DIPS (Dynamic IP Server) - visit http://DIPS.home.ml.org/ to find out more...

Introduction

What is DynamIP ?

DynamIP is a free multi-functional Internet Utility for Windows 95/NT4. Its seven major features are:

• DUN/RAS Dialer with Event Driven Program Launcher
  DynamIP can establish and terminate DUN/RAS connections on demand and/or timer controlled. DynamIP can also launch/close other applications driven by events like "New Connection Established" or "Connection Terminated".
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• Uploader (Dynamic IP address poster)
  DynamIP posts your dynamic IP address to web pages of your choice and uploads the modified files automatically to your web server using FTP. This is very useful for advanced Internet users who want to keep their web pages updated with their current IP address. Of course, you can also use it to update any other file of your choice (for example your .plan or .project file so that your finger server reports your current IP address...). Just in case you have multiple ISPs (= Internet Service Providers), DynamIP supports up to 5 different connections. Here is an example of a web page that is updated with DynamIP. You can also use the Uploader to copy files to your web site on a periodic basis, for example to update your WebCam picture once a minute.
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• DIPS Client
  DynamIP is a full-blown DIPS client. DynamIP automatically determines whether your DIPS information needs updating on the DIPS server - as soon as you are connected to the Internet and your local Web Server (HTTPD) is running, DynamIP uploads the new information to the DIPS server. Detailed information about DIPS, a new and totally free service, is available at http://DIPS.home.ml.org/.
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• POP mail checker
  DynamIP monitors up to 5 different e-mail accounts and informs you about incoming mail (works with POP mail accounts). If you have new mail in any of your mail boxes DynamIP will notify you (visually and/or with sound). DynamIP can automatically start your e-mail client and then retrieve your messages.
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• IPchat
  IPchat is similar to IRC, but it works without using any IRC servers. DynamIP scans user-defined ranges of IP addresses (e.g. 205.230.75.150 180) and then builds a chat list. You can broadcast messages to all chat members or send a message to a particular IP address. You can hail other chat members if you want to get their attention and then have a private chat with them. For more powerful communication needs, DynamIP supports MS NetMeeting - DynamIP allows you to establish a point-to-point NetMeeting connection to any other chat participant with a single command. If you're away from your computer you can put DynamIP into SLEEP mode (other chat members see that you're in SLEEP mode). DynamIP (optionally) generates notification events if new chat members join your chat list or if somebody else hails you.
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• WEBchat
  This feature allows you to receive messages from anybody who visits your WEBchat page with a browser. You can then send back replies to the originator of the message. WEBchat works even if the other person does not have DynamIP installed. All that is needed is a forms capable browser (e.g. recent versions of Netscape, Internet Explorer, etc.). Here is an example of a web page that contains the WEBchat form.
  
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• HTTPscan
  DynamIP scans user-defined ranges of IP addresses and then builds a list of all the HTTP servers that were found. DynamIP can write this list of web servers to an HTML file of your choice. If IPchat is active you can also load any chat participant’s home page right from DynamIP. Here is an example of a server page that was generated by DynamIP.
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• PC clock synchronizer
  DynamIP gets the exact date and time from an NTP server of your choice and then adjusts your PC clock accordingly. This is very handy if your PC clock is fast/slow.
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DynamIP does all of the above things with minimal drag on your CPU (however, it's somewhat of a memory hog) and you can have it running at all times, whether you're logged on to the Internet or not. DynamIP is a multi-threaded 32bit application and runs only on Windows 95/NT. Most importantly, however, DynamIP is Freeware (i.e. no time limits, no nag screens, no ads, just plain fun).

How does it work?

IP Method (Connected vs. Not Connected)

DynamIP can determine your IP address and connection status with any of the following methods:

• Dynamic IP Address (Winsock)
  DynamIP tries to resolve your local host name and assumes that you're online whenever the resulting IP address is different from 127.0.0.1. This is the default method and it should work on most systems.
• Dynamic IP Address (RAS)
  DynamIP checks whether you have active RAS connections going and assumes that you're online whenever it finds such connections. This method should work if you're on a LAN (w/ static IP) and have a dial-up connection going every now and then.
• Static IP Address
  Use this option if you're on a LAN and your IP address never changes (you're basically always online...). You can also use this option as a work-around to force DynamIP to a particular IP address if neither of the two above methods works on your system.

