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What's my IP? Remote Desktop to a Dynamic IP Address!
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08/16/05 07:19 AM EST
posted by JER email web |
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For a while now, I've wanted to separate my personal files from my work files. I have a work laptop that I use every day and over time my Quicken, favorite URLs, etc. have bled onto it. I could easily just keep those files at home, but I find I want to access them at lunch or just before work, so it's extremely convenient to have them on my work PC.
Yesterday, though, I wrote a little tool that allows me to do just what I want! It comes in two parts, a Windows Service that I installed on my home PC which reports the IP address to a Shiny Donkey web service every 10 minutes. The second piece is a tray application which I installed on my work PC that queries Shiny Donkey to get my house's IP address, shows it to me in a popup window and copies it to the clipboard. And in the event that I'm ever away from my PC and want to find out my IP, I also wrote a little web page that delivers that info, too.
My only problem now is how I would go about sharing this with any of you who might want to use it. I know there are other "dynamic dns" sites out there, and there may even be a program just like this. Nevertheless, I'm sure someone besides me would find use for this free & handy little utility.
So the problem is, how do I uniquely set a key on the server and the client. This key will be used to establish which home IPs are reported to which clients. If I make the download password-protected or user-specific, I could easily embed a small key in the installer that puts itself in the registry of both systems. That would discourage some people from using it, though, and I know I hate remembering logons to 20 different sites.
On the other hand, if I make the key easily changeable by the user, typos and non-complex names could cause me headaches. Users aren't going to type GUIDs, so then I'd have to worry about duplicate record verification.
Anyone have any suggestions? Would anyone else want to use this? |
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I just wrote a long reply, but your web host sucks and I got a "Service Unavailable" Message when I posted. So here http://www.santantonio.net/iptracker/index.aspx
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08/16/05 10:44 AM EST
posted by nate web |
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| Don't trust the IpTracker! I used it a few years back and it just stopped updating for some reason. Wait until the author tracks down and fixes the problem. |
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| In my original post I wrote all about how Nate can attest to how crappy it is, but it was lost. So anyhow, I updated it with the latest version on that page. It has a windows service component and also a tray app for config. It called a Web Service that then updates your IP address for the profile that it is using. It does allow for different profiles that you configure (like Home PC, work PC, etc.) Give it a try, and if you do, and have improvements that you would like, just let me know and I will never get around to doing them. |
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Yes, my web host has been really agitating me lately w/ all these dropped posts. I can't tell if it's dead sessions, something with this richtextbox component or some other server-related issue. My session timeout is set to 3 hours, though, so it shouldn't be that...
I'm not sure I understand how the profiles work. How do you export them to other machines or pick an existing alex-specific profile? |
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