Why can't I pull up a website at home that I can at work?
 

I have tried for the past week to get on the Glocktalk.com website in the evenings on my home workshop laptop and I just get an error message that says I have a connection problem or the website is down. I have tried clicking on links from google searches and tried by typing the web address... no joy. I can get on any time on my work computer during the day.

I do not have any problem pulling up any other websites at home and I have tried updating Explorer and also downloaded and ran Google chrome with the same results. I am running AVG. The problem laptop is maybe 6 years old running XP home SP2.

What the hell could this be?

DNS issues

What does that mean and can I fix it?

You can edit the DNS server your computer uses by double clicking on the connection icon in the lower right corner. When the window pops us, click on properties.

Under the General Tab, Go down the list where it says "This item uses the following items:"

Highlight "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" by clicking on it, then click the "Properties" box in the lower right corner.

The "Obtain DNS Automatically" should be selected. Change to the "Use the following DNS server addresses". The boxes now should let you change the setting.

These are a good set of public DNS Servers

OpenDNS (San Francisco, CA, US)
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

BTW DNS = Dynamic Name Server,

It converts the IP address (204.255.161.4 or whatever) to www.hippyfreek.com or whatever. It is a database of these conversions. Your home Internet provider's DNS may have some missing entries.

Actually, DNS means Domain Name System (Server).

because you shouldnt be looking up gunporn sites while at home. ONLY AT WORK! that way wifey isnt on to yer evil ambitions of buying every caliber/every model glock, before they are banned from importation and the price skyrockets!


if anything gets banned first................it will be imports. dont fool yerself!


you dont jes buy the gun and some bullets.


YA BUY ALL THE WEAR PARTS! and that way it will function long after we is all TODT UND GONE!

You're right, my bad. I'm mixing Dynamic DNS into the acronym.

To see if it is a DNS problem, try opening up a command prompt / terminal window and typing this:

nslookup www.glocktalk.com

You should get 64.57.210.240 as the IP address back.

That's what I figured. :)

I have not been home to try changing the DNS per RedBeard's advice, but I called my internet provider and they had Glocktalk.com blocked for some unknown reason. He said they have various sites blocked because of past security issues. He is going to see if they can unblock it for me. This seems odd to me but hopefully they will fix the problem.

If they don't get it unblocked, there are sites that you can use to access other sites. I think they are usually supposed to make your browsing "anonymous". I don't think I can search for any links from here at work (would be blocked), but if you did a search for something like "web surfing anonymizer" you'd probably get some hits.