We love hearing stories from our users about how they’re using OpenDNS, so much in fact, that we frequently ask our Facebook friends and Twitter followers to tell us about their experiences. And when Dustin Springman, network director for the South Georgia Regional Information Technology Authority (SGRITA), recently told us a story, we thought it was so humbling and inspiring we just had to share it with you.

It’s no secret that we think OpenDNS has the absolute best users of any security company out there. And, that while we work hard to spread the word, it’s the users themselves who are our best ambassadors. But Dustin has taken it to the next level. Working with SGRITA, Dustin has universally deployed OpenDNS across networks that serve more than 15,000 people.

After dealing with the unreliable DNS offered by his local ISP for too long, Dustin set up OpenDNS and never looked back. He loved the service so much that he began sharing his success with friends and neighbors, even going the extra mile to set it up on their machines.

But his passion for OpenDNS didn’t stop there. At the time OpenDNS announced it was offering a cloud-based content filtering solution, Dustin was working for SGRITA and advising many K-12 schools on Web security. He quickly realized the dramatic impact OpenDNS could have on K-12 schools that face limited IT resources yet still need to meet CIPA compliance. Springman educated local school districts on the benefits of using OpenDNS and deployed the service universally across all of the school networks SGRITA managed.

When we announced OpenDNS Enterprise to protect businesses from malware, Dustin once again sensed that OpenDNS was reading his mind. SGRITA was troubleshooting an alarming amount of malware and botnet activity for the business networks it served, and he knew DNS level malware prevention was a unique solution. Dustin advocated that all the business networks SGRITA served explore and institute OpenDNS to cure their malware woes.

Today Dustin is an active participant in the OpenDNS community: Tagging domains in the Domain Tagging system and helping make OpenDNS Web content filtering more effective, submitting ideas in IdeaBank about ways OpenDNS can be even better and more feature-rich, helping other users by answering questions in the Forums. Plus, he’s following Facebook and Twitter for the latest updates and ensuring OpenDNS is set up on all the networks SGRITA manages.

And we know that there are thousands more OpenDNS users just like Dustin. So to all of you who have convinced your CTO to deploy OpenDNS across your company’s network, educated your local school board on OpenDNS so your kid was as safe at school as she is under your roof, or simply installed OpenDNS for your parents, we say: Thanks a million. We hope that as we continue to add features and products that will benefit your colleagues, friends or community you’ll help us spread the word and create a safer Internet for everyone.

Give us the chance to thank you for spreading the word on OpenDNS: Email your story to success@OpenDNS.com.

It’s still Tuesday, June 7 here at OpenDNS headquarters in San Francisco, but in lots of places around the world it’s already June 8, World IPv6 Day. That means for the next 24 hours OpenDNS.com and hundreds of other websites are officially reachable on IPv6.

We’re big fans of World IPv6 Day, both in concept and in practice. Spearheaded by The Internet Society, it’s a 24-hour test flight where organizations around the world – ISPs and technology companies like OpenDNS – are encouraged to offer their content over IPv6. Without such a broad-reaching and compelling reason to invest the resources to make it happen, lots of companies would have continued putting it off.

And we’re in excellent company in our participation in World IPv6 Day: Facebook.com, Google.com and Yahoo.com have joined the effort, as well.

In addition to participating by upgrading our website, we went a step further helping to prepare your network for the transition to IPv6. To make your life easier we built a free, fully IPv6-compliant DNS sandbox for you to use to test without consequence before you move everything over.

Happy World IPv6 Day and Happy (IPv6) Hacking!

Earlier this month, we asked you to come up with your favorite OpenDNS slogan. We like to say OpenDNS makes networks safer, faster, smarter and more reliable, but we wanted to hear how you describe us, too.

When we closed the contest on Sept. 15, there were hundreds and hundreds of submissions — 617, to be exact. What was so interesting in looking through your suggestions were the variety of reasons people use OpenDNS, and where they find the value in the service.

Some of you described how OpenDNS protects you from phishing websites. Others came up with slogans that highlighted how OpenDNS makes your Internet faster. And some contributions celebrated our malware protection. It’s clear that there are many reasons people love to set up OpenDNS on their networks!

After reading through all 617 submissions, picking our favorite ten, and putting them up for a vote on our Facebook page, here are the five winning fan-generated OpenDNS slogans.

• OpenDNS: Saving the Internet… one millisecond at a time (Jeremy Roman)
• OpenDNS: Get it. Set it. Forget it. Or you’ll regret it! (Kevin Broadey)
• Open up a world of Internet safety, reliability and flexibility. OpenDNS. (Kent Nemenzo)
• My DNS can beat up your DNS …. OpenDNS (Jeremy Roman)
• OpenDNS: Because the tubes won’t navigate themselves (Jordan Finnigan)

We’ll be getting in touch with all the winners shortly so that we can mail them OpenDNS t-shirts. Thanks to everyone who suggested a new slogan or tagline. It was so much fun to read and debate your submissions. Stay tuned for more contests and promotions, coming up in the next couple of months.

This week Facebook recommended OpenDNS on its Security Page, the place Facebook users are encouraged to go to learn how to stay safe on Facebook and on the Internet. OpenDNS is recommended because it takes the guesswork out of identifying phishing scams for you. Even if you click a suspicious link sent to you in a message by your Facebook friend, or posted on your wall, we’ll still prevent you from being fooled by showing you a warning. That’s a lot of incentive to use OpenDNS.

Like other social networks, Facebook seems to be working hard to eliminate phishing on its site. The more popular a site becomes, the more phishers are inclined to use it for phishing and saying Facebook has been gaining in popularity as of late is an understatement.

While Facebook has been growing its global user base we’ve been growing ours, and a big part of the reason people choose OpenDNS is our anti-phishing service. PhishTank.com has identified and verified more than 300,000 individual phishing scams, all of which are blocked for our users.

We’re thrilled Facebook recommends our service.

Admittedly, I was late to the game.

When I finally created a Facebook account +/- one month ago, I was shocked to see all of the people from various phases of my life who’d beat me there. There were childhood friends, high school and college friends, colleagues from all of the different professional positions I’ve held, even family members. I was hooked right away. I know it’s not a competition, but my 86 Facebook friends definitely make me more invested in the site.

What’s more, my job as community manager of OpenDNS is to do just that – have a hand in everything that touches our awesome community. Imagine my surprise to find the group OpenDNS is the Stuff with forty-something members and a moderator whose name I didn’t recognize. (No doubt the coolest Facebook group. If you haven’t yet joined, you really should.) The fact that the group was born outside of our doing is great, but just because I didn’t build it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to be a part of it. I scanned the members, got familiar, intro’d myself to the moderator. And these things take time.

This is all ironic, of course, since I work for a company that blocks Facebook for thousands of businesses, organizations and households around the world. We did a survey recently and found that Facebook was the No. 2 most blocked domain on OpenDNS-using networks. (I’ll give you three guesses what the No. 1 most blocked domain was.) Since I’ve been using Facebook I’ve seen that the site is not unsafe for adults like me. No, not at all. But it does make me unproductive. Someone in my position, with my enthusiasm for Facebook, could easily pass a few hours during the workday tending to their account.

When we launched Web content filtering we weren’t sure who, besides parents and network admins at schools and libraries, would use it. Not everyone wants to be a censor. But I think my Facebook fixation and my acknowledgement that [me + work + Facebook = work not done] is pretty representative. When you’re on the clock, sites like Facebook can be a serious distraction. What you do on your own time, off the clock, is up to you.