50 music tracks. I would say that the music tracks are looped, but actually the technology is better than standard looping. Specify how long the music track should be and Premiere Elements will work out how to extend the music track so that it works properly.

Adobe Elements is a bargain for those who value ease of use.

Every version of Elements gets better because more high-end features are included and included in a way that makes them easy to use. For more information, see the Adobe Elements website.

Short Circuits

New Tablets from Microsoft, Amazon

This week, on consecutive days, Microsoft and Amazon announced new tablets. For Microsoft, it was the next version of the Surface that, despite good reviews and powerful features, hasn't sold well. For Amazon, it was an updated Kindle Fire.

The second-generation Surface tablets offer few enhancement on the outside, but users will find that the Surface 2 is faster, has extended battery life, and presents sharper screen images. Microsoft seems to be willing to accept slow sales for now as it tries to build devices that will compete with Apple's Ipad.

The competition is certain to increase with Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia's handset and services business. As a result of the acquisition, Microsoft will add thousands of employees who know a great deal about designing and manufacturing mobile devices.

So far, though, the Surface can't even remotely be considered a success. Microsoft took a $900 million accounting charge last quarter because of weak sales and dropped the price of the tablets. Total Surface sales for the fiscal year were about $853 million compared to Ipad sales more than $33 billion, but Microsoft is continuing to plan for devices that won't go on sale until late 2015.

Microsoft has no plans to offer a smaller version of the Surface, even though smaller devices from Apple (the Ipad Mini) and manufacturers of Android systems (Google's Nexus 7) are selling well. In Apple's case, the Mini is probably cannibalizing sales of full-size tablets, so Microsoft is wise to avoid splitting development between 2 sizes, at least for now.

Amazon says the new Kindle Fire is lighter, faster, and less expensive. This is the first update to the system that was introduced 2 years ago.

Specifically, the Kindle Fire HDX will weigh only about two-thirds of what the original model weighed and will come with both a faster processor and faster memory (yes, memory has a speed). The nearly 9-inch screen places it between the small (5-inch and 7-inch) tablets and the large (10-inch and 11-inch) tablets. Amazon says the new model has better battery life, too. If the Fire is used only for reading, the battery would run the device for 17 hours.

Sales of the Fire are believed to be relatively weak, but Amazon doesn't release information about sales. The least expensive new model will sell for $140

Remember Myst?

It's been 20 years since a new kind of computer game went on sale. An article on Grantland discusses the game and how it was supposed to change gaming forever. If you remember the game, you'll find the article to be a worthwhile read.

The game opened to a foggy vista from a dock. In the water, all that was visible of a sunken ship was the masts and a crow's nest. Animated water ebbed and flowed. The landscape was surreal in that 2 large gears were atop a distant hill. You could turn to view the full 360-degree scene, but nobody was present. Eventually you would find a piece of paper with a note to "Catherine": "I've left you a message of utmost importance in the forechamber beside the dock. Enter the number of Marker Switches on this island into the imager to retrieve the message." It was signed "Atrus". And the game began.

The article by Emily Yoshida reminded me of the game. I had forgotten about it years ago.

Myst was designed by brothers Robyn and Rand Miller and distributed by Brøderbund. Eventually it was released for most computers and game consoles of the time, including Apple, Sega Saturn, Microsoft Windows, Atari, PlayStation, AmigaOS, and Nintendo.

Technically, the game player is "the Stranger", who must explore to seek out clues that will reveal the back-stories of various characters. Depending on the player's actions, the game can end in one of several ways.

At the time, the CD-ROM format was new and Myst was one of the driving forces that led computer manufacturers to add optical drives to their machines.

When Myst was released, the text-based game called Zork was still popular. Zork began on minicomputers before being ported to desktop systems. The first version of Zork was written in 1977 using the MDL programming language on a DEC PDP-10 computer. The authors (Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling) were members of the MIT Dynamic Modeling Group.

Because Zork was a text-based game, the player could only read about the location and actions. The opening scene:

West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

I remember typing "open mailbox" and being told that something was in the mailbox. Later, the player goes into the house and down into a dungeon. Zork was unusual because of clever writing and programming that was smart enough to understand more than simple commands such as "hit troll". Actions could be expanded and combined: "hit the troll with the Elvish sword and then go north".

As with Acme in Roadrunner cartoons, FrobozzCo International plays an important part in Zork. It is a fictional conglomerate whose products are found throughout Zork.

Games have changed a lot in 20 years, haven't they?

Read Emily Yoshida's article about Myst here.

9,000,000 Iphones in Two Days

Apple's new Iphone 5S and 5C models were on sale last weekend and all available models were sold. That would be 9 million phones and sales were almost double what Apple has recorded when any previous version was released.

Last year's first weekend of sales for the Iphone 5 ended with sales of 5 million phones. This year was different in that for the first time in the Iphone's history, Apple put 2 new models on sale instead of just 1 and phones went on sale internationally, including in China, not just in the United States.

Analysts had expected sales in the 5-to-8 million range. Apple didn't say how many of each model were sold, but the more expensive model seemed to be the better seller. Prior to the weekend, Apple accepted online orders for the less expensive 5C, but not for the 5S.

What's Up with the Fraudsters?

In the past week, I've received hundreds of spams that have somehow slipped through my defenses. Offers for low mortgage rates. Messages that tell me I'll forfeit my $15,000 mortgage credit if I don't reply. Messages that tell me I can buy a new Iphone at 90% off retail price. One would have to be an idiot to fall for any of these, but there seems to be no shortage of idiots.

What's more concerning to me is how these messages sailed through my defense system. I'm not an idiot (or so I like to think) and the messages are obvious frauds. But why did they show up in my inbox?

Here's one that tells me about a low mortgage rate, even through rates have been increasing. I suppose this would be good bait for suckers, but how did it pass through my defenses?

Here's one that offers an Iphone 5S at a 90% discount. Yeah. Right.

It doesn't cost anything to send spam, so somebody in China must think that spamming the United States is a good idea just in case a few people who receive the messages actually do read Chinese.

Fortunately, my anti-spam measures still catch most of the spam I receive.

But the question is, How do so many messages like this get through?

Note the scroll bar. It clearly shows that this message is much longer than it appears.

Scrolling down, I found a huge amount of text, probably scraped from a website. Most of the messages will have different blocks of text.

Stupid spammers once used the same blob of nonsense text on millions of messages, making it easy for antispam applications to spot them. This is a modified technique and, for now, it's working.

Spam filters work, but the creeps find ways around them. One problem with spam filters is that they are so simplified that legitimate emails can be identified as spam. Most of what ends up in the junk folder is spam, but I still need to check each message to ensure that I don't allow the deletion of something I want to read.

Spam that's written in Chinese seems to be sneaking through, too. I don't read Chinese, but thanks to Google, I see that someone in China wants to provide management skills training to me.

Increases and decreases in spam are natural. The spammers devise a way to avoid spam filters and then the anti-spam people develop a method that catches the new spams. It reminds me of the ongoing battles between police agencies that buy radar devices to catch speeders and speeders who buy radar detectors (often made by the same companies that make the radar devices that the police use) to evade the radar. The manufacturers cash in from both sides of the battle.

When it comes to spam, the good guys and the bad guys are definitely on opposite sides and I expect that the volume of spam will drop back to normal in a few days. If not, I'll have to search out some new ways to defeat it on my own.