I have a couple notes before the article; first up I have a prayer request. I have recently been asked to do two radio interviews on Christian radio stations. While I am very excited about these huge opportunities to share preparedness with other believers, I am 36 shades of nervous! LOL. I don’t do well in the spotlight and can get frazzled easily. Yes, even on the radio! I found that out the hard way, quite embarrassingly, many years ago. You could say I went to the Moses School of Public Speaking.
If you wouldn’t mind praying for God to just speak through me, and let my nerves be calm, to let Him use me to bring this message to those He wants to hear it, and to do it justice. I believe both interviews will be available for download, and if I manage not to run out of the room screaming, I will put a link on the blog later.
Thank you all in advance!
Secondly, you’re probably aware that the forum was launched last week. So far there are just over 100 of you signed up! It is my prayer that this forum be a place for those the Lord has called to prepare to share and have community with one another. I invite those who aren’t registered to do so. If you have questions, this is a safe place to ask them. If you have been prepping for a while, please share your knowledge with the rest of us!
Alternate Ways to Communicate
Margaret recently sent me an email about an article that she found explaining what to do if the DNS (Domain Name System) goes down. I thought this was a good opportunity to explain some alternative ways to communicate in case the normal ways are not available.
Domain Name System
DNS basically translates the name of a website that you are familiar with into the IP address that the Internet uses to communicate. For example when you want to go to Google, you type in Google in your search tab. Your browser then goes to the DNS server which translates http://google.com into 74.125.224.72.
There are different things that can shut down DNS. The article Margaret sent me called How to stay connected when Internet service goes down mentions that many users in Southern Ontario were without Internet service for a few hours, due to a DNS outage.
It is possible to change your DNS server, that way you can still surf the web. The process of changing your DNS is going to be different depending on what operating system you have. For this reason I’m going to link to OpenNIC, a website that has instructions for multiple operating systems. You can also find your closest OpenNIC DNS server.
This is something you’ll want to have a hard copy of. You might even want to do it now so you understand the process.
Cell Service
During large emergencies, cell towers are often so congested that you are unable to place a call. There are a few options available if this should happen. If you can find a landline, you might be able to get out, but they are often congested as well. I have heard that sometimes you might be able to make a long distance call as it is only the local lines that are clogged. I don’t know if this is true, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
Texting
Sending a text requires significantly less bandwidth and does not require a constant connection.
Push to Talk
If you have a smart phone, there are some apps you can purchase. I haven’t used any of them, but as they use a different medium to transmit, they should work just fine. You will, of course, need whomever you want to communicate with to have the same app installed. All three apps are free. Their names are Zello, HeyTell and Voxer..
Thanks, Margaret, for the article idea!
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