More than 25,000 schools and school districts are using OpenDNS today — including some of the country’s largest — to achieve CIPA compliance, make their networks better performing, save money and keep their kids safe online. We spend a lot of time talking to these customers and often hear questions about how other school districts are using our service. What are they filtering? How did they configure the service? We came to realize that not only is there not a place online for K-12 network admins to talk to each other about OpenDNS, there’s not really a place online for K-12 networks admins to talk to each other, period.

Aiming to provide that place, today we launched the OpenDNS K-12 School forums.

If you’re a network admin for a K-12 school, take a few minutes and check it out. Have a question about using OpenDNS in your state? Curious how your peers at other school districts are using OpenDNS? The new forums are for you. Since each state has its own unique network configurations (some of you get Internet connectivity from a state-run ISP, for example) we created a section for all 50. At very least, drop by to introduce yourself to your peers and say hello.

And if your state doesn’t yet have a moderator, drop us a line and tell us why you’d make a great one.

With more than 25,000 schools and school districts using OpenDNS today (including some of the U.S.’s largest districts), our service has fast become the standard among K-12 schools. Attend our 30 minute webinar this Thursday and learn why.

We’re thrilled to have Gavin Guynes join OpenDNS founder David Ulevitch as co-host. Gavin, a longtime OpenDNS user who runs the network for Mississippi’s Madison County Schools, will tell you all about how he set up OpenDNS quickly and easily and share the many benefits Madison has gained from making the switch. You’ll learn about how the free service can help you achieve CIPA compliance, save your district lots of money and keep your students and staff safe online.

We know you’re busy, so we’ll keep the webinar short and informative - just 30 minutes. When you sign up you’ll be prompted to invite colleagues, so help us spread the word!

“ABCs of OpenDNS for K-12 Schools in the 2009-2010 Year”
Thursday, August 20, 2009
10 AM PDT - 10:30 AM PDT
Register here

We celebrated in San Francisco last night (and thanks to all who made it out - we had a blast and hope you did, too!) but the official System Administrator Appreciation Day is actually tomorrow — Friday, July 31. We’re doing our part to make sure the holiday gets the attention is deserves, but also know your boss probably doesn’t know about it. That changes this year.

Sign up for our free SysAdmin Day Boss Reminding Service. The email your boss will get will look like this. But sign up quickly because we’re sending the emails at 2:30 pm PST!

SysAdmins and friends of SysAdmins - don’t forget that tonight is the third-annual OpenDNS SysAdmin Appreciation Party. This year we’re cohosting with Meraki, so it’s set to be the best party yet. Great company, cool gifts and stiff drinks. Trust us - if you’re in the Bay Area, this party is not to be missed!

Details below. See you all tonight.

Date/Time:
Tonight, Wednesday, July 29, 2009 from 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM (PT)

Location:
DNA Lounge
375 Eleventh Street, between Folsom and Harrison (near Harrison)
San Francisco, CA

If you haven’t already, register here.

July means many things to many people, but here at OpenDNS it means just one thing — System Administrator Appreciation Month!

This year we’re throwing a big bash to show our appreciation for you. If you live in the San Francisco area — or want to come to San Francisco for the event — join us at DNA Lounge on Wednesday, July 29. There’ll be good people, good music and good drinks. We even have some surprises for you up our sleeves.

Register for the party here. Admission is free. We hope to see you there!

In parting, thanks to SysAdminDay.com for these words. If they strike home, we really hope to see you in San Francisco:

A sysadmin unpacked the server for this website from its box, installed an operating system, patched it for security, made sure the power and air conditioning was working in the server room, monitored it for stability, set up the software, and kept backups in case anything went wrong. All to serve this webpage.

A sysadmin installed the routers, laid the cables, configured the networks, set up the firewalls, and watched and guided the traffic for each hop of the network that runs over copper, fiber optic glass, and even the air itself to bring the Internet to your computer. All to make sure the webpage found its way from the server to your computer.

A sysadmin makes sure your network connection is safe, secure, open, and working. A sysadmin makes sure your computer is working in a healthy way on a healthy network. A sysadmin takes backups to guard against disaster both human and otherwise, holds the gates against security threats and crackers, and keeps the printers going no matter how many copies of the tax code someone from Accounting prints out.

A sysadmin worries about spam, viruses, spyware, but also power outages, fires and floods.

When the email server goes down at 2 AM on a Sunday, your sysadmin is paged, wakes up, and goes to work.

A sysadmin is a professional, who plans, worries, hacks, fixes, pushes, advocates, protects and creates good computer networks, to get you your data, to help you do work — to bring the potential of computing ever closer to reality.

So if you can read this, thank your sysadmin — and know he or she is only one of dozens or possibly hundreds whose work brings you the email from your aunt on the West Coast, the instant message from your son at college, the free phone call from the friend in Australia, and this [blog].