Dynamic DNS IP Retrieval Script

You ever try connecting to your system at home, using a domain name (that has been setup using Dynamic DNS), only to find out that your ISP has, yet again, changed the public IP address to your house? This is very common with DSL setups, but still is a factor with other internet connections such as FIOS, Cable (also known as High Speed Internet, and most definitely dial-up (since dial-up isn’t really used much anymore, I’m not covering that). Of course, there’s those Dynamic DNS providers, which I also use. For example, there’s no-ip.com; with Dynamic DNS applications for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS, however, they do not really work all that well with my ISP. My ISP public IP changes a good 12 times a day (no kidding!). No-IP just can’t keep up with my public IP changes, which sucks, cause I pay for that. I’ve written a small shell script to at least notify you when your public IP address has changed, so that, if your dynamic DNS has not propogated, you will at least be able to connect using the IP address. Continue reading Dynamic DNS IP Retrieval Script

Stepping Into Samba

A few friends of mine stare at me blankly when I mention Samba and SMB. In fact, sometimes they think it’s the same thing, when in fact, it’s not. I’ll talk about the differences between the two and walk you through setting up Samba networked shares. This will give you a nice introduction to Samba and also Linux, if you are not familiar with that, also.

The real question here isn’t why SMB, or why Samba for that matter? Well, first off, after I explain to you what SMB is and then explain what Samba is, you’ll see that this question I just asked was mildly stupid. The actual question here is “Why create network shares in the first place?”. This is a very basic, honest question, but it tends to turn a few heads. I’ll give you a scenario. You have 5 computers in the house; your laptop, your desktop, the kids have two computers, and your wife has her school laptop. So, your wife has school work and her latest favorite songs on her laptop, the kids have theirs, and you have all your applications and whatnot all on your laptop and desktop. What might seem like not that much data, turns into gigs of data. You have tons of music, school reports and research, ISOs and applications, Development related stuff, pictures from the past four years. You notice you are running out of space on your kid’s computers and you wife’s laptop is running a little sluggish. Now, this is probably highly due to the games and occasional pop ups that are clicked, but hey, why take up space on the systems, when everything can be centralized? Yes, that’s the word – Centralized. Continue reading Stepping Into Samba

Configuring a VPN w/ PPTP using VPC (Part 1)

A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, allows users to create a private network between two or more computers on the internet (or through your own network without being on the same workgroup or domain). For this lab, I will show you how to set up a basic VPN using PPTP for file sharing (mapping in our case) using MS’ Virtual PC (“VPC”). Continue reading Configuring a VPN w/ PPTP using VPC (Part 1)