I’m coming up on 3 months with my new MacBook Pro and I’ve been extremely happy with the simplicity and consistency of the experience. I still use a ThinkPad running XP at work, and have an XP desktop at home, but the MacBook is my machine of choice. I have, however, struggled with some Internet connection issues.
From Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cliph/
First, my router would occasionally stop resolving domain names. I could ping an IP address directly, but could not load a web page. Ultimately, I blamed my 5(?) year old Belkin router because the problem went away when I switched to an old DLINK router.
Second, and even more annoying, my MacBook was slow opening web pages and downloading anything from the Internet. I performed my own non-scientific speed test by trying to simultaneously load nyt.com on my MacBook and ThinkPad. The ThinkPad was all done within 3 seconds, and the MacBook took 14 seconds to finish opening loading the last image. Huge difference!
I searched and found several people with the same issue, and the same solution. Switching my DNS to OpenDNS solved the problem. Now, my MacBook loads pages almost as fast as my Windows machines…but I have no real understanding why.
Tagged: DNS, MacBook, OpenDNS on October 25, 2008 by TJ Rutkowski
In Personal Web on July 13, 2008 by TJ Rutkowski Tagged: DNS, GoDaddy, web registration, website host
Getting on-line is easy, if you know exactly what you’re doing.
- Choose a Domain Name
- Register It
- Make a Site
Choose a Domain Name
I wanted www.rutkowski.com, but it was taken by someone reselling family-name email addresses. I tried www.tj.com, but the TechJournal bloggers were already at it. I scratched my head often, and considered various domain names over the years before committing to tjrutkowski.com. I suppose I was searching for that catchy phrase to project my brand; I suppose I found it.
TIP: Don’t get hung up on a name for your site(s). I spend a lot of time thinking about what to call my website before I realized that it’s not that important unless you are looking to monetize your site.
Register It
I’m efficient; I like to conserve resources. First, I looked at free domain registration, but couldn’t find anything without severe site formatting constraints or forced advertising. Next, I researched several hosting services. I looked at personal sites similar to what I would host, and compared the infrastructure experience (mostly page and picture load times). I read blogs of users to hear their opinions. I made a list of the features and functionality that were important to me.
In the long run, I chose GoDaddy to register and host my two domains. The price is right-I paid $85.99 for 2 new domains and the 12 month deluxe hosting plan. The key feature they provide that other low-cost companies don’t is self-directed DNS management. Self-directed DNS management allows you to easily manage your own email provider or sub-domain on-line. Most low-cost registrants require a phone call (with lengthy hold times and heavy technical jargon) to manage DNS, if they permit changes at all.
Some examples of why DNS management is important include:
- I direct my MX records to Google and get GMAIL at tjrutkowski.com
- I use Google sites, docs, calendar, and home pages with my domain name
- I can redirect my domain to my WordPress hosted blog
Make a Site
Templates can be nice for your primary content, but for some reason they often look like everyone else’s site. I prefer a little bit of personal style–even if it includes uniquely annoying qualities. I use FrontPage to create my www.tjrutkowski.com and www.judgeforyou.com sites. While FrontPage does a lot of crazy-Microsoft-know-it-all stuff, my sites are very simple. For me FrontPage is the free solution because I already own it.
TIP: Start your site with a photograph. Put anything up there, as long as it isn’t an Under Construction sign. If you’re struggling for a good shot, borrow one of mine and give me credit.
