It’s rather frustrating when you can’t access a website when obviously the website seems to be okay. This is the exact case I’ve experienced with THIS SITE that you’re now viewing! Note the past tense “‘I’ve experienced”, which means good news – I’ve resolved the problem, hurray.

Now you see, previously, I’ve rather occasional (to frequent actually) issue to view my website DesigningWeb.org. Initially, I thought my ISP is bad. But after several follow up with my internet service provider, I realized the website is not exactly down. This can be confirmed when you try to view and access your site via proxy. In my case, I use EatMyBrowser.com which I quite like it as it is one of the fastest proxy browser I’ve used. When I access Designing Web via Eat My Browser, it’s okay! Meaning, the site is not down but somehow I’m unable to access from my desktop.

Since the web site is okay but I’m still getting a Server Not Found on my Firefox, I quickly revert the attention to DNS issue. To determine if it’s DNS issue, you can check using MSDOS command to ping your website. If you’re unable to ping your domain name but able to ping your IP (of your domain name), it is a rather clear sign of DNS issue.

The fix? Go to Control Panel > Network Connection > Properties > TCP/IPv4 > DNS : 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

The 2 DNS IPs are from OpenDNS.com. They are amongst the fastest free DNS servers available.

Go back to the browser and check the website again and it should be visible. See, website up and running.

The Oct 2010 discount coupon for Namecheap is GETITCHEAPER.

Namecheap coupon for September 2010 is BACK2REALITY.

.COM with ICANN fee costs $10.16. With the above coupon code, the overall price after discount is $9.28.

Namecheap is still the cheapest domain name registrar considered domain registration comes with free domain privacy.

I’ve used to use GoDaddy and Dynadot as my domain name registrars. But lately, I’ve been using NameCheap more than ever. Reasons? It’s the cheapest – at only $9.69 for a new domain … wait a minute, isn’t $9.69 more expensive than Dynadot’s $9.25 (.com)? Nah, with a NameCheap discount coupon “NCSPRING”, you got a 10% off and a new domain name at NameCheap is a mere $8.89. And you know what? It comes with a free WhoIsGuard – a domain privacy feature that mask your important personal details like email, handphone and address when someone do a WHOIS on your domain.

So if you now ask me which is my fav domain name registrar? The answer is crystal clear … NAMECHEAP.