OpenDNS

OpenDNS provides DNS server that you can use your home or office. So you say: "Why do I need a DNS server? My ISP provides a DNS server." The answer is that OpenDNS provides a whole lot more than just a reliable and fast DNS lookup service.

OpenDNS will block access to phishing sites and adult content. Imagine how handy this would be for your school, office or home? You can implement content filtering without having to touch every workstation, without having to build the infrastructure and buy software. Just change the DNS server that you're using and bingo, you're done. I don't know about you, but I feel better knowing that all of the users in my house are secure from hitting a phishing web site.

And best of all is that this service is FREE. How do they do all this for free? When you type in an invalid URL they redirect you to their search site, which of course contains advertisements. I think this is very cool.

And, wait, theres more. In addition to the phishing protection and adult site blocking, they offer you usage statistics, domain blocking, domain whitelisting, shortcuts and customization.

Here is my story on how I found out about OpenDNS. My Verizon DSL router (modem) would crap out every now and then. I couldn't figure out what was going on. I poked around in the setup and noticed the diagnostics log in the router mentioned that it had problems communicating with the Verizon DNS server. Then I found some talk about OpenDNS on the DSL Reports Forums with some users having the same problems. They said OpenDNS solved their problems, so I gave it a try. So far so good. We'll see how it works out over time.

Google Does IMAP

GMail is supporting IMAP for many users right now. They plan to have IMAP implemented for all users very soon. Check out this IMAP Help topic on Google's site.

I used to do all my mail using IMAP, but I started using browser-based email access a while ago. It just seemed easier to get my email using a browser from any computer rather than relying on having a client installed. I like IMAP and I'm amazed that almost everybody I talk to has no idea how IMAP works. But IMAP is becoming more important for mobile users and I'm happy to see Google implement this technology. I'm even happier that its free!

I figure Google would have some interesting challenges implementing IMAP on their mail system because of the unique way they store the email messages. (See this old but interesting blog about GMail's flat hierarchies) For example, a message can be assigned to one or more labels.

This replaces the use of folders and is handy because its easier to put multiple labels on a single message than it is to copy the message into several different folders. It uses less storage space too. So how does IMAP handle the labels? It places each message into an IMAP folder. If you move or copy a message from the inbox to a folder, the next time you do a sync with Google they will place that folder's label on the message. Sounds like they gave the process a lot of thought when they designed it. They will also mark a message as SPAM when you move it into the SPAM folder, or mark it as not SPAM if you move it from the SPAM folder into the inbox.

I don't know whether I'll be using IMAP with Google or not. I'm going to try it out and see how smoothly things work when crossing between IMAP and the browser interface. If all goes well I may start using IMAP again.