OpenDNS Use

I'm now using OpenDNS on both my Internet links.

I had been trialling it on just one, but I was using my original Wireless network and for some reason my ISP's DNS seemed to just be dead. Argh!

I just logged into the cable/DSL Router and entered the two OpenDNS IPs. Saved the configuration. Refreshed the browser and webpages appeared,  everything was just working...

Huzzah!

OpenDNS claims to be faster. That is hard to assess. It certainly doesn't seem to slow anything down. 

However it looks like OpenDNS is going to become part of the infrastructure here.

Vista as a Virus #1

Among many other duties and responsibilities, I am also a Domain Admin of my company's Active Directory. Despite having a normal user account, I must confess to frequently logging into my desktop with my Domain Admin account. On one such occasion, I was trying to track down a DNS issue that our Sydney office was suffering, when I realised that I needed to flush my local DNS resolver cache. Pretty straight forward? Just open a Command Prompt:

C:\>"ipconfig /flushdns"

The requested operation requires elevation

C:\>

Oh! That didn't work! What the heck is "elevation"? Other than sounding like a U2 song!

Well, having googled around and found this thread on a Microsoft site, it appears that as an Active Directory Domain Admin I was insufficiently priviledged on my Desktop to perform that operation from a Command Prompt!

To be able to perform that sort of operation in a Command Prompt I should have started the Command Prompt with "Run as Administrator".

Some may argue that this is merely improving security, but I would not be one of them. Since then, I was started up FileZilla which informed me there was an update available and did I want to install it. I said yes. FileZilla downloaded the file successfully, and then failed. Guess what! Actually running the install program was an operation which required elevation. Grrr!