Jacques Marneweck's Blog

Google have launched their "Public DNS" service - a similar service to the OpenDNS public dns resolvers. It is going to be interesting to see how much competition occurs. It is usually faster to use the OpenDNS public dns resolvers than one's upstream ISP's one. Not sure when Google will start adding additional features like OpenDNS like blocking access to malware sites, ability to see how many DNS queries you are making, etc.

If you want a non-filtered service at this point in time use the Google Public DNS servers (they are using Level3 for their upstream connectivity):

8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

And if you like filtered DNS results you would want to use the OpenDNS ones:

208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

UPDATE:

Quick stat from doing DNS queries against Google, IS and OpenDNS's cache servers:

Google: 546ms and 243ms
IS: 303ms and 36ms
OpenDNS: 432ms and 297ms

Looks like all three cache the results on their anycast clusters.

Posted by Jacques Marneweck at 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Wordpress.org Website has lost their Google PageRank for performing the dubious Search Engine SPAMing technique using cloaking on the wordpress.org site. Quite a bit of discussion is going around about that ATM.

Andy Baio discovered this an posted the initial post regarding the dubious cloaking methods.

Sidenote: Remember all the flack SixApart got for licensing their software? Is that worse than what WordPress, Inc is doing now?

Quoting GoogleGuy:

Google’s guidelines are quite clear on things like hidden text and hidden links to duplicate content. People should have a skeptical reaction when someone comes trying to buy links to spammy/duplicate pages, esp. if they want control of a subdomain or a subdirectory on your own site—linking to content like that can trigger effects to a whole site’s reputation, as this person notes: http://sayanythingblog.com/2005/03/28/google-comes-through

Posted by Jacques Marneweck at 11:48 PM | Permalink

I was busy speed reading some blog entries via my BlogLines interface when I was a number which at a quick glance starts with 466 so I was like Nelson Mandela's 46664 prisoner number while he was wrong. Turns out it was 46645 which is GOOGL on the cellphone. Reminds me of the 46664 concert which was televised ages ago.

Maybe it's time I wear my specs when using the PC?

UPDATE:
The 46645 SMS short code for Google does not work from South Africa. *sigh*

Posted by Jacques Marneweck at 8:23 AM | Permalink

I have some more Gmail invites to give away. So if you are wanting to have a email address ending with @gmail.com post to this entry and I'll send the invite to your email address entered via your TypeKey login.

Maybe you would like to leave some text telling me a little about yourself?

Remember I only have 5 invites to give away during this round.

Posted by Jacques Marneweck at 2:13 PM | Permalink

Been experimenting with Google's customised site search for powering the website search for the website, which is included on the page footers. Might redo the site layout a little bit to move the search somewhere below the site phrase.

Posted by Jacques Marneweck at 8:01 PM | Permalink

I have a couple of GMail invites to give away. If you are interested, post a reply to the forum so that I can send you an invite. Remember invites are limited.

Posted by Jacques Marneweck at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I recently was talking about looking into using Gmail as a backup system, and so far it works well using a script from Ilia.

Posted by Jacques Marneweck at 6:04 PM | Permalink

I've recently had the opportunity to obtain a Gmail account (thank you Walters).

I'm going to start using some code (text version) of Ilia's to store stuff on gmail as a backup mechanisim. I'm thinking of PGP encrypting the files prior to sending them off to Gmail for storage. The nice thing is that Gmail provides one with 1Gig of storage space.

Posted by Jacques Marneweck at 9:27 AM | Permalink

Interesting insight into the mess that these trackback URL's cause.

Posted by Jacques Marneweck at 8:07 PM | Permalink