DNS outages happen everywhere, from Italy to Illinois. And when they do, we can count on people taking to Twitter via their smart phones, to vent, find out what’s going on, and learn how they can get back online (thanks to us!).

We love helping frustrated people set up OpenDNS during these DNS outages. But one thing we discovered is that for the less-than-technical people amongst us, simply saying “use 208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220″ isn’t enough. People don’t know what those numbers are, or where to look on their computer or router to change them. That’s why we’ve created a new mini-site; you can find it at use.opendns.com or http://208.69.38.205/.

Why are we making it accessible via both an IP and a URL? Because if your DNS is down, we want you to be able to access the instructions via your computer’s browser. Having an IP address means no matter what’s happening with your DNS, you can get to the site.

The next time there’s a DNS outage, we’ll head to Twitter as we normally do, to act as a resource and problem solver for those without DNS. And, thanks to this new page, it will be easier than ever to get OpenDNS set up, even for those who’ve never heard the term DNS before.

But our hope is that we won’t be the only ones. Our hope is that you’ll bookmark http://208.69.38.205/ and that the next time you hear that there’s a DNS outage, you can be a resource for your friends. Text them, call them, tweet at them — let them know it’s easy to get back online and it’s simple to get safer, faster, smarter and more reliable Internet — all that’s needed is to set up OpenDNS.

Starting today, all OpenDNS network administrators can choose whether or not they’d like to include a link to “Contact your network administrator” on the block page that pops up when users on your network try to access restricted content. Why the change? We heard from a number of you that the emails you received from the block page weren’t something you wanted to read. Based on that feedback, we decided to give you the choice of whether you wanted to receive these messages or not.

By default, we’ve left the link there, but you can turn it off by visiting the Settings tab in the Dashboard, selecting a network, and clicking on the Customization link. There, you’ll see a checkbox in the “User Feedback” section titled, “Show Contact Admin Form.”

At OpenDNS, we’re always focused on empowering our users through advanced customization options, whether it be the 50+ web content filtering categories, or incremental improvements like this one. If you have any ideas about how we can help you better personalize OpenDNS, let us know in the IdeaBank!

I love this time of year. People are cheerful and kind, offering to help each other however they can.

One of the easiest ways to help others? We’ve reminded you before, but while you’re home for the holidays this year, do your loved ones a favor and set up OpenDNS on their computer or router. (We recommend the router if possible. But don’t forget to download the updater client on their machine to make sure their IP stays updated if dynamic.)

The simple, two-minute change will not only make their Internet better performing – faster and more reliable – but it will also keep them safe online. OpenDNS’s on-by-default phishing protection will keep them safe from fraudulent sites and take the guesswork out of identifying them. If they have little kids around, ask if they want Parental Controls on, too. And add a custom image – a family photo, perhaps? – and custom message for the Guide and block pages for extra personalization.

Happy holidays to everyone. Wishing you and yours a happy, healthy holiday season.

A few weeks ago we made the decision that SmartCache, one of OpenDNS’s most significant DNS caching innovations, would be available for free to all of our 15 million users around the world, regardless of which version of the service you’re using. SmartCache keeps track of the last known good IPs for Web sites that are experiencing an authoritative DNS outage and hands them back instead of returning no answer. In many cases, the IPs associated with the web server or other services you are trying to reach work just fine and the Web site loads successfully. Without SmartCache, it’d feel like the site was down. So in effect, SmartCache makes Web sites that are down and unreachable for the rest of the Internet load for OpenDNS users.

In order to take advantage of SmartCache, you still need to take action and enable it on your network. Here’s how to do it:

1. Log in to your OpenDNS account.
2. Go to the Settings tab.
3. Select the network you want to enable SmartCache for.
4. Choose Advanced Settings.
5. Select “Enable SmartCache on this Network” at the top.

That’s it. Just five steps. We encourage you to take a few minutes and enable it since it’s such a fantastic feature.

Now that Halloween is over, we embark on the two month journey through the American holiday season. I love the holidays; it’s all togetherness and helping others and giving thanks from here.

In that spirit, I got to thinking about all the ways we’ve been working to make OpenDNS easier for you and yours to use. OpenDNS is really a service every network should be running, regardless of how large or small your network is. So this goodiebag of helpful tools has something for everyone — from households to schools to large, global enterprises. We’ll keep thinking up more ways to make OpenDNS better, but as always, if you have suggestions I encourage you to submit them at Idea Bank, post to the Forums or email me directly at allison at opendns dot com.

1. A brand new video tutorial. This is a biggie, and something we’ve wanted to do for a long time. OpenDNS is not always the easiest thing to explain. All Internet users relate to the frustration of unreliable Internet and slow page-load times, and see the value of free Web content filtering. When we say OpenDNS is a service that’ll make your Internet safer, faster, smarter and more reliable, free, everyone wants it. But the setting up part — the finding your DNS settings and swapping your ISP’s IP addresses for OpenDNS’s — sometimes presents a challenge. The video tutorial walks you through the entire process in under 5 minutes.

2. Schedule a Demo // Request References services. This one is not new, necessarily, but since we’ve never really called your attention to it, I figured now’s as good a time as any. The Schedule a Demo and Request References were really designed with larger organizations in mind. We’ve learned that when you guys make a decision about using a new technology on your network, there are often lots of different folks involved in the decision making process. Sometimes there’s even paperwork that needs to be filled out, and calls that need to be made to existing, happy users of the service in question. Scheduling a demo couldn’t be easier. Just tell us a bit about you and your organization to prepare the OpenDNS rep who’ll do the demoing. Invite coworkers and get all of your questions answered on one snappy call. Same thing for requesting references. We’ll match you with an organization that’s similiar to yours. Have you seen how many happy customers we have?

3. Expanded router selection. We’re always working to keep our selection of routers in the instructions updated, but recently we went big and added several. Today we offer instructions for 16 different router manufacturers from the well-known Linksys, NETGEAR and D-Links to some more rare models. The goal is to have every router represented, to make it as easy as possible for everyone to set up OpenDNS, so look for us to continue adding to our gallery.

Happy holidays, everyone.

OpenDNS is a great complement to existing network set-ups. Hearing that others think the same is even better.

Simple DNS Plus is a Windows DNS server for hosting and managing your own domains, among other tasks. In response to customer requests, Jesper G. Hoy at JH Software created instructions for Simple DNS Plus customers interested in using OpenDNS for their external requests.

Thanks to Jesper for permission to share these instructions on our site, as part of our forwarding instructions.

The famous quote about defining pornography is “I know it when I see it,” from a 1964 Supreme Court case. I’m glad we’re working with St. Bernard Software to get human-reviewed categorization of adult sites for our adult site blocking service.

At home, I’m the network administrator. While testing adult site blocking, I learned that you need to be careful what you block. My wife alerted (ahem) me to my overzealous blocking. For the interested, TMZ.com is classified as both lingerie/bikini and adult themes. I cannot disagree… but it’s still a fun celebrity gossip site. It’s no longer blocked on my network, though other categories are.

That kind of control is useful, and it’s why we offer 6 categories, so you can make the right choices for your network.

Avoid making my domestic misstep. Check a site to find out whether it would be blocked, and why.

Thanks to Seg for helping us put together instructions for setting the Nintendo Wii to use OpenDNS.

Whether you’ve had DNS issues with your Wii in the past and need something more reliable, or you just want to speed up performance and safeguard against future outages, switching to OpenDNS will do the trick.

Note: if your console is connected to the Internet via WiFi router, we’d recommend changing the settings on your router instead of the Wii itself.