Internet Address | Home Network

For the first informational post to this Home Network blog, we are going to talk about Internet Addresses or IP address for short.

Each computer that is connected to the Internet, whether you are in the office computer network, or at home, or maybe at your local Starbucks, you are issued with unique set of 4 numbers that identifies you on the Internet. Its like your own telephone number which uniquely identifies you amongst all the other citizens in the country. That's how other computers find your computer on the Internet and also among your home computers in your home computer network. An example of this Internet Address looks like this : 192.168.0.5 or 10.1.5.30 ..

So how do we find out what's our own unique IP address ? Simple. Follow these steps if you are using Windows XP :-

1. Click on the Start button
2. Click on "Run"
3. At the newly appeared box, type "cmd"
4. A black window will appear. This is called the Command Prompt window. It allows you to type commands that will give you more information on your computer.
5. In the black Command Prompt window, type "ipconfig" without the quotes.
6. Your unique IP address will be displayed

So the next time when you call technical support for your computer or your friend wants to connect to your computer and ask for your IP address, you will know exactly how to find it !

In the next post, we will learn more about the different kind of IP address there are on the Internet. This is similar to different extensions for the different states in the country. When you see a certain combination of IP address, you can roughly tell what kind of IP address it is. Did you know that your IP address in your home network is different from the IP address in the Internet ? Well, just a little teaser for you there.

Till then, stay tuned.