Surviving the Holidays for the Tech Savvy

  • November 25, 2014·
  • by Natalie Goguen·
techimage

It’s that time of year again. You are heading to another awkward holiday gathering where you will have forced conversation with relatives you hardly ever see. But that isn’t even the worst of it. Between the warm egg nog and burnt turkey you will inevitably be asked, “Hey, can you help me fix my computer?” It probably isn’t the first time your family has asked you this, but every year you hope it will be the last. Trust us, it won’t be.

So this year instead of dreading it, be the tech god you are capable of being by using these simple tips!

Come Prepared

Before going to you families festivities make sure you have everything you need. Downloading the latest software updates before hand can be helpful. This way you don’t have to wait on slow internet connections to get the computer up to date. Grandma still has dialup, what?? If you are unsure of what operating system your family members are using, download the most common ones to be safe. These might include Windows and MAC operating systems.

Windows: 8.1 | 7, SP1 | Vista, SP2 | XP, SP3
OS X: Mavericks, 10.9.5 | Mountain Lion, 10.8.5 | Lion, 10.7.5 | Snow Leopard, 10.6.8 | Leopard, 10.5.8 | Tiger, 10.4.11

Bring Backup

If your family is full of non-tech people, chances are they don’t have a lot of tech items. Come with a portable hard drive so that you can backup the computer before attempting to fix it. I’ll never forget last Christmas when I was trying to help my brother fix his computer and I actually made it worse. (Don’t ask me how, but it happened) I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t undo what I had just done.

This is especially important if you end up having to re-image or wipe the computer to solve the problem. The hard drive is also your safety net in case you click a wrong button and accidentally delete all of Nana’s pictures from the last family reunion.

Pro Tip: This hard drive can also store the software updates you bring with you. 

Think Security

You will probably notice that most casual computer users don’t have an antivirus software running on their computer. And if they do, it is probably out of date. Keep on hand a free antivirus installer that you can run on their computer. The scan will help you search out issues while you’re there and will continue to update automatically long after Thanksgiving is over. (At least until Christmas, right?)

Enjoy the Day

Finally, it’s important to remember that you are off the clock. You don’t have to do anything or help anyone you don’t want to. And if you can’t solve the problem “IT’S OKAY!” So sit back, relax and eat some pumpkin pie!

Happy Holidays from all of us at No-IP! 

No-IP Helps Evelyn Mount Feed 70 Families

  • November 24, 2014·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

Reno, Nev. — No-IP donated enough food for 70 families to Evelyn Mount Community Outreach on Friday, in hopes of helping feed those in need this Thanksgiving. The donation included, 40 large turkeys, 10 hams, 16 cornish game hen, 10 small turkeys and 25 boxes of stuffing.

This small donation is part of a bigger cause, started by Evelyn Mount and her husband Leon in 1979.

“As residents of Reno we consider it a privilege to be able to assist the community in which we live and work,” Heather Eaton, junior product manager said. “ Evelyn Mount has been running a food bank out of her garage for over 30 years, taking donations from the public and putting together food baskets for hundreds of local residents who, without her work, would have no dinner on Thanksgiving.”

The organization located on Cannan Street accepts donations of food and gently used clothing all year long. During the holidays they take donations for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners including turkeys, ham, chicken and the rest of the holiday fixings. Canned goods are also always needed and welcome.

The No-IP team spoke to volunteers at the outreach, who said all the donations they have received are spoken for and more donations are needed. The outreach expects to serve a thousand families and senior citizens this Thanksgiving.

“To give to such a fantastic organization and assist Ms. Mount in helping feed almost 70 families this holiday is an honor,” Eaton said.

Donations of food can be dropped off at Evelyn Mount’s house at 2350 Cannan Street in north Reno.

For more information you can call 359-0807 or 356-2038 Monday through Friday between the hours of 11 am and 4 pm.

Tis the Season for Heavy Web Traffic

  • November 24, 2014·
  • by Natalie Goguen·
happythanksgiving

Tis the Season for online shopping and ECommerce sites are preparing for the onslaught of heavy web traffic. So how do you make sure your website doesn’t experience slow upload speeds, downtime or loss of customers? It’s simple! Follow these three holiday rules to ensure you are ready for whatever happens this year!

