From: TUAW
URL: http://www.tuaw.com/2010/05/16/manage-your-dns-settings-for-faster-web-browsing/
Sent from: jin (son622@hotmail.com)
Sent to: son622.gomaths@blogger.com
Comments:
Finding that fastest servers is really easy these days, thanks to a free utility called namebench. Grab a copy and load it up. It will automatically include whatever you have set as your current domain name servers, which you can leave alone for now. You can experiment with the settings, but I've found that my best results come from checking all three of the main checkboxes (global DNS, regional DNS and censorship checks), selecting my primary browser as the source, and using the automatic test selection mode. I run 220 queries, and usually do two runs. When it's finished, it will load up a web page of results (from your local machine). Then you just have to modify your DNS settings based on the results.
To modify your DNS servers, open System Preferences and go to "Network." The easiest thing to do here is just to go to your primary interface (usually Ethernet or Airport, depending on how you connect) and enter a comma-separated list of IP addresses in the DNS server field. If you want a nicer interface, click on the "Advanced" button and choose the DNS tab in the tab bar. There, you can use the plus and minus buttons to add and remove IP addresses from the list.
Generally, the top three IP addresses that namebench provides can just be inserted in one of these two ways and, depending on what your current servers were, you may notice a sizeable difference in the time it takes to initially locate web pages. Give it a shot! Note that your optimum settings will change over time, and especially from location to location. Setting up a few Network Locations for networks you use often will allow you to easily change DNS settings when you change location.
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Despite a lot of evidence to the contrary, many people believe that intelligence is fixed, and, moreover, that some racial and social groups are inherently smarter than others. Merely evoking these stereotypes about the intellectual inferiority of these groups (such as women and Blacks) is enough to harm the academic [performance] of members of these groups. Social psychologist Claude Steele and his collaborators (2002) have called this phenomenon "stereotype threat."
Yet social psychologists Aronson, Fried, and Good (2001) have developed a possible antidote to stereotype threat. They taught African American and European American college students to think of intelligence as changeable, rather than fixed - a lesson that many psychological studies suggests is true. Students in a control group did not receive this message. Those students who learned about IQ's malleability improved their grades more than did students who did not receive this message, and also saw academics as more important than did students in the control group.
Racial, gender, and social stereotypes aside, it's a good bit of information to keep in mind next time you run into a stumbling block in your work, studies, or hobbies. Your smarts aren't set in stone, and simply believing that can significantly improve your ability to learn.
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