One of the main things about our broadband, it is not as fast as it should be. Granted we surf the net at tremendous speeds. We stream videos like we are watching TV, and we even share conferences in virtual enviroments.

Yet in all of this, it seems like going from site to site, or just simple surfing seems to go very slow. Do you remember when you go to yahoo.com that the web page just pops right up with little or no load time?

I know what some might be saying, that they put so much stuff in front that we have to download all of that stuff just to get some content. For the most part this is part of the reason.

Content is part of the reason, yet not the entire pie. Using the example of myspace. My space pages is porting in content from many different places. Though the page is myspace, the content is not entirely at that server.

Some feel that they are being ripped off. That the internet company is responsible for their slow connections. You spend all this money, only to surf as slow as dial-up users.

Yet, that is far from the issue. Slow connections deals with how well you maintain your box as being the most important factor. Your computer has to still process the packets that it recieves and knows what packets to send. Unfortunately, many have their PC processing unused programs, which in turns not just slows down the PC but the internet as well.

I have been to many customer houses, where they think they know what the problem is, or part of the symptom. I have some tell me that their internet is slowing down the computer. Which is far from the truth.

If you paid for a 3mb connection, then regardless of how fast your computer is, your connection from home to internet is always 3mb. There is no changing the fact.

Okay Zeus, this all makes little sense. You told us to blame DNS. So what is DNS?

DNS may be foreign to many, but let me give a light intro on it and how it functions. I hope it will all become clear soon.

DNS is a acronym for: Domain Name Server/Service.

How this works is that, each computer device is given a set of numbers. This is what the computers use to talk with one another. They are called, "IP addresses." An IP address is simply a phone number for your computer.

Yes, your machine has its own little cell phone set up. Now, as great as we are at remembering everyone's phone numbers. We really do not know everyone's phone numbers.

For instance, what is the phone number to the White House, or to Pizza Hut down the street?

The DNS set up, is giving each number a name. So it will be easy for us to remember the name, and use the name system, then trying to guess the numbers for google.com.

So, let me show you how data transmissions works using a scenario of a telephone. Imagine if you would that you wanted to call, "Home Depot." And the process went a little like this. You start by dialing the operator. The operator then picks up, and you tell it where you want to go. The operator silently dials 411, so it knows where to direct your call, And boom we finally get the connect.

Now, that is a silly scenario, but that is how it works with your computer. You contact your ISP, your ISP says okay, your connection is over there.

It is a long process. But just imagine this is the current set up that many has. We have to get the IP, so we know where to. It is essentially a 3 step process just to load a piece of content.

Which is: ISP, middle man that has info of the addresses, and then the actual site.

That is crazy. Imagine if you would when you go to a website like myspace. You have music from 1 location, pictures from another, ads from another, a widget from another place.

Thinking you have 5 places now, because you must include the site itself, and so your computer has to do this scenario above 5 times. Unless you have like 20 pictures, and each are from 20 different locations, then you have your hands full.

Do you see where the process is slow?

OpenDNS is a free service, that will take that 3 step process, and make it one stop. No more asking the ISP to direct you to the nearest DNS just so you can make the same question again.

OpenDNS is like giving your computer a huge phone book. If you remember the old rotary dials from the past, or the times when phones had no memory features at all?

If you are not using the OpenDNS service then your computer has a similar setup, but using OpenDNS you have like a huge library of IP's and names associated with them.

That way when you say, get me google.com the DNS service has speed and power of a super computer to look at its long list that address goes with and immediately takes you there.

The setup is very easy, you are just inputting 2 IP's manually in your network interface, wait for a moment for the change to take effect, and then off you go.

I have provided a little tutorial on how to set it up.

In this screenshot, Local Area Connection is the only choice. If you have more than one, choose your default/current connection.

Please write down your current DNS settings before switching to OpenDNS, in case you want to return to your old settings for any reason.