Blog entries

Joomla Services

Paul D. Parisi — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:26:04 +0100

Joomla Advice

I know Joomla. If you need help or advice with your Joomla site please feel free to contact me. I would love to help.

DNSSEC Rally

Paul D. Parisi — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:00:00 +0100

In late August the White House mandated that all of the agencies in the US government have functioning DNSSEC capabilities deployed and operational by December 2009. I am suggesting here that we, as a community, commit to the same timetable. I call upon VeriSign and other registries to bring up DNSSEC support by January 2009. While DNSSEC is not the best ultimate solution, it is the best option currently available.Here are the additional resoRead More...

DNS mindshare

Paul D. Parisi — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:12:59 +0100

I have been thinking about how much people are thinking about DNS and I came across the Google Zeitgeist project (http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist/index.html). Basically this is an interface to understand what people are using the Google search engine for. Specifically, I was poking around Insights for Search and queried a few terms related to DNS. The information is fascinating. The most interesting part I noticed is the number of searches and the countries they are coming from. AgRead More...

So, what do DNS and Email have to do with each other?

Paul D. Parisi — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:54:03 +0100

Email is one of the most important communication mediums to date. We have become dependent on it and since it works so well, we have high expectations that it will work when we need it. But, how does it really work, and what if any role does DNS play in email. First as we discussed in the past, every communication on the Internet depends on DNS, including email. So let’s dig in to what we need to know about DNS and Read More...

DNS from the IT Administrators point of view – Making a web site live

Paul D. Parisi — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:49:51 +0100

Let's move on. Let's suppose you want to put up a web site on your new domain name? You find a suitable, reliable web hosting company, buy an account and visit their control panel and create your web site, even if it is just a simple page with "Hello, world" on it.

Now you have a choice to make - you need to setup your DNS settings. For this example, let's say your DNS is currently hosted at GoDaddy, you can continue with that and go and add recordsRead More...

Just Say No, to Your ISP Subverting Your DNS Queries

Paul D. Parisi — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:30:25 +0100

Over the past few weeks I have been seeing reports that some ISP's are actually subverting DNS queries to their own DNS server. Oh the humanity! What this means is that when you (your computer) does a UDP or TCP Port 53 DNS query the ISP is intercepting that and directing it to their own servers. Has anyone been told by their ISP that they are doing this? No? I didn't think so. Subversion of DNS, even for your own good, is not a good thing. This has the effect of controlling wherever you go oRead More...

Secunia PSI 1.5 is out...

Paul D. Parisi — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:00:00 +0100

Download it now: http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/ Secuina PSI is a great Windows application to give you visibility into what security threats are sitting on your computer. There are so many pieces and parts of software that can be easily compromised... how do you keep up with all the updates? Use Secuina PSI. It is free for personal use and I don't compute without it. Not only does it show you what has an issue but gives direct links on how to fix it. Cool.

DNS from the IT Administrators point of view - The basics

Paul D. Parisi — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:05:13 +0100

Many DNS issues result from gaps in our knowledge – typically because we do not work with DNS all that much. So I thought it would be good to give you an overview of what happens from the beginning. The premise here is you want to implement a new DNS domain name. Let’s pick something to experiment with, yada123.com, first we need to see if the domain name is available and if so, we need to register it. For this example we are going to use GoDaddy, but any registrar should beRead More...

Dusty Name System

Paul D. Parisi — Sun, 31 May 2009 01:39:55 +0100

Every IT person has some interaction with a DNS server, even if it is not managing it. Most DNS servers, certainly the majority are sitting in some closet or rack somewhere dutifully running and collecting dust. Like a certain battery operated bunny, these services just keep on running. The durability of DNS (Domain Name System, that is) is a testimony of just how well it was designed. DNS serves every single user of the Internet consistently, day-in and day-out. What DNS does and how well itRead More...

Test

Paul D. Parisi — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:05:49 +0100

This is a test

De-cluttering Your Mailbox (paper mail, that is)

Paul D. Parisi — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:16:57 +0100

I recently came across this article on how to de-clutter your mail box, specifically my postal paper mail. We get about a bin full of mail that we just recycle. We tend to recycle as much as we can. Our trash pickup costs $3.00 per bag, yes $3.00, and recyling is free. Take a look and let me know what you think, I will keep you updated.

