Let's face it, there probably never will come a day when the Internet is fast enough. Sure, the Internet will get FASTER, but the faster it becomes, the greedier the applications will become and we're right back where we started. That's where AnalogX FastCache comes in - making your day to day Internet experience just a bit faster.

    :::What this program does:::
At it's core, FastCache really is a simple caching DNS proxy server - it sits between programs on your computer accessing the Internet and the DNS servers that map domain names to IP addresses. Normally a DNS query happens very quickly, in the neighborhood of around a couple hundred milliseconds - that's roughly a tenth or twentieth of a second. This means that the first time you go to a certain domain, it takes the normal amount of time to look up the domain name, but each subsequent time you return should be instant (as long as it remains in the cache). But what good is saving a FRACTION of a second!?!? In and of itself, not of much value at all, but the beauty of DNS is that you don't normally just make a couple of requests a day - with normal browsing you can literally make hundreds of requests, and that starts to add up.

The biggest reason this will always buy you a time savings is because many domains are configured with timeout periods which are very small, some as little as a couple seconds, some a few minutes to an hour, with the rest normally in the one day range. Since FastCache can override the normal timeout period, you can help to eliminate duplicate requests.

    :::Configuring the program:::
Configuration of the program is pretty simple and straight-forward, we'll go over all of the options briefly.

    Auto start:             Causes the program to be automatically launched when you log on.
    Auto configure:         Currently this only works with Windows 9x (not
                            2000 or XP).  With this enabled, the program will
                            automatically check to ensure it's configured.
    Use tandem requests:    Normally DNS requests are send to the primary first
                            and if the query fails the request is send to the
                            secondary DNS server.  With tandem requests turned
                            on, each query is sent to both servers at the same
                            time, and uses the response from whichever server
                            responds first.
    Enable logging:         The contents of the logging window is stored in
                            the /Config/ directory in a file named with the
                            current date and the .log extension
    Animate system tray:    The system tray icon will animate to show when
                            requests are processed and where the response came
                            from.
    Dialogs always on top:  All dialogs will be initialized with the always
                            on top property set, so they will always be on top.
    Minimum timeout:        This is the minimum time that all queries are
                            cached for, specified in days.  So, if this is set
                            to 7, all responses regardless of their timeouts
                            will be cached for 7 days.
    Maximum timeout:        This is the maximum time to allow items to remain
                            in the cache.
    Primary DNS IP:         This is the primary DNS server IP address.
    Secondary DNS IP:       This is the secondary DNS server IP address.
    Swap DNS servers:       Swap the primary and secondary DNS servers.

The option you're most likely to tweak is the "Minimum timeout", since this really affects how efficient the cache will perform. In most cases 7 days should be the right number, but you can experiment with higher values - just keep in mind that if a site changes their IP you'll need to remove the cached entry before it will get the new address.

    :::Configuring your computer:::
Configuring your computer to send requests through FastCache involves changing your networks settings.

For Windows 9x:     1.  Open the "Control Panel"
                    2.  Doubleclick on "Network"
                    3.  Select the "TCP/IP" settings from the Configuration tab
                    4.  Click on the "DNS Configuration" tab
                    5.  Turn ON "Enable DNS"
                    6.  Add 127.0.0.1 to the "DNS Server Search Order"
                    7.  Click ok - reboot - you're done!

For Windows 2k:     1.  Open the "Control Panel"
                    2.  Doubleclick on "Network and Dial-up Connections"
                    3.  Rightclick on the connection and choose "Properties"
                    4.  Select "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and
                        click "Properties" on the General tab
                    5.  Turn ON "Use the following DNS server addresses"
                    6.  Set the preferred address to 127.0.0.1
                    7.  Click ok - reboot - you're done!

    * Win2k user with static IP's must add a local network connection to
        set the DNS server to 127.0.0.1

For Windows XP:     1.  Open the "Control Panel"
                    2.  Doubleclick on "Network Connections"
                    3.  Rightclick on the connection and choose "Properties"
                    4.  Select "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and
                        click "Properties" on the General tab
                    5.  Turn ON "Use the following DNS server addresses"
                    6.  Set the preferred address to 127.0.0.1
                    7.  Click ok - reboot - you're done!

Once that is done, all DNS requests should be sent through FastCache - whether it's your browser, email program or FTP client - all of them will benefit from the DNS cache.

    :::What the icon means:::
When the program is running, it appears as three small boxes on the system tray (at the lower right of the desktop). When the program is running normally and not doing anything it will be grey, when a request comes in the upper box turns green to indicate it is processing. The lower left box turns green when the request is found in the cache and the lower right box turns green when the request comes from the remote DNS servers. The lower right box is split into two parts, the left part represents the primary DNS server and the right part represents the secondary DNS server, so you can see which server answered the request first. If the icon is red, that means it was unable to start for some reason.

    :::Common problems:::
If the tray icon is red, then the DNS server was unable to start for some reason. The most common cause is that the primary and secondary DNS servers are not entered in the configuration screen.

If the tray icon is grey, but never turns green when browsing around the web then most likely DNS requests are not being sent to the program. This usually means that in the Network Settings for your computer, the IP 127.0.0.1 is not set as the DNS server - check out the "Configuring your computer" for more details.

    :::Conclusion:::
That's it - I would like to thank everyone who helped test the program, especially Chris Pirillo (www.lockergnome.com) of TechTv fame (no, it will NOT be named Red Stapler) and Marco Gransee (www.webattack.com). If you'd like to get a feel for how the Internet in general is doing, make sure to check out:

    http://www.internettrafficreport.com/