Many people have a custom Google homepage or use Google reader to read RSS feeds. There is a really quick and easy trick to allow your users to click on a link and be provided with the option to add your RSS feed to their Google homepage or Google Reader.
So, if you were to click on http://www.google.com/ig/add?feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/DailyCupOfTech (Go ahead! Do it! You know you want to!), you would be provided with the option to add the Daily Cup of Tech RSS feed to your Google homepage or Google Reader. To configure this for your own RSS feed simply use the following URL:
A client of our today was having difficulty browsing the Internet. One of the possibilities was a problem with DNS. So, I put together a quick DNS troubleshooting flowchart.
This is by no means a comprehensive troubleshooting chart but it is a very effective tool that will help you focus your attention when you are having difficulties accessing a website and you think that the problem may be with DNS either on your network or with your Internet service provider.
Ping DNS Server?
Check to see if the DNS server is even available through a ping. First, determine your DNS server by typing in the following in a command prompt:
ipconfig /all
and search for DNS servers to determine the IP address of your DNS server.
Next, ping the DNS server IP address. So, if your DNS server IP address is 192.168.0.1, you would enter:
ping 192.168.0.1
If you get a response back, your DNS server is accessible. If not, there are a few potential problems:
DNS server is down
Internet is down (when DNS is provided by Internet provider)
DHCP is giving out the wrong DNS name
DNS server is set statically and is wrong
Can You Ping?
If you can ping your DNS server, next check to see if you can ping a website on the Internet. I typically use google.com. Type the following command into a command prompt:
ping google.com
You should get a ping response. If you get something like:
Ping request could not find host google.com. Please check the name and try again.
this could indicate that you have a DNS issue but it warrants further investigation.
Can You Telnet?
If you can ping, check to see if you can Telnet to the website. Type into a command prompt:
telnet google.com 80
If your command prompt goes blank, port 80 is working fine. (Press CTRL+C and then ENTER twice to get out of the box.)
If you get something like:
Connecting To google.com...Could not open connection to the host, on port 80: Connect failed
there are a number of potential issues:
Port 80 is blocked
Your IP address is being blocked by the server
The website is down
You can also try to connect on other ports such as port 25 on an external mail server.
HOSTS File Entry?
Your HOSTS file is like a local copy of DNS. If there is an entry in the hosts file that points to a different IP address for a domain name, then it will never get to the the DNS to find the website.
You can open and check your HOSTS file by typing the following at a command prompt:
notepad %windir%\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\HOSTS
This will present you with a next file much like this:
# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp. # # This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows. # # This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each # entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should # be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name. # The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one # space. # # Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual # lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol. # # For example: # # 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server # 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host 127.0.0.1 localhost
The last entry is the only entry that should be in a typical home computer. If you have any entries that coincide with the website that you are looking at, this could be your problem.
Clear Web Browser and DNS Cache
Both your web browser and your computer have a cache which stores information about DNS. If you are getting strange results from the tests, try clearing the web browser cache and the DNS cache.
The web browser cache can be found in the options window. To delete the DNS cache, simply type the following command prompt command:
ipconfig /flushdns
Conclusion
Hopefully this will help you to determine if you are running into DNS issues. Of course, DNS is only one small part of your entire network but this is a good start.
I’m looking at expanding my social/professional network. I have been working in LinkedIn for some time and if any of you are interested in connecting up with me, you can check my profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/tephlon. My e-mail address is tfehlman@dailycupoftech.com for the request.
Update: I have had a great response so far and added a number of you to my connections. I have also created a LinkedIn group that you can join so that you can connect up with other DCoT readers. If I have already added you to my connections, you are automatically pre-approved for the group.
A couple of days ago, I started to notice that there was nothing but gibberish on the homepage of Daily Cup of Tech. I quickly dug into the problem to determine what could be causing the issue. The problem was with compression in the (wonderful) WP-Super-Cache Wordpress plug-in.
Here is how I fixed the problem.
I accessed the WP-Super-Cache admin page directly from its URL: <blog base URL>/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=wp-super-cache/wp-cache.php
I disabled the Super Cache Compression and then updated the settings.
This seems to have resolved the issue but I would really like to run compression as it is a nice feature. Anyone out there had any luck fixing the compression problem?
The DNS cache on your local computer is a list of the most recently accessed DNS entries. If you suspect that some one has just breached your corporate Internet policy by accessing inappropriate web content and they have run a cleaning program that wipes out the Internet cache, you may be able to get a list of the websites from the DNS cache.
Simply type from a command prompt:
ipconfig /displaydns
to display the contents of the DNS cache.
You can then look through to see if there are any domains that should not be there.
Many people have a custom Google homepage or use Google reader to read RSS feeds. There is a really quick and easy trick to allow your users to click on a link and be provided with the option to add your RSS feed to their Google homepage or Google Reader.
A client of our today was having difficulty browsing the Internet. One of the possibilities was a problem with DNS. So, I put together a quick DNS troubleshooting flowchart.
A couple of days ago, I started to notice that there was nothing but gibberish on the homepage of Daily Cup of Tech. I quickly dug into the problem to determine what could be causing the issue. The problem was with compression in the (wonderful) 
The DNS cache on your local computer is a list of the most recently accessed DNS entries. If you suspect that some one has just breached your corporate Internet policy by accessing inappropriate web content and they have run a cleaning program that wipes out the Internet cache, you may be able to get a list of the websites from the DNS cache.