Look Out OpenDNS: Google Public DNS Hits the Tubes

Google announced today the launch of their public DNS service. As of right now, all it provides is DNS resolution, while OpenDNS provides a plethora of options.

If you want to give it a try, Google got a pretty epic IP address grab. Use the following IP addresses for your DNS:

8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

As always, the service is in beta, so be sure to copy down your current DNS settings before switching over just in case something goes awry. Google is even providing support telephone numbers in the event you’re unable to access the Internet using their DNS.

Update: I ran tests using Namebench from 3 different locations within my city. Two locations use the same ISP, the third is its own ISP. In all tests, UltraDNS and OpenDNS came out on top. Various Tier3 DNS servers (4.2.2.1, 4.2.2.6, etc) also ranked highly. In all tests, Google’s public DNS servers ranked well, but still towards the bottom of the pile.

First Impressions: Google Voice

Google Voice Interface

Without getting into a long description and history of Google Voice, I simply offer this: The basis for the Google Voice service was originally a independent project named “Grand Central.” Google acquired Grand Central, kept it public for awhile, then it disappeared into the abyss to emerge over a year later as Google Voice. The idea is simple: One phone number, tied to one person, not a device. Using your Google Voice number, you can receive phone calls and route them to any other phone (work, home, mobile, voicemail) based on who is calling, or the time of day, among other options. Additionally, voice mail is handled by Google, which treats voice mail like email; it’s recorded and retrievable by phone, as well as SMS or available online thanks to a transcription feature.

Once I heard that Grand Central, now, Google Voice had reemerged from the Google Cave, I signed-up to receive an invite. Now, several months later, I received an invite… much to my surprise!

I might very well be one of the worst testers for this service.  I know I won’t use it regularly, and if it weren’t for my overactive curiosity with all things nerdy and new, I wouldn’t pay it any attention. I have one phone number, a personal mobile, and that pretty much takes care of it. Currently, I don’t see how Google Voice can add any real value to my communication experiences. But, again, I love playing with this stuff, so as soon as I received that invite, I clicked through and started the process of securing a new phone number.

After all the initial set up is complete, you’re taken to your “Inbox.” Those familiar with Gmail will feel right at home because the GUI closely resembles that of Gmail. In your inbox you can see all voice mail and text messages listed much like messages in Gmail. There are even options to select conversations to be Starred or sent to Spam. “You can spam callers” you ask? Indeed. When you mark a message as spam, you mark the caller as spam. From that point, when the caller dials your Google Voice number he/she will hear ringing, but none of your phones will ring. Any voice mail left will be sent to the spam folder. Additionally there are options to send callers straight to voice mail, or tell callers your number is no longer in service. That’ll get ‘em to stop calling!

The transcription feature is neat for short calls; you’ll get the idea of what your caller is trying to convey, but don’t expect to avoid listening to minute-long messages. My fiance left me three messages of about 50 seconds each to test the transcription. Our friends got a kick out of listening to Voice translate my name into everything but “Justin.” In one of the messages, she said “I’m also very excited that you love me.” Google transcribed it as “I’m so excited that you left me.” Ouch.

The idea behind Voice isn’t brand new. However, in typical Google fashion, they’ve brought together several features of a call-screening system, voicemail system, infused it with already-existing Google technology, and made something that’s really neat.

But, that’s about it… for now, the idea is neat. Personally, I won’t get any heavy use out of it. I’m considering simply using it to handle my voicemail only (giving out my cell number, as usual, then changing my carrier settings to send voice mail calls to my Google Voice number). Once the wedding invitations go out, I want to use it as a RSVP line.

Google TV Ads? Taking Chrome to the Masses

On Friday, Google announced that they will be using their Google TV ads service to place advertisements for Google Chrome on various television networks beginning this weekend. Some time ago, Google put out a call for videos that exemplify Chrome’s unique features. While those videos are doing their viral thing around the web, the video from Google’s headquarters in Japan will be gracing television screens across the nation.

And computer monitors as well.

Saturday morning, while watching Dollhouse on Hulu, I was presented with the aforementioned advertisement. My nerdy excitement was primarily fueled by the fact that I do not subscribe to any traditional forms of television service (cable, satellite), so I thought I’d never get to see the ad, but secondly, I was viewing the ad using the browser in question. (I also got excited when I noticed that all the spiffy computer monitors in the show Dollhouse were the same wide screen Dell monitors I have on my desk. I like the affirmation, alright?)

Though, I’m not sure if Internet Explorer, Opera, or even Netscape in its hey day had entire TV spots dedicated to them, Firefox had a series for select markets back in 2006. Google obviously isn’t giving a lot of details, but their use of the word “networks” instead of “markets” leads me to believe that the advertisements are showing up on, at least, one of the “Big Four.” Chrome has already enjoyed a sizable jump in the browser market share due to hype, Google loyalty, and a massive online advertising campaign, but the company realizes that the majority of users on the world wide web can’t tell Google from MSN or Yahoo, or Internet Explorer from a fish tank screen saver. So, to rope in the technically un-savvy, but technologically curious, Google’s taken it to the ‘tube to sway a group unlike those who will ever read this blog.

According to Google they built a browser out of the goodness of their hearts, using components from today’s best browsers, and in turn, released Chrome as open source. Google’s aggressive push to get Chrome in the hands of users led them to tear the beta label off Chrome in record time (Gmail is still in beta and it’s been around since 2001!). With text, video, and image advertisements all over the web, and now television ads, obviously Chrome means a lot to Google. But, with Internet Explorer finally getting a clue, and the gents over at Mozilla not being the ones to let another browser introduce any feature that isn’t matched and/or bettered, will all this work?