Depending on your DUN/RAS settings, DynamIP can also (re)establish a dial-up connection for you whenever it detects that you're not connected (check the box Dial With Timer to activate this feature). Win95 users will be glad to know that DynamIP is capable of hiding your "Connected to..." window.

IPchat

(IPchat uses port #1499)

If you are connected to the Inter/Intranet (the little box to the left of the button Refresh IP is green) you can activate IPchat (note that you must also check the appropriate box in Setup|IPchat and enter some information there). IPchat will then scan all the IP address ranges that you have defined in the IPDB file (the default file name is IPDB.txt). You can edit this file with a simple text editor like NotePad. The scanning process is repeated in regular user-defined intervals.

As soon as DynamIP finds another IPchat client at one of the scanned IP addresses it will add some information about that other client (handle, time found, IP address) to the Chatlist (each line of the Chatlist contains information about 1 chat participant). You will realize that your machine gets added to the Chatlist as well; if your own machine doesn't show up on your Chatlist then there is something wrong [could it be that you entered a static IP address that is not correct?].

Assuming that IPchat is running fine you can chat with everybody on your Chatlist similar to IRC; whatever you type into the chat input window at the very bottom of the DynamIP window gets sent to everybody else as soon as you hit the Enter key. For actions targeted at individual chat participants (e.g. Hail) you must first select the chat participant (click on the appropriate line in the Chatlist to select it).

WEBchat

(WEBchat uses port #1498)

WEBchat makes it possible to exchange messages between a browser (e.g. Netscape, Internet Explorer) and DynamIP. You need the following to get WEBchat to work:

• DynamIP v3.02 installed.
• At least 1 connection properly configured in the Uploader so that you can upload a web page (if your ISP doesn't offer you free web space you can still use WEBchat - information on how to do it can be found here).
• The template you want to upload must contain the same WEBchat tag that you have defined for your connection (the default template DynamIP_.htm contains the tag <!--WEBchat-->).

If you go ONline (i.e. upload the template), DynamIP activates the WEBchat form on your web page. Your web page will look similar to this example (note that all the strings NOT.ON.LINE.NOW will be replaced with your current IP address). In the DynamIP main window, you should see a green bar just to the right of the mailboxes indicating that WEBchat was properly initialized (a red bar indicates that something went wrong, or WEBchat isn't active at all).

As long as you are connected to the Internet and keep DynamIP running, anybody who loads your web page with a browser can type a message into the WEBchat field. As soon as the other person clicks the button Submit on your web page you will receive a notification on your side and DynamIP will display the message in a window. For example, if the other person typed "Hello Chris" into the WEBchat window, the WEBchat window would look as follows on your side:

While the browser client waits for your response you can type a reply and send it back to the originator with a click on the button Send. (click Cancel if you do not want to send back a reply). You and the other person can keep on exchanging messages as long as you like. Note, however, that the timeout on the DynamIP side (that is the number of seconds you have time to respond) depends on the other person's settings and there is nothing you can do to change that. Most systems have timeouts of roughly 30 to 40 seconds, but sometimes this can be much shorter (or longer, for that matter). Once you've lost the connection to the browser it is not possible for you to reestablish it, i.e. you cannot send back messages after losing the connection (you must wait for the browser user to send you another message).

Hence, WEBchat is not really meant for lengthy dialogs. However, it is a nice tool to exchange short messages on the fly. The really nice thing is that the other person doesn't have to install DynamIP for this to work...

If you like the concept of WEBchat but don't know where to upload your page to, or simply don't have any disk space available on a decent Web server, you're not out of luck yet. You can still use WEBchat! Move over here and follow the instructions.

What is DIPS?

DIPS stands for Dynamic IP Server and it allows you to publish web content directly from your computer using a fixed URL even though your computer has a dynamic IP address (dial-up connection, etc.). If you have a web server running on your machine (or intend to do so) you might want to check out details about this great new service at http://DIPS.home.ml.org/. And best of all, DIPS is totally free!

If you like the concept of WEBchat but haven't been able to use it because your ISP doesn't offer you free Web space or you came to the conclusion that the uploading process was too time consuming or unreliable, DIPS will also take care of that problem. Check out our detailed instructions here.

DIPS (Dynamic IP Server) - visit http://DIPS.home.ml.org/ to find out more...

e-mail

cmu@bigfoot.com http://cmu.home.ml.org

hits since February 01, 1996
Last modified: July 27, 1997