Computer Tricks & Tips

During our everyday usage of computers, we stumble upon many issues. Each of us knows a trick or two in these situations which can help in resolving/debugging the problem. We thought it would be a nice idea to share such tricks through this medium so that we could make a collection of such tips that all of us could use.

Let me start with one :

DNS Server issues.

Many a time, when I connected to the internet, I faced problems of being unable to browse sites with my browser. But my antivirus program would go ahead and update virus definitions.
On digging into the problem, I realized that the issue is usually to do with the Domain Name System(DNS) Server which translates the URL like www.google.com to an IP address like 209.85.231.104.
Usually the DNS server maintained by the ISPs are not online 24/7. Due to this, we will be unable to browse even though network connectivity is established. I have faced this issue a lot of times with my ISP (BSNL) and hence switched over to Open DNS.

Using Open DNS not only assures 100% DNS server uptime but also provides security.
Here is a link that explains in detail, the steps needed to switch your DNS server to OpenDNS.

I guess most of us know about this but it would be good to document it here.

Request others to contribute tips/tricks they generally use in their everyday usage of computers.