Free Google Cards – Got mine!

Google is giving away, with the help of iPrint.com, sets of 25 profile business cards (pictured left) to the first 10,000 Google profile users who complete the process.

The point is to refer people to Google to search for your name. If your Google profile is set up correctly, it should appear in the search results. Within that profile you can configure all your contact information. Sure, these won’t be taken seriously in a business context, but they’re free, and might be fun.

Finally! Inline (Embedded) Images for Gmail!

It’s here folks… turn it on in Labs and go nuts!

Tether the T-Mobile G1 without any Messy Rooting or Hacking

Tethering has been around for the G1 since it hit the market, but it always required gaining root access to the OS by loading hacked-up version of the firmware. From what I’ve read, the process is fairly painless, and there are few reports of bricking. But, once you’ve rooted your phone, you’d have to load up the software and make changes to SOCKS proxy settings in your browser to connect through the phone.

I’ve been very interested in the idea of using my phone as a modem in a pinch, but I never liked the idea of rooting my phone and dealing with the manual updating and vices that come with it (I’m not a developer, so there’s not a huge benefit). However, there’s a new freeware app, PdaNet,  that sets up your USB-connected G1 as a tethered modem using the WiFi or cellular connection on the phone. PdaNet has already done the job for BlackBerry, Palm OS, Windows Mobile, iPhone, and now, it’s been ported to Android (for G1 only, for now).

The Android version of PdaNet is considered a “preview release” right now. It only allows for connection through the USB, while, for example, the iPhone version can be set up to join a wireless ad-hoc network and others connect via Bluetooth. Though, if you know what you’re doing, you could set up the computer that’s connected to the G1 to share the Internet connection across to the WiFi connection in the computer which is joined to an ad-hoc, effectively using the computer as a router and wireless access point of sorts, with the G1 as a modem.

I was very skeptical of the software; very skeptical that it wouldn’t work as advertised. But, sure enough, it installed without a hitch and the connection was made without a fuss from neither phone nor laptop. There’s even a 64-bit version, but I haven’t tried that one yet.

Just be careful not to violate any terms of service you may have, or go over T-Mobile’s “unlimited” 5GB cap! Word on the street is, though, that T-Mobile will not block tethering, and the 5GB cap is a “soft” cap, meaning, once you hit the cap, they’ll throttle your speed down below edge speeds.  Of course, none of this counts if you’re connected via WiFi, but in that case, why are you tethering??

(via GAB, and Android Community)

If You Post it, they will SPAM it

Most people don't care for spam, in all forms.

I hope that my Internet savvy readers will know that you should never, ever, post a personal email address online in public view. In personal emails, in password-protected forums, sure, post away, but otherwise, posting an email address in plain-text is a one-way ticket to SPAM-ville.

So, if you already know this stuff, why am I writing about it? Because, obviously, not everyone does. Over the past year, I’ve been responsible for the design and upkeep of a local church web site. Of course, one of the best (nerdy) perks is being able to analyze all the unique stats that roll in. One very helpful metric, the “search engine terms” metric, as its commonly referred to, shows you what people terms or phrases that a visitor bounced off a search engine in order to find your site. An interesting trend began to appear after awhile;  one that I hadn’t seen before. It seems that someone, or something, had come to the site after searching for something such as “church in california @hotmail.com.” At first, I only saw a couple of these, but after awhile, these hits began to occurring weekly with different phrases, “pastors in california @hotmail.com,” “email contacts of pearsons @hotmail.com,” “prayer 2009 @gmail.co.th,” and so on. After digging into the stats more, I was able to pull the IP address of the machines that had landed on the site after those searches. The IP address? 74.125.77.132. I’ll wait a second for the nerds to run a trace.

Weird, huh? That address points squarely at Google. Not all the searches had that address attached to them. For example, one search traced back to Togo Telecom, an ISP in France.

No doubt some of you already know what this is all about, but just in case, I’ll dispense with the details of my theory. The hits are coming from bots which are programmed to harvest email addresses for specific campaigns. Yes, even church pastors and staff get spammed from “religious” organizations with special “services” to sell. The method of querying a couple of keywords, then a popular email provider is actually pretty smart in a, let-someone-else-do-the-heavy-lifting kind of way. The hits from Google are most likely a result of the bot choosing to visit the cached link — a snapshot of the web page as it was indexed — provided by Google for each search result so the coveted email address it seeks will still be available on the page, just waiting to be added to a list of email addresses for sale. A search engine bascially hands a list of pages to a bot with email addresses on them, making it even faster to crawl pages than to randomly bounce from site to site hoping to find them.

For example, if I wanted to spam people who are involved with Relay for Life I would search for “relay for life @yahoo.com,” or if I had a fraudulent operation running on fake Scantron forms, I could search “school teacher @hotmail.com.”

So, in review: Don’t post any email address online in plain-text, unless, of course, you enjoy the extra reading material. Currently, the safest way to allow web site visitors to contact you is to use a temporary “throw-away” address, or a form with CAPTCHA verification. Another method I consider safe enough is generating an image that shows the email address without actual text on the page (don’t use the mailto link either!). Any of these email image generators will do. Though your email address appears on the page, it isn’t easily read by a bot harvesting email addresses from text. Though the technology is there, as far as I know, very few spammers bother with OCR (optical character recognition) technology since there are still so many good addresses readily available in plain text.

I wonder what would happen if I Googled “looking for unheard of foreign entity to transfer large sums of cash with no assurance of legitimacy @citibank.com.”