We love getting to know our customers. Think you’d make a good interviewee for a Five Questions post? Let us know!

Judi Sohn
MomatHome

OpenDNS: Tell us about yourself. What do you do for a living?

JS: I am Director of Operations and Communications for C3: Colorectal Cancer Coalition. C3 is a grassroots patient advocacy organization committed to defeating colorectal cancer through research, policy & awareness. I lost my father to colon cancer in 1999, and that’s what started me in advocacy. I was furious that he died of a disease that could have been prevented, had he known how. And that the disease was fatal because it was caught too late and research couldn’t save him. The organization was started in March 2005 by a group of us who have been working against colon cancer for a while, but we saw that there wasn’t enough attention on being the “squeaky wheels” against the disease the way the breast cancer and HIV/AIDS communities had. Our website is the top resource on the Internet for colorectal cancer-specific advocacy and research information that is patient-centered and continually updated.

I’ve also been blogging on my personal website since January 2003. Before taking a fulltime position with C3, I was a freelance graphic designer working under the name “Mom at Home Design” so that’s why I’ve had that great domain since 1998. Now it’s just a blog rather than a blog & portfolio site. I’m also a writer for Om Malik’s GigaOm site, Web Worker Daily.

OpenDNS: That’s a lot. What do you not do?

JS: Work in an office outside my home from 9-5! I do everything for C3 from my home office a few hundred miles away from everyone else. It’s challenging to stay connected, especially as the organzation grows, but I think I pull it off.

OpenDNS: How did you first get into blogging?

JS: It was late 2002 and I was bored and curious. I started reading blogs first, and I was very interested when they talked about how they did it. Most people hate those “how I blog” process posts, but I loved them. I saw that they were talking about something called Movable Type, and I liked the way those sites looked and worked. I read the instructions for installing and configuring Movable Type and it didn’t seem so hard, so on a whim one afternoon I tried it. I started by talking about what was going in my life, which at that time was major construction on my house. It took a couple of months to get my first comment, and then it just grew from there. My blog is not huge by any stretch. Not even close. But I know I have a little bit of a following, which is nice.

OpenDNS: Does OpenDNS improve the blogging experience?

JS: Yes. Anything that helps my computer react as fast as I’m thinking, which is pretty fast these days, helps my blogging experience. It also helps me when I type too fast and make a mistake in the URL. OpenDNS is smarter than I am.

OpenDNS: What’s your advice to other moms at home?

JS: Don’t sweat the small stuff. Everything I do for my kids, I ask myself, “Is this something that the 2017 version of Judi will want to come back and kick my butt for?” If the answer is no, I let it go.

It’s easy for people to think that you’re a stay-at-home Mom with lots of flexible hours, when you’re really not. I have more flexibility than most, but if anything I have less free time than people with traditional office jobs. Any hours I take away from the day have to be made up somewhere. With such a small organization, it’s not like I have a large staff to delegate to. It’s really hard to draw hard and fast lines between work and home life, so I would advise moms to be prepared for serious blending (and to be your own tech support) or don’t even try working this way.

Jason Sjobeck
President, The Sjobeck Company; Treo Enthusiast

OpenDNS: Tell us about yourself. What do you do for a living?

JS: I’m the president of The Sjobeck Company. We’re internetworking consultants. We design, install, manage and troubleshoot our clients’ networks and devices nationwide.

OpenDNS: I know mobile devices are integral to your business. Which are your
favorites?

JS: The Treo 650. I have a few guys working for me using them as well as a few Blackberrys. I prefer the Treo over the Blackberry, since whatever it lacks in email, it makes up for in all of its other functionalities and openness. I want to get a new one that does EDGE or EVDO or UTMS (it is effort to keep track of all the carriers’ broadband acronyms) but I just haven’t come across one yet that fits. The perfect solution would be the Treo 650, but with WiFi & UMTS & be a hair smaller/thinner/lighter with another 24 hours battery life. Can you invent me one of those? You would be a kajillionaire if you could.

OpenDNS: I wish I could. So you love your Treo, but prior to OpenDNS, did
DNS service for your Treo cause any problems for you?

JS: Wasted time. Not to mention the annoyance of having to type URLs into
the tiny little address bar. If you made a mistake, it wouldn’t redirect you or give you a nice list of choices of places you probably meant to go. It was a problem of wasted time on typos, multiplied 30 fold over all of our employees and clients.

OpenDNS: Would you recommend OpenDNS to other businesses who rely on
smartphones?

JS: Definitely. The carriers’ name servers don’t do anything special — fast, useful, unique, safe, et cetera — while OpenDNS does all those things. I recommend OpenDNS for all users of all smartphones because I’ve noticed on our few dozen Treos so far fast, safe, reliable URL resolution as well as the time and money saving feature of URL redirection for mistyped URLs.

