What is My IP Address?

An IP address can be defined simply by saying it's your computers identity. IP, short for internet protocol address, is the identifying number given to your computer by your internet company whether you're connected through dialup or a high speed connection such as cable or DSL. Your IP address is unique to your computer and will never be the same as someone else. The equivalent to your IP address would be your home address, a unique number that is used to contact you.

Your IP address can be used for a variety of reasons. Say you run a game server on your computer and your friends are interested in connecting to it. You would give them your IP address to make the connection. Websites can also track who has visited their website by looking at the IP addresses in the log history. Each IP address can be looked up to determine the originating city or state.

Where is my IP address? An easy way to find your IP address is to go to one of the many websites available that show you your IP address automatically. A popular website to do this is www.whatismyipaddress.com which you can type into your browser and have your IP address in mere seconds. An example IP address would be 102.23.41.1 which would be the identifying unique number. Notice that it has four subsets of numbers; this is true of all IP addresses. You will always have four separate numbers of varying size each separated by a period.

A second and equally easy way to find your IP address on a windows based machine is to go to your start menu, programs, accessories, then click on your command prompt. Once open, type in "ipconfig" and hit enter. This will show you your IP address, but you must make sure it's the external IP address and not your internal IP address. An internal IP address is assigned through your private network or LAN and won't allow you to connect remotely to your computer or allow others to.

Finally, your IP address can be static or dynamic. Depending on your internet connection or internet provider you will be assigned one or the other. Static IP's are constant IP addresses that stay the same, usually for months or years. You can memorize this IP address and never worry about it changing in the future. The other form of IP address is a dynamic IP, these are always used for dialup connections and they are also used on many high speed connections. These change from time to time so you will need to lookup your IP address each time you need to know it. Many of the internet companies will allow you to purchase a static IP address for a small monthly fee, it's up to you to determine if it's really necessary for your situation.

Resources:

http://kb.iu.edu/data/aapa.html

http://www.whatismyip.com/

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question549.htm