De-cluttering

Keeping your PC safe

Paul D. Parisi — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:58:30 +0100

If you are interested in keeping your computer safe, do what I do, use the following pieces of software:

SpyBot Search & Destory - excellent free malware removal and prevention www.safer-networking.org
Avast Home Edition - excellent anti virus, free for home users www.avast.com
Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware - is an excellent free malware detection and removal tool, http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
more to come...

Blogging from somewhere over the USA

Paul D. Parisi — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:00:00 +0100

I am on a Virgin America flight - right now - typing this blog entry via onboard wifi. Very cool. I am using GoToMyPC to access my office PC. My IP address is: Your IP: 12.130.118.3 Near: Itasca, Illinois United States (this info is courtousey of DNSstuff.com). I am not able to use anything but pure HTTP and HTTPS. I tried to make an RDP connection but no go. Attempting to make an SSH connection into servers also failed. But I can most everything I need to do via what I have here. There is aRead More...

Kindle - is 2.0 better?

Paul D. Parisi — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:43:21 +0100

Amazon has announced the new Kindle. I think it might be time to consider getting one. I say might because it, in my oppinion, costs too much for blogs. When I first checked into the Kindle I wanted to use it read all of the blogs and web pages I keep up with, but quickly learned that blog subscriptions cost money. Eek.

Then I came across this article on MakeUseOf.com

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/kindlefeeder-kindle-app-pushes-feeds-kindle-free/

Wow, finRead More...

Mozy - Great Online Backup

Paul D. Parisi — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:33:03 +0100

Backup is very important. Having files on an external hard disk is not backup unless you store that disk at an alternate location. I use Mozy. Mozy is a service owned by EMC, which backs up your files to their data center over your Internet connection. It works with both Windows and Macintosh. It works well. By the way- did I mention it is free? You can backup up to 2 gigabytes for free. Just sign up.

2GB Totally Free Online Backup! Compliments of Mozy and Paul Parisi.com

Mozy UnRead More...

Trust, but verify

Paul D. Parisi — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:00:00 +0100

We are at an inflection point in our lifetimes. The Internet is broken, seriously broken. Why is it broken you ask? The root cause is trust, that there is trust built into the fabric of the Internet. Each “part” that works in the Internet trusts the other parts, think DNS, BGP and the like. When these were designed they were all designed in a framework where they could trust each other. I co-opted Ronald Reagan’s phrase of “trust but verify” for a previous company I started which was involved inRead More...

TeraCopy - Fast File Copy for Windows

Paul D. Parisi — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:33:52 +0100

TeraCopy is a nifty little Windows utility which greatly improves file copy, and move, performance. Check it out at http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php. I like it enough to have bought the Pro copy to support the developers.

Adobe Photoshop 6 and 7 are better than Photoshop CS and CS2? What? Huh?

Paul D. Parisi — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:33:56 +0100

Adobe Photoshop 6 and 7 are better than Photoshop CS and CS2? What? Huh?

Well not really, but one thing that version 6 and 7 did have, but was eliminated from CS and CS2, is the ability for Windows XP to display thumbnails of PSD images.

Since I had installed CS, and subsequently CS2, I noticed that I could no longer get thumbnail images to appear in Windows XP. I recently had a bit of time and tracked down the issue. Apparently, some people have had trouble with the thumbRead More...

Looking for Love in All the OS’s

Paul D. Parisi — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:00:00 +0100

What is your quest? My quest is to find the OS, the one OS to rule them all. Over the past twenty years I have been an avid Mac and PC user running both much of the time. About eight years ago I started using the PC most of the time, but the Mac was still nearby, on the next table, running Windows XP as my desktop. When Vista came out, I tried it and while I loved the new “eye-candy”, it had some idiosyncrasies. Mostly it seemed keen on making me wait. ; “Not Responding” seemed to be its maRead More...

Previous Presentations

Paul D. Parisi — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:28:30 +0100

Digital Photography Presentations

Inside the Digital Darkroom - Version 4.1 - May 2006

Inside the Digital Darkroom - Version 4 - January 2006

Photoshop Digital Magic

Inside the Digital Darkroom [Printable] - Version 2

Inside the Digital Darkroom - Version 2

Introduction to Digital Photography

The Digital Camera - Version 2

Links of Interest

Microsoft Color Control Panel Applet for WindRead More...