Static IP Address - How-to

Date: October 5, 2006
Time: at 8:29 pm
Posted in: in internet, software
Comments: Comments (1)

In a previous entry, I invited my readers or any visitor to ask me a question via the Ask Me section above. I’ve gotten a few good questions. Most of them are about phpBB which I specifically asked not to be submitted. Some were about how to solve simple physics problems? Huh? What, do I look like a calculator? But regardless, I got a few that I think I’ll turn into an entry.

The first question is about static IP addresses from an ISP that only provides you with a dynamic IP address. If I’m gathering the question correctly, I’m assuming this person wants to setup a web server on their computer, but has no way to access it for any length of time due to their computer’s IP address changing every hour, or day, or week, depending on the ISP.

First, I should warn you that running a web server on your computer opens it up to potential security hazards unless you know what you’re doing or have some kind of firewall setup either on your router, or firewall software. And that said firewall software is properly configured, not just “I installed the disc, so it must be okay.” I won’t get into the specifics of that in this post, because it’s way too involved and there’s no one “correct” way to do it.

Sticking with the topic at hand, in order to get someone access to files on your computer via a web browser, you’ll need to have some static address in place. Most often, this won’t be in the form of an IP address, but an actual domain.

There are a few services out there that offer DNS redirecting services for free. My personal favorite, and the most popular, is No-IP. Basically, you sign up for a free account, choose the domain name you would like to use (or sub-domain rather), and then install a small program on to your computer. What this program does is (every 10 minutes or so), get the IP address for your computer and send that address to No-IP’s servers. So when anyone accesses the No-IP web address, it’ll be forwarded (and masked) to your current IP address, whatever it is at the time.

One other thing to consider as well is the port you’ll be using. No-IP is able to forward any port you wish to your computer (for example, I go to my-no-ip-domain.com:5900 to access the VNC server on port 5900 on my desktop at home). Most often, if your ISP doesn’t allow a static IP address, they’ll also block incoming traffic from ports 80 and 21 (HTTP and FTP respectively). In this case, you’d need to configure your web server software (Apache, IIS) to use a different port. I use 8090. And then you’ll need to access it from my-no-ip-domain.com:8090.

Simple? It really isn’t that hard to set up.

Good luck! Email me back if you need any more details! And keep the questions coming!

AboutUs.org Continues Their Annoyance

Date: October 2, 2006
Time: at 10:24 am
Posted in: in aboutus.org, copyright, legal
Comments: Comments (7)

I say annoyance in the subject line. It’s always been more than an annoyance. When someone violates my legally copyrighted content, I don’t consider it anything less than just that: a violation of copyright.

I ended up emailing Ray at his email address ray@aboutus.org over this. The email is below.

While at this point I haven’t felt the need to file a lawsuit against AboutUs.org, I’m going to speak out about it as much as I can. Recently, I discovered that www.pylonhosting.com, a hosting company I at one point maintained (and still own) had made it on to Aboutus.org. When AdamReyher.com made it on there, there was a good amount of content scraped from the front page and copied onto the AboutUs.org page. I was less than happy with this, so I manually removed it. They continued to remove the history and put the site in an “Opt-Out” category, but still encouraged users to continue to update content. What???

But this time, when I discovered PylonHosting.com, not only had they scraped front page info, they copied the entire body of content on the front page. This is way more than “fair use” in my viewpoint. I have no problem with fair use–quoting someone else’s website. But when you deliberately copy that content in large quantities, it’s getting out of hand.

In light of this, I proceeded to, of course, edit out the page with my less-than-satisfied remarks, and then continued on to writing to “Ray” at his email address: ray@aboutus.org (oh noes! he’ll get spammed since I didn’t mask it!) requesting, and yes, demanding that the history for several of my sites be removed. And not only just the history…I wanted any copy of my content removed from existance, including any sitewide backups which had been made.

Hello Ray,

I have expressed deep dissatisfaction with the manner in which AboutUs.org gathers information which, indeed, is legally copyrighted by site owners and how said information is scraped from their sites.

I have removed several of my sites personally. However, that history still remains, containing my copyrighted content on, as far as I’m aware, one of the listed domains in this email’s subject line: PylonHosting.com. In regards to (http://www.aboutus.org/How_can_I_OptOut_of_AboutUs%3F), I am composing this email in order to have this history manually removed.

However, I ask more than that. AboutUs.org certainly maintains backups, quite possibly before said information was removed. In order to fully eliminate duplicates of my copyrighted content, I respectfully request that any and all backups containing information relating to the sites here-in this email be either removed from existence or modified to remove my content. I don’t care if said content is not publicly available. It’s still the COPY part of copyright.

Of course, using all senses of logic, there’s no plausible way for me to verify that said (private) backups no longer contain my content. But out of professional courtesy (which you appear to be operating out of ) I’m asking that you fully comply with my wishes, and yes, demands regarding content which legally belongs to me in any and all forms.

Sincerely,

- Adam Reyher

An extreme request? Definately. Any way for me to prove he’s done it? Absolutely not. A reasonable request? I think so. After all, it’s copyright violation. Raising the stakes? Heck yes.

And that’s what I want; I want to raise the stakes and put so much pressure on AboutUs.org that hopefully lawsuits will be filed in the near future and they will either be shut down, or be forced out of “business” for the sheer inconvenience it has caused them. Period.

You should do the same. Remove your site from AboutUs.org yourself … put on a comment of copyright violation and your dissatisfaction, and write a similar email to Ray (once again, his email address is ray@aboutus.org).