2007 May | Women Blog

What you should know about your IP number ?

Lots of people especially webmasters are familiar with the IP Numbers which identify their unique address in the “stateless world” of Internet. Equally there are many who blink at this term. This blog sets out to unravel the mystery of this in a simple way.

For example the adjacent number (unless you have javascript disabled in your browser) shows your IP address along with some information about the browser type - .

Your IP number identifies your computer – like your physical address. IP (Internet Protocol) Address refers to a set of four octets (numbers) separated by a dot (.). Each octet consists of a number between 0 and 255. There was a popular movie in which the main actor is peering into the monitor of her computer displaying some IP address with one octet as “275”. You can’t have such IP addresses in real life.

Many computer peripherals operate assigned with their own IP addresses to help the users manage them easily. Your network printer can be fed with the document to print by assigning the print task to the particular IP. In the modern networked environment each peripheral or machine can be controlled, monitored and managed in a more effective manner if they have their own Network interface. This also is the main reason why we may face a shortage of available IP numbers in the near future. The current system which uses IPv4 uses 32 bit addresses which has a maximum limit of 4,294,967,296 addresses.

If the entire world is going to be connected to the Net along with their machines, then this IPv4 system simply will run out of available numbers. So they may eventually shift to the IPv6 system in which 128 bit addresses will be used.

To give you an analogy of how things are – we will use a hypothetical physical address like this:

[Note: all addresses given below are imaginary and do not represent anyone]

32, West side Avenue,

San Jose, CA

USA

Class A:

IP numbers are grouped under classes too. Class A represents the first octet like so :

72. xxx.xxx.xxx

This might be like your country code. But each country may have many sets of Class A addresses assigned to them.

Class B:

72.84.xxx.xxx This example shows a typical address which is like your city code.

Class C:

72.84.70.xxx This example shows a typical address which is like your country:city.street address

The last octet represents your machine.

There is one more detail: Many ISPs assign your IP number dynamically using DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). Not all users need the IP addresses permanently. Servers and other mission critical users require permanent dedicated IP addresses while the rest can manage with dynamically assigned ones when they need it.

Now that we have reached your “home” you can specify the connecting port – your entry point to your machine. You can operate many systems assigned to individual ports in the IP address. For example, you can run a web server under port 80 and a mail server under port 25 and so on.

In our firewall blog we have touched upon locking down the ports we don’t use. Using the same physical analogy as above, you secure the windows and doors when they are not normally used. You close the access to the particular ports ( in our case of firewall, we close all the ports unless otherwise required) when not required.

Geotargeting: In these days of highly competitive world, you want to maximize on your advertisement dollars. You don’t want people from Timbuktu to click on your ads targeted at the New York city dwellers. Or you want to maximize the reach of your specific ads to the specific target audience. The easiest way is to use Geotargeting which sends specific pages/ads to specific location based on the visitor IP number. Many search engines use this technique all the time to deliver localized search results.

Next time you see something like the following in your server log file – you are unlikely to be fazed by the IP numbers :

192.168.0.3 - - [28/May/2007:11:31:43 +0530] “GET /cgi-bin/info HTTP/1.1″ 200 250 “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1;)”

Its Mothers Day once again and we at Targetwoman reaffirm our commitment to providing informative and well-researched content to moms - from moms-to-be to various stages of pregnancy and child rearing.

Pregnancy is a very special time in a woman’s life. It is essential to be informed about the changes that take place within your body, right from the time you experience the earliest symptom of pregnancy. Our articles on pregnancy deal with various issues that come up during each trimester of a woman’s pregancy. Look up our diet and fitness guide for a healthy pregnancy. You can still look chic and stylish with maternity apparel that has been designed with comfort in mind. Maternity apparel is designed to address the areas of a woman’s body, which get larger during pregnancy. We provide tips on selecting maternity apparel and sizing.

Once you have your bundle of joy in your arms, life takes on an entirely new dimension. Days are lost in a haze of nappies, feeds and all that comes with a small infant at home. Read on the benefits of breastfeeding. Slowly over time, the baby and you settle down to a routine. We have a range of articles on selecting baby nursery furniture, baby monitors, baby christening gowns and kid room decor. Look up tips on baby food and how to select baby toy, playgroups and the like. Mothers would definitely like to be assured about the developmental progress of their children as well as glean information on kid nutrition, toddler activities and selecting day care.

Mothers with growing kids have their own set of challenges. From choosing summer camps to homework help, life with school-going kids passes off in a whirl of activities. Targetwoman articles on child safety on the Net give insight on how you can protect your child from online dangers. Read on the alarming trends of child obesity and learn more about ADHD, learning disabilities and autism. Brace yourself to deal with tweens and how to get them on your side.

With Targetwoman, you can be assured that we will keep you abreast of new products and important issues that would be of interest to mothers everywhere. On this special day, we applaud the spirit of mothers - the spirit that provides sustenance to the newborn infant and nourishes its body, mind and soul.

Whilst on the topic of mothers, couldnt let this one get by - a mail
forwarded by a fellow-mean mom! