EJGE Information

What are IP Numbers?

Each computer connected to the Internet has to have an IP number. It's also called the IP address of the computer. IP is short for Internet Protocol, in case you want to be thorough. Think of the IP number of a computer like what phone numbers are to people. If it is a dial-up connection, the IP number assignment is temporary; when your connection is closed that IP is available to be assigned to another computer connected to the same modem at your service provider. If a computer is permanently hooked to a LAN (Local Area Network) as in universities and large companies, the IP assignment is permanent; so the IP number will remain the same as long as the LAN is in place.

IP numbers are made up of four integers (four bytes, or one "long integer" to be exact), in human-readable form IP numbers look like these:

   207.68.156.49
   130.128.161.33
   139.78.73.14
i.e., the four bytes are separated by dots. The example above gives the IP numbers of three computers. The last one is one that you use to access the EJGE (You are actually transferred to other computers eventually, in many cases).
When you subscribe (filling the form) we'll tell you your IP number.

Each computer also has a name called a "hostname" -- examples of hostnames are:

   www.Microsoft.com
   geotech.civen.okstate.edu   
   www.ejge.com
Again we have four parts separated by dots. Remembering hostnames is obviously easier than remembering IP numbers, but knowing a few computers' IP numbers is as useful as remembering the phone numbers of a few people.

Similar to phone books, there are lists of IP numbers and hostnames on the Internet. A domain name server (DNS) can get you the IP addresses and hostnames of (millions of) computers that are on the Internet. Domain name servers usually ask other servers to complete the task because not all computers have enough capacity (or allocate that much resourse) to answer any question. Your browser consults such a computer every time it needs to access some other computer for information (that's why giving the number itself in a URL makes it a little faster). This can be useful if IP numbers never changed. They don't (normally) change in established LAN's.