OpenDNS: Is it time to expect more from your phone?

JS: Absolutely. I know it sounds a little extreme to say, but every second counts. I’m driving, working, eating, have a client on the phone, have a vendor on call-waiting, have to email in an order for a part and I dont want to be buggering-around with my browser looking for sites. Drives me just a tiny bit (more) crazy. Any chance to make the day flow a little smoother is well worth it.

Note to OpenDNS customers: Use OpenDNS on your mobile device! We have some mobile instructions but are always looking for more. If you’ve successfully set up OpenDNS on your mobile, tell us how you did it. Post your instructions here, send us an email or share them in the OpenDNS Forums.

John Fitch
Big Geek Daddy

OpenDNS: Tell us about yourself. What do you do for a living?

JF: I’m a former Marine with a BA in History and a MBA and I’m currently in sales for a Fortune 100 company. I’ve been married for over 10 years to my beautiful wife and have a son as well as a daughter who was born just 4 weeks ago. I got into computers about 6 years ago when my Geek friend Mike convinced me to build my own PC. I’ve been hooked ever since and am a completely self-taught Geek as I’ve never taken a single course on anything to do with computers. I just turned 40 so when I went to school PCs were still a rarity. I’m not an expert on anything related to computers, just a friendly neighborhood Geek as many of my neighbors and friends now come to me with their computer problems and questions. I enjoy building computers more than fixing them and like to spend time playing PC Games with my son and by myself when I get the chance.

OpenDNS: How did you come up with the name for your Web site?

JF: Pretty silly really. Last Christmas I had a couple weeks of unused vacation that I was taking and a few days into it I was looking at some websites and just wondered how hard it would be to create my own for fun. My friends and I joke that I’m a Computer Geek and that’s how I let people know I enjoy computers as a hobby, by referring to myself as a Geek. (For the record, I’m a Geek, not a Nerd.) So once I found a site to host my website I started searching for any domain names that had to do with Geek that were available. As you would expect, many are already taken. I wanted the name to be funny and easy for people to remember so I settled on Big Geek Daddy cause I’m 6′3″ 210lbs, a Computer Geek, and a Daddy. My goal with the website is simply to create a place where other people can find useful resources about computing, many of which are free, and have fun doing it at the same time. If I make any money off of it in the process then that’s just an added bonus.

OpenDNS: What changes to you Internet experience have you noticed since switching to OpenDNS?

JF: The biggest change I’ve noticed is how much faster web pages open with less errors - it is definitely noticeable.

OpenDNS: Who would you recommend OpenDNS to?

JF: Everyone. The excellent directions with pictures you have on your website on how to correctly set up OpenDNS really make installing it pretty easy. My exact router wasn’t listed so I just picked the router from the same manufacturer that was closest and the directions worked fine. OpenDNS is an easy way to add another level of security to your PC plus get a faster internet connection and best of all it’s FREE!

OpenDNS: How many hours do you spend per day looking for videos to add to your archive?

JF: Not as many as you’d think. On average I spend less than 20 minutes per day looking at funny videos on the web. Of course that adds up to about 2 hours a week which would be excessive for many people. My tradeoff is that I tend to watch less than two hours of TV shows each week. Many of the videos are actually sent to me by friends as well so I don’t have to search for them. It takes me about 30 minutes each week to update the humor section of Big Geek Daddy. I do spend an additional 1-3 hours a day on the internet working with my website or blog, online store, checking email, and just viewing other people’s websites.

OpenDNS note: Mike was one of our first users. He turned us on way back in July!

Mike Lucas
Professional Geek

OpenDNS: How did you first learn what DNS stands for?

ML: Hard to remember exactly when. I’ve been very interested in working with computers for over ten years now. I will admit though that up until maybe just a year or two ago, I never put much thought into the performance of the DNS servers that I used. I always just used the ones provided to me by my ISP, without knowing I had choices in the DNS servers I used, or that there were better ones out there.

OpenDNS: What improvements has OpenDNS made to your Internet experience?

ML: Faster DNS lookup times, and the reliability of the DNS servers, would be the most immediate and noticeable improvement. My ISP that I get my cable modem service from has been growing greatly over the last several years, and over the last year especially has been adding new customers at an extraordinary rate. Maybe about 6 to 8 months ago I first started to experience problems with my ISP’s DNS servers. I started repeatedly receiving failed DNS lookups to websites that I knew to be working. I didn’t narrow the problem down to DNS for a few days really, and only did after I had eliminated the possibility of it being a new Firefox bug or a wrong setting in my network somewhere. I finally realized the problem was in fact my ISP’s DNS servers as it was only occurring at peak times, at nights and on weekends, times when the majority of my ISP’s customers were all online, and the DNS servers were being overloaded. I first started using a local network DNS program called TreewalkDNS to resolve the issue, which did eliminate my problems, and then several months later I read a news story on CNET about the launching of OpenDNS. The same day I uninstalled TreewalkDNS to give OpenDNS a try, and have never switched back.

