GuruNews, Volume 8 Number 30, 8-21-08

Thu Aug 21 21:18:07 EDT 2008

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Vol. 8, No. 30                 

8-21-08

1 Your PC in the DNS phonebook      

2 Dynamic Address         

3 Nintendo no no, 3G isn't, Google infringement, MS crib sheet

4 Sqirlz!

5 Blog vs. website 

Before last week's ForceField recess, I explained TCP/IP and DNS and used packer/shipper and directory or phone book to describe each function.  This week let's talk about the address and phone number of your computer.

When your computer sends all those packets out to your ISP for reshipping to the ultimate destination it's much like placing a phone or web order for a product.  You want a new hard drive, you surf to your favorite hardware site and order one, or you see a piece of clothing in a mail-order catalog and you call to order it.

After payment is arranged the item you ordered is shipped to you, again bouncing through various cargo points until it ultimately reaches your local hub.  On the Internet this is your ISP, and this is where your address comes in.

The address for your PC can come in two different flavors: DHCP and Static.  The former changes frequently, the latter remains constant.

DHCP is a dynamic assignment of IPs.  Every time you restart your computer or router you get a different address automatically assigned to you.  The ISP can also initiate this change.

DHCP gives you a constantly changing IP address, much like getting a new phone number every time you pick up the phone. 

Static IP addresses are just that, they don't change.  Businesses offices request those and some of the more expensive home plans offer them.  All ISPs, web servers, web sites, mail servers etc. have static IPs.  Think of these two different addressing methods as having published vs. unlisted phone numbers.

The ISP is the important link if you have a dynamic address.  When you make a request for a website or to check your email the ISP takes it and reroutes it and when it comes back it knows where to send it for the time being.  

When you connect (pick up the phone) the ISP flags your address so it can't be taken by another system.  As long as you have the phone in your hand you can make as many calls to different users (websites, chatrooms etc.) as you wish.  As long as the ISP has your particular "phone number" flagged you're good.

Hopefully that makes sense.  As we progress deeper into the inner workings of the Internet it's going to become tougher to use phonebooks and shipping companies to make sense of it so prepare to stretch your mind a bit.

Thanks to Team Member Kyle Harmon for feedback on this article, some of my analogies were really bad and he suggested the good ones used ;)

Until next week, be safe.

Kevin Mefford, Editor

pcguru at microdome.net

_____________________________________________________________     

Terry Wise

www.ratland.com

Tech News of the Week

In honor of our nation's LOVE of attorneys, this week's stories all focus on lawsuits because, after all, our barristers are not making nearly enough money.  Enjoy or I'll sue.

On Wednesday, Maryland-based Hillcrest Labs announced that it has filed a complaint for patent infringement with the U.S. International Trade Commission, as well as a separate patent infringement suit in a U.S. District Court in Maryland regarding Nintendo's video game console:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10021221-92.html?hhTest=1

An Alabama woman has filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple over reception and speed problems with its iPhone 3G.  Obviously, the Apple-based Reality Distortion Field does not reach south of the Mason-Dixon line:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2328519,00.asp

US software company Graphon has alleged that search engine operator Google has infringed four of its patents relating to dynamic web applications.  Please note that this article is the first public acknowledgment that California's seat of government has changed:

http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/114539

A federal court in Connecticut has ordered a certification test help-site to stop publishing Microsoft-related materials after the software maker sued the company, claiming that it was selling actual certification exam questions:

http://tinyurl.com/6s4cr9 

Copy us on the good stuff

Matthew Dattilo

thepcgurus at gmail.com 

www.mattstodayinhistory.com

Download of the Week

Let's just have some free fun this week with Sqirlz Morph.  Morph two, three or more images together. Also, warp images individually. Try morphing all the family's faces into one unique (or gruesome) movie! Save your animation as a Flash movie, AVI video clip, or bitmap/jpeg files. You place special control points over important features on each of the images, and the program then distorts each image so that the chosen features are matched. The distorted images are also mixed together into a single 'morphed' image, which is animated to show different proportions of distortion and mixing.  It's free here: 

http://www.tucows.com/preview/365265 

Carlita Lupino

Cards57 at gmail.com

Email Question of the Week

Q:  What is the difference between a blog and a web site?

A:  A web site is basically any place on the web, whether search engine, retail shopping, movie database or newspaper.  Blogs are web sites.

The subset of blog is defined as "web log".  The first ones were more or less just online diaries but many sites now allow individuals to post opinionated introductions to links (like www.fark.com or www.slashdot.org) and they are considered blogs.

Hope that explains it...

Kevin Mefford

pcguru at microdome.net

Contact info and legal stuff

If you have tech support questions or ideas and/or submissions for our newsletter please submit them by visiting www.thepcgurus.com and click on the "Email the Team" icon. 

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