What if your Internet broadband connection could be faster and more secure? That’s the promise of OpenDNS, and according to the New York Times and it’s Technology Guru David Pogue, OpenDNS delivers.

What brought my attention to OpenDNS was an article on security in the online edition of today’s NY Times. It seems there’s a flaw in the Internet Domain Name System that could cause you to be unknowingly routed to a phishing site. This could occur if the phishers hijack the domain of your bank or a trusted website to gain access to your personal information.

There are no reports of phishing crews exploiting this problem as yet and Internet service providers are rushing to plug the potential leaks. But it could take some of them months to correct the problem.

You can read the whole article here.

Later in the article, the author mentions that using OpenDNS as your domain name server can eliminate the problem. OpenDNS is free and there are easy instructions on how to install it on your computer or home/small office (SOHO) network.

I installed it on our network this morning and it took less than ten minutes. Not much of a time investment for peace of mind.

That OpenDNS logo at the top of the page is active. If you install OpenDNS and come back to this page, it will tell you that you are using OpenDNS. Same if your provider or workplace has OpenDNS installed. If the button says “Use OpenDNS - Get Started,” click the button and get started! (or just click here)

While researching OpenDNS, I discovered that it is also useful for speeding up your broadband connection. On my network, I have noticed no change in speed the first time I loaded a website after installing OpenDNS. But subsequent loadings seemed to complete 25% to 50% faster. Cool!

Read David Pogue’s New York Times article on speeding up your broadband connection with OpenDNS here.

Because OpenDNS requires a change in your local settings on your network, I cannot install it for you remotely. But it isn’t difficult. Increased security and a faster connection – now there’s a combo that’s hard to beat!

If your email program is having difficulty picking up your email from a pop server, it may be because of poor mail account maintenance. Many people let email pile up on the server until a file corrupts and email service grinds to a halt. Good account maintenance practices can help prevent this.

So, if you go to pick up your email one day and get this error:

This error is often caused by an overstuffed INBOX or a corrupted file in the INBOX. Once you see this error, it is too late. You will need to use your WebMail client to pickup whatever messages you can, then all of the messages will have to be deleted.

…you will have take action as described in the caption. If that doesn’t work, your INBOX may have to be deleted. We can save it as a text file and you can go through it message by message, but that is an arduous task with a multi-megabyte file.

To give you an idea, most files that jam up a mail server are in the 50MB range. I just downloaded an INBOX file of 12.5 MB. Opened in a test editor, that comes to over 300,000 lines of messages. How would you like to deal with that?

OK, so let’s take some steps to avoid the problem before it happens.

By setting your email client (Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.) to delete read, deleted and junk mail from the server in a reasonable amount of time, you can avoid the problems associated with an overstuffed mailbox.

I’ve put together a series of videos to walk you through the process of setting your Preferences in various email programs to automatically delete old emails. So have a look at the video for your email client and then check to see if you have your settings the way you want them… BEFORE you have the problem of your email not working correctly.

Happy New Year, everyone! Every January 1st, millions of people make resolutions to achieve goals in the new year. But very few succeed. There are a lot of reasons for that, but you are the only one who can make sure “resolution inertia” doesn’t happen to you.

Here are a few things to think about as you plan your action steps to make 2008 your best year yet:

Your website - you do have one, don’t you? If you don’t, you are missing the most elementary step of your online marketing process. You may be listed on yours or your brokers website, but you really need to build your own prospect lists and feature your own listings if you want to be a top performer. We have packages to suit your needs whatever they might be. Call us at 859.854.3243 for a free consultation.

Your email list - It amazes me how this vital piece of the online marketing puzzle is often overlooked. If you have a website, you need to be collecting visitors information and using an automated system to stay in touch with them. In fact, building an email list is so important that you should consider building a website or a blog just to have a venue from which to collect the name and email address of visitors. Using the right software can make this a simple task.

A blog - If you want to improve your visibility in the search engines, there is no cheaper or easier way to do it than by blogging. If you post regularly (news about your area, new listings [hint: they don't even have to be your own], events of interest, tips and trick, etc.) you’ll find that the search engines pick up the post from your blog quickly. Blogging is easy and effective if you use the right software and hosting solution. Let us show you how.

We’ll be covering a lot more essentials in the weeks to come. Watch your email box for our Tip of the Week starting soon.

Visit us at OrangeCat.com or call us at 859.854.3243 and see what Open Source solutions can do for you.