I’ve been up to lots of stuff
Wow, I can’t believe that July is almost over already. I really can’t tell you where the time has gone since I’ve been so busy. I’m already seeing “Back to School” ads which is never a good sign to those in school (although it was always a welcoming sign once I started going to college).
Anyways, just a couple of things I wanted to point out that have caught my interest/are on my mind while time keeps flying by…
Go switch your settings to use OpenDNS. This is to all of my nerd/non-nerd readers out there. If you have a high speed connection at home (DSL, cable, etc), you should be interested in this. It has without a doubt sped up my browsing at home. It’s a really simple tweak that you can do either on your computer or your router at home. PC or Mac. Wired or wireless. It doesn’t matter. It’s not spyware and doesn’t do anything evil and is absolutely free. Lots of people have been using OpenDNS lately and have had dramatic results in the speed of their internet connections.
I’ve been hooked on the aspecialthing podcast. Interviews with comedians that matter. A great way to blow an hour(+) at a time. Maybe that’s where my time has been going?
I’ve switched from my archaic webmail client for marusin.com to using Gmail. My email address hasn’t changed, just where the messages are being delivered to. So far, so good.
I have given up on FeedLounge for the time being. I switched to them after there was a marusin.com record for the most comments ever to a post all in praise of FeedLounge. I have to say, I agree with most of them (when the service is working correctly). The interface is great. The response to support problems is great. Unfortunately, though, it is buggy as hell and it seems there’s a new issue I encounter on a daily basis. Between not being able to subscribe to certain weblogs to bugs with tagging to feeds not being updated enough to me being unable to access my feeds for a couple of days has made me go back to Bloglines. Without a doubt, I want to like FeedLounge but I feel burned and have a bad taste in my mouth right now. I have a year subscription and may revisit in a couple months when I feel better about things. Until then I’m back to my old standby.
I’m hoping to record a podcast tonight to do a brain dump on my BarCamp Chicago experience. I have gotten a lot of personal emails regarding my post about my BarCamp Chicago experience. Just wanted to clear the air and it would probably much easier to talk through than type out. Hopefully, me writing this here
remindsmotivates me to record tonight. :)
July 19th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Hello there, who is your ISP? I use Comcast and I’m just wondering if this will help my speed at all. Hell it would be nice to have just when Comcast’s DNS dies…
July 19th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
I’m using Comcast as well… Give it a whirl and see if it makes a difference for you. It was quite noticeable for me, though. It’s definitely something that’s easily reversible, so I say check it out.
July 19th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
I do notice a difference as well. Something that intrigues me is that I don’t notice a huge difference when going to new websites, but once I am navigating within a site (ie, clicking on a link within cnn.com to access a news story) it goes there immediately.
I also noticed that I had to change the settings on my pc, as well as my network, something that the opendns site does not say, it says that you should only have to update the settings on the network.
July 19th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
After some advice from my personal tech guru (aka Marusin), I changed my settings and now only the network is directed to opendns.
You are the next Steven Hawking, Mike.
July 20th, 2006 at 10:21 pm
I, at the very least, am interested in your reactions to BarCampChicago — the good the bad and the ugly. ;)
Go on, tell us whatcha really think! It’ll only help make future events better.