How Twitter Search and Open DNS Just Got Me Back Online

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How Twitter Search and Open DNS Just Got Me Back Online

So it’s Monday night and I’m looking for something to write a blogpost about in between IMing with a friend and watching soccer highlights, and my Internet goes down. Having experienced some of this in my many years on this Earth, I tried all of the typical fixes: basically, they boil down to “unplug the modem for three minutes and see what happens.”

Didn’t work. Strangely enough, my IM was working but not my web browser. The chilling thought that there’s some kind of unique, hard-to-repair problem that will require some kind of difficulty runs over me.

Wait, though: Twitter, right? I just wrote a post the other day about how I was able to check about the small earthquake we had in Southern California and Los Angeles. Of course, I had the Internet then.

But I have a phone now. So I get on my trusty Nokia E71 and take a look at Twitter Search. I searched for “Time Warner.” Sure enough, a lot of people in the LA area are having problems with this.

However, I didn’t think I’d get a solution through Twitter. But I found out there was a problem with Time Warner’s RoadRunner DNS, and in order to fix it, all I had to do was designate an OpenDNS using 208.67.222.222. Voila. Immediately, my Internet started working yet again. As you can see from the current screenshot of Twitscoop, “DNS” and “Warner” are featured as fairly large words in the Twitter universe right now.

I’m not an OpenDNS expert and I’ve seen some problems with them, namely with covert redirection. Whatever–I’m on the web right now thanks to OpenDNS, and I’ll go back to RoadRunner’s when they get their act together.

If you’re a Mac user, all you need to do to hook up Open DNS is go Open Network Preferences, click Advanced, go to DNS, and add 208.67.222.222 to the DNS Servers list. Hit OK, and apply, and then you’re back in business.

Twitter has saved me a night of aggravation. Thanks Twitter.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 1:53 amand is filed under Site Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.