A Domain Name Server (DNS) is basically the address book of the world wide web. What it does in very simple terms is it converts a web address like www.keithrozario.com into an Internet Protocol address like 208.94.116.157 (this might look like garbage but it's actually 4 numbers separated by a dot, and it's these 4 numbers that uniquely define every machine on the internet).

It's the Internet Protocol address that can actually get you to your destination. Think of it like the actual phone number of the person. It's nice to know someone's name, like Keith Rozario, but it means nothing in terms of contacting me if you don't have my Phone Number. So if you wanted to contact me with just my name, you'd have to look for something called a 'phone book'. In this case, the DNS is the phone book, that translates a name to a number, and the DNS is publicly available.So what is a Dynamic DNS? Well, that's where the allocation from name to IP is dynamically allocated. For instance, the IP address of my website has remained static for the 1.5 years it's been around. So the DNS allocation for my website is pretty much stable. Although I did recently change the web-host, but that's another story.

However the IP address of my home Unifi connection changes everytime I restart my router, which is about once a week or so. If I wanted to add some sort of permanence to my connection, without splurging for expensive static IP packages, I could opt for a Dynamic DNS (or DDNS).

So let's say I have a IP camera at home, that's recording a video feed that I can view on my phone. If I connected my phone to the IP address directly, that wouldn't be a good idea. If the connection dropped while I was away, or my house had an intermittent power cut, that forced the router to re-start (and hence change it's IP), I would lose all connectivity to the IP camera, and my entire home network as well. This is because, I wouldn't know what my home network IP address would be anymore, and hence have no way to contact it. It's like changing my phone number, if you keep trying to call your old number you'd most probably get an error message, or wind up calling someone else.

About 2 months back, I posted up a nuffnang ad on my blog, and with reasons explaining why I felt the need to advertise. The guys from Nuffnang were pretty stand-up characters and I felt like I could trust them, so I begin to post Nuffnang ads and monitor that over time.

Unfortunately the results haven’t been so good, and after some reflection I decided not to port over the nuffnang ads when I migrated the blog over to a new hosting provider. It’s important to recognize that your experience with Nuffnang could be different, and I have no doubt that they do contribute significantly to some bloggers, but for me the relationship just wasn’t going anywhere and I wasn’t really getting any value out of the ads. So when I migrated my blog from Nearlyfreespeech to WPWebHost I decided not to port over the Nuffnang advertising widget–and here’s why?

You may have noticed that my site recently got a spanking new design. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my previous wordpress theme (compositio by Design Disease) and my previous web host (the ever awesome, nearlyfreespeech), but there were 2 real compelling reasons for me to switch web host.

First, maintaining wordpress was taking a lot of time, this included the usual backups and updates and that was eating into time I could have spent researching other stuff or just plain blogging. Secondly, the site had grown both in size and visits, previously I received my first notch up the Google Page Rank, and now I’m a Page Rank 1 site (woo hoo!!). The additional traffic and storage cost were increasing to the point where it made more sense to have a fixed cost monthly payment than worry about the topping up my account (that being said, it would have still been cheaper to host on Nearlyfreespeech).

My first choice was dreamhost, but I’ve tried them before, and while they were good, they weren’t exactly out of this world. So I decided to look for a Wordpress specific hosting service, these are web host that specialize in Wordpress. They cover stuff like daily backups and offer free wordpress themes etc. Unfortunately, most Wordpress host cost quite a bit, but with some google searches, I manage to come across a Wordpress host that was well recommended, was at the right price point, and best of all–based in Malaysia.

Rais Yatim a Member of Malaysian Parliament and a Minister in Government, has threatened Youtube with legal action over their refusal to remove the video of Innocence of Muslims. Nevermind the fact that Youtube have tried their level best to restrict access to the video from Malaysian users, and also failing to recognize the fact that Youtube is merely a video sharing site.

You have to sympathize with Google, they’ve drawn the line the sand and they’re getting the most flak of anyone in this debacle. Most people seem to forget that it was a Youtube user (not Youtube itself) that created and uploaded the film. It also may have slipped your mind, that the video clip is available on other less prominent video sharing sites like Vimeo. Yet Google is sticking to it’s guns under enormous pressure not just from Muslim Governments but from it’s own Government to take down the offensive video. At the very least they deserve commendation for their courage in the face of adversity.

The Malaysian government has requested that Google take down the video Innocence of Muslims, and Google has since complied. As of today, anyone trying to access the clip from a Malaysian IP address would see a screen that reads “This content is not available in your country due to a legal complaint. Sorry about that.”

The clip is most definitely offensive, and demeaning but what is quite obviously isn’t is–serious. The first thing anyone notices from the clip is that it’s of low quality, there are multiple versions of Malaysian Gangnam style that are made with far higher quality than the clip, yet this one particular clip has managed to create such an uproar that people have killed for it. I’m not defending the clip, or opposing it.

What I am against is Governments and Corporations coming together to censor something ‘on behalf’ of the people. What I am against is a ineffectual censorship, which instead of preventing people from viewing the clip, actually nudge them towards actively searching for it online.

In the end, we have to say that video clips don’t kill people–people kill people and  in my view the censoring of the clip is both ridiculously short-sighted and terribly ineffective.

Before my recent trip to Australia, my brand new Samsung Galaxy S3 failed on me. The speaker just went kaput.

Well not really kaput, but there was absolutely no sound coming out of it. Needless to say I was a bit frustrated, annoyed and just downright disappointed. This was an expensive top of the line phone, and it’s speakers shouldn’t be failing after barely 4 months.

So I called up Maxis and reported my predicament, and Maxis said I had two options, either send it back to them or send it directly to Samsung. I figured I might as well cut out the middleman and send the phone directly to Samsung.

So after a few calls and some planning, I found out that Samsung normal fix rate was 3 working days. Which wasn’t good enough for me as I had to fly off by the next day (shit happens), so I survived in Australia with a faulty phone whose alarm wasn’t working. Fortunately, my wife’s Iphone which I bought for her 2 years ago was still working perfectly.

After arriving back to Malaysia I went straight to the Samsung Service center in Digital Mall USJ (first floor) on a Saturday. The told me I’d be able to collect the phone within 3 working days, which worked out to Wednesday.

However, I got a call the following Tuesday afternoon informing me the phone was repaired and I could collect it directly from the service center. So I headed there I collected my now-working phone. So now my Galaxy S3 is working perfectly again.

Samsung took just 2 days to fix my faulty speaker :).