Digital Nocturne

For my thesis I need to study and fully understand the following:

• PHP
• MySQL
• ADOdb
• AJAX
• CSS 2.0
• XHTML transitional

I also need to fully exploit Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 for scripting and Adobe Photoshop CS2 for graphics and GUI design. Our group barely have 2 months in order to complete a working solution for our thesis problem because we have been assigned in one of the most demanding project in our research group… whatever that is — it’s still classified. All I want to do is to beat the challenge.

I was about to sleep last night when I tried to configure the DNS settings of my router at home… I don’t know what pushed me to do it even if I’m too sleepy already.

By default my router gets the DNS information from PLDT servers — 58.69.254.4 and 58.69.254.9. Previously my DNS settings were 203.172.11.21 and 58.69.254.9. After acquiring 58.69.254.4 and 58.69.254.9 IPs, I started to experience “limited” web surfing experience. For instance I couldn’t access multiply.com. I ignored it for months because I don’t have anything important to look at multiply.com anyway. I just realized that I’m not the only one who experience this problem. Some PLDT MyDSL subscriber couldn’t access multiply.com as well. After researching I have identified the problem: The default DNS of PLDT MyDSL.

It was nearly 12 midnight. I looked up some public DNS to replace the default DNS settings and I have found several usable public IPs. I used it for primary and secondary DNS addresses, while reserving the original DNS 203.172.11.21 for my tertiary DNS address… and when I was about to save it in the router’s ROM.. *poof* the router stopped working. It just stopped working. WTF! In the verge of panic I reset the settings of my modem. Ooops… bad decision — the modem was working fine — the router was not! I should have reset the router, not the modem! Now the router is not working too so I have two screwed-up hardwares. But I didn’t lose hope — I just have to configure the router and the modem to their default settings. Unfortunately the modem that was provided by PLDT won’t work with the default settings so I played with several combinations before it worked again. For future reference I noted these settings:

Mode: Bridge (this mode needs username and password for PPPoE connection)
Encapsulation: RFC1483
Header: LLC
VPI: 0
VCI: 100

I think this will only work for “routed mode” MyDSL connection in Metro Manila.

After my modem worked again, I setup my DSL router and with several clicks my home network is back again. Now, back with customized DNS settings here are the IPs I’m using right now:

Primary DNS: 203.172.11.21 (Initial primary Name server of MyDSL)
Secondary DNS: 66.93.87.2 (SpeakEasy Name server)
Tertiary DNS: 199.166.24.253 (ORSC Public Access DNS Name server)

This setup took me awhile to complete. Thanks to my Cisco background in networking it wasn’t too bad an experience. Now I can easily access multiply.com and other websites that I find extremely difficult to access before.

PLDT+MyDSL, PLDT+DNS