TooMuchGreen

So then, IP addressing.

I discovered a *supposed* web facing router the other day which was allocated a 10.***.****.**** address, as the above table shows this is one of three schemas allocated for private network use only. If you check your home computers IP I’ll wager a pound to a penny it’ll start with 192 (if not you’re flying without a safety net….go and buy a NAT router immediately), and I did say HOME computer by the way, business networks of any size invariably run on the 10.***.***.*** schema which, as shown, offers huge flexibility with over 16 million separate IP addresses.

If you do have a router (and I hope that’s the case, especially if you’re running Windows XP, although if you haven’t, and are, my guess would be that XP perhaps isn’t running too well, if at all), and if you know how to access the router config & admin (invariably just type 192.168.0.1 in a browser, or whatever IP number the gateway is set to) you’ll see it’s allocated IP number, that’s it’s *web facing* IP, and here’s the deal – web facing IP numbers are unique and routable across and around the WWW, this is obviously necessary for it all to work and for you to be able to find Facebook or eBay or whatever it is you while away the hours with (see DNS), but also useful the other way round should you wish to dabble with home hosting or other incoming bits and bobs (enter ‘port forwarding’…..although perhaps in another post).

The router in question from the other day is obviously sectioned into a private network, which is something I’ve never come across for a service provided to a home user from an ISP, quite bizarre. Unlike private IP numbers (you can do what the fuck you like behind your own router & firewall) web facing IP’s do cost money, and this is Costa Rica, which is probably as much of an explanation as is perhaps needed (if you know the place), internet access here is *interesting* at the best of times (again – see DNS, open DNS is a no brainer here), I’d dearly love to get a proper look at their setup to see exactly what they’re up to, I really would.

I feel quite lucky to be getting a steady 1mb-ish in the cabina but it’s mainly down to powerful wi-fi reception from the MacBook Air (yep, another tick for the Air), Lesley however has to surf outside as her little 12″ Powerbook hasn’t got the range, not a real problem until the afternoon when it gets too hot for outdoor computing, and from where I’m sat here I can see her and Marjory both surfing away in their makeshift internet cafe (behind a sheet hung from the washing line in the outdoor kitchen…!), it’s most amusing, I can just see their feet and hear the noise of keyboard tapping.

I fixed Marjories laptop for her last week and she’s over the moon after literally 4 months of no communication and various half arsed local repair jobs, it’s now flying along, solid as a rock running the ‘special’ version of Windows XP I use  for my poor  mis-guided Windows clients, I surprised myself too and even fixed the previously non-functional internal DVD drive using a somewhat left-field method of persuasion, I always seem to get better results ‘outside’ standard procedure, I should feel at home here then.