OpenDNS: What advice would you offer to other geeks considering switching to OpenDNS?

ML: Just give it a try. It’s very easy to start using, OpenDNS.com provides very easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions, with pictures even, on how to start using OpenDNS on all operating systems and in hardware routers. There’s no software to install, so operating system compatibility is not even an issue. The instructions are very easy to follow even for an average or even sub-average computer user. You will more then likely notice the difference immediately, and if not, you can just switch back to your ISP’s DNS servers at any time. But once you try OpenDNS, you won’t be switching back.

OpenDNS: Is OpenDNS really “Safer, Faster and Smarter” like we claim?

ML: Absolutely. Not only is OpenDNS more reliable then my ISP’s DNS servers, it is considerably faster. I achieve faster DNS lookups using OpenDNS then I did even while using TreewalkDNS. It has made every part of my internet use faster, from web browsing to instant messaging to anti-virus updates. And it is definitely safer as well. The latest versions of both Firefox and Internet Explorer now have built-in phishing protection, but these rely on an internet server to provide the list of known phishing websites. OpenDNS’s filtering of known phishing sites at the DNS level is smarter, because it can not go down without your entire DNS going down too, which has never happened. Not even once in all my time using OpenDNS. And it is also faster in this area, connecting to one server for both your DNS and your phishing protection and at the same time. Without a doubt, OpenDNS is safer, is faster, and is smarter.

OpenDNS: What’s the hardest part about being a geek?

ML: People automatically assuming I can fix any problem with their computer no matter what it is - and do it quickly. Anyone with experience fixing computers knows this is not always the case, but I try my best.

We have so many great users and have been considering, for a while now, different ways to show our love. Out of those discussions the idea of “Five questions with an OpenDNS user” was born. This will be a recurring post category in the OpenDNS blog. Read and learn.

Richard Hughes
Technical Director
MaxWiFi, London, England

OpenDNS: Please describe your organization, and your role there.

RH: I am the technical director of MaxWiFi. We plan, install and manage temporary WiFi networks for media centres and large events. Recent events have included the PGA European Tour in London, The World Rally Championship in Wales and last year we provided a service to the Royal Marriage of Prince Charles & Lady Camilla Parker Bowles. We shifted over 18Gb of traffic on one day without dropping a single packet with a user base of over 400 media from around the world - all packed into a pub in Windsor.

OpenDNS: How did you first hear about OpenDNS?

RH: I was following a blog trail and came across OpenDNS. We are always looking for find ways to streamline our configs and installs and don’t always like to rely on the ISP services we are given. OpenDNS seemed like such a simple opportunity to speed up searches and to improve the end user services, by providing security from phishing sites and intelligent DNS resolution to take care of spelling mistakes!

OpenDNS: What changes have you noticed on your network since switching to OpenDNS?

RH: It’s always hard to measure network performance, especially when your network is rebuilt and relocated every week. We truly became aware of the improvements at the PGA tour when we had snappers (Photographers) commenting on just how fast the network was. We tested it against another network we had running, that was using local DNS, and there was a perceptible difference. On top of that we saved time on writing the configs and when the ISP DNS servers crashed and took down other network’s on-site we just kept running.

OpenDNS: What advice would you give to others who are considering switching to OpenDNS?

RH: It’s so easy to change and test, we would strongly recommend it. In fact every network we install uses it. I use it in the office and at home. Best of all if you don’t like it swap back - nothing ventured nothing gained!

OpenDNS: What is the strangest thing you’ve ever seen while providing WiFi at an event?

RH: Hmm, my favourite was when an American journalist (never known for being quiet or thoughtful), shouted from the middle of a packed press room, “Your WiFi is C*** - I can’t log on or even see the SSID.” We quickly got over to him and after looking at his laptop for a few minutes explained to him he would need to have a Wireless Card or Centrino in his laptop for WiFi to work!

Second fav was a reporter who was at the Royal Wedding due to broadcast Coast to Coast in the USA. We were impressed by her calm before speaking to such a massive audience. When she came back in she was red faced and explained she had just referred to Lady Camilla as Her Royal Horseness!

Anyway, good luck to you all at OpenDNS and we are looking forward to the London site coming on stream.