Wednesday, April 02, 2008

IP Address Tools

Do you really understand the Internet? I don't mean "understand" like "I could build it if I had to," but understand as in "how does it work and what does that mean for me?" Most people don't.

WhatisMyIPAddress.com aims to fix that lack of understanding. They offer, first and foremost, a lookup ip address tool. If you're really behind on your Internet - understanding, then you need to know that an "IP" is an "internet protocol" address -- it's the numbers that other computers use to identify the computer you're using. And it's how your computer and other websites remember things like "cookies." Go on the internet and see that a link is darkened, indicating that you've clicked on it before? That's other computers identifying yours by the IP. I've simplified it there; WhatisMyIPAddress explains it better here.

But what WhatIsMyIPAddress does better than explain things is give you tools to take advantage of the things they explain. They let you, like I said, lookup ip addresses to find out what computers are located where -- you can home in on the people leaving you comments or pirating your songs.

They let you trace email back to its source, too, so you can help stop those spammers that clog up your inbox everyday. And if your computer is being blocked from websites, they can help you find that out and clear it up.

WhatIsMyIPAddress.com is invaluable; the more we rely on the Internet, the more dramatically it can affect our lives. I rely on the Internet a lot -- and so do you. Their website gives you simple explanations to understand better just what's going on when you use email or surf the web, and understand the problems that can occur when you use email and surf the web.

Once you understand those problems, you can fix them, and WhatIsMyIPAddress.com does that superlatively, from seeing how your IP Address is listed to helping you change your IP address. Frankly, I don't know how you can afford not to bookmark this site and spend a lot of time on it.