Beware of Typosquatting

Typosquatting is the practice of registering a domain that is eerily similar to someone’s current domain. Example www.someone.com and www.someon.com. When a user types in www.someon.com accidentally, they are a directed a site that looks very close to the site they were trying to reach. Unbeknownst to them they are at the wrong site, potential giving their personal information to an attacker. Avoid typosquatting of your domain by registering the domains that could be common misspellings of yours. These could including leaving the . off between wwwsomeone.com or forgetting the last letter as shown above. If you register these domains and redirect them to your site, you can decrease the risk of falling victim to this attack.

Outsource your DNS Management

If you are hosting your website locally and your primary host goes down you could face serious downtime. By outsourcing your DNS management you can ensure 100% uptime, because Managed DNS providers often have points of presence all around the globe. If one goes down, your traffic will be diverted to a different host. No-IP has a 100% uptime guarantee and 19 points of presence across the globe, giving you the security you need during this busy time.

Monitor…Monitor…Monitor

When your site goes down do you know right away? Server monitoring sends you an alert the second something goes wrong with your site. Then you get an additional service check every 15 minutes until the problem is resolved. This means you can fix the issue as soon as it happens, reducing downtime and increasing customer satisfaction!

Rely on Failover Support 

While your site is down what is happening to your business? Chances are they are going other places.  If you have failover support, your traffic can be diverted to another IP address, website or to a custom webpage stored on our servers. When your service comes back online, we will will undo the failover settings and normal operations will continue. Your site and customers won’t miss a beat.

Happy Holidays!

 

No-IP is at ISC East This Week!

  • November 17, 2014·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

No-IP is attending this year’s ISC East trade show in New York City, November 19-20. ISC East is marketed as, “THE security industry trade show.” This year’s event will feature representatives from more than 200 of the security industries best companies. Attendees of the trade show have the opportunity to stay ahead of the security game as they learn about new technology and future products.

Some of the new products and solutions featured at ISC East include:
- wireless security applications
- fingerprint and facial recognition
- lockdown equipment
- home automation

Most importantly, No-IP will be introducing a new security solution at the show! No-IP Security Solutions provides Dynamic DNS and remote access on your own custom domain. It features easy account management and optional installation support from the world’s leader in DDNS. Find out more about this new service here or talk to our sales team at booth 645 during the trade show! 

If you see us there let use know on Twitter or on Facebook!

4 Useful DNS Tools You Should Use

  • November 13, 2014·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

Check out these 4 DNS tools everyone should use to make their lives a little less stressful (like that’s even possible). These tools are great for people that are trying to see if their No-IP hostname is resolving correctly.

To use these tools you will use the Dig command in terminal (Mac) or the command line (PC).

Dig is an acronym for “domain internet groper”.  Dig is a useful tool for webmasters and system administrators, it can be used to query DNS servers and fix DNS related issues.  Dig is a part of the BIND DNS software.

Check out these 4 useful DNS tools you should use:

1. Whois

Whois is an easy way to find information on the owner, nameserver, registrar etc. of a domain name. It is useful for getting all the detailed info you want from a domain, assuming the domain doesn’t have private registration enabled.

The Whois command can help you identify the responsible party for a domain. This is useful if you have problems sending to, or receiving from a domain; or if you just want to query the authoritative nameservers for that domain. To use these tools, open up Terminal on your Mac, or command line on your PC.

Type “Whois” followed by your domain of choice and hit enter.

Then type Whois mashable.com and hit enter. It will bring up all of the domain registration information.

2. Ping

Ping checks to see if you can actually reach a server. It is the go to command for making sure that a server is online and functional. You can also use this tool to see if a website is down for every one, or just you.

Type “ping noip.com” and hit enter

To stop this command hit “Ctrl + C”. Ping is a simple way to check if your domain name is resolving correctly.

3. Dig

Dig is a great way to get check records for a domain like A, MX, TXT, PTR and other advanced DNS records. We have done quite a few extensive Dig tutorials. We love Dig!. Check out this Dig tutorial for some cool ways to use it.

You can use Dig to lookup nameservers. NS lookup is useful for quickly looking up name server information, but it usually requires detailed parameters.

Type “dig noip.com ns” and hit enter.

This command will show all of the nameservers associated with noip.com.

4. Traceroute

Traceroute shows you the route (path) that was used to connect you to the IP address or hostname. It will show all of the routers it goes through until it gets to its destination, or it fails. A traceroute also tells you how long each hop to each router takes and if it fails, it will show you exactly where the IP packet failed. Our support staff uses it all of the time to help customers figure out if their hostname is resolving to the correct IP address. This guide will show you how to run your own trace route.

Have any other DNS tools that you find useful? Let us know in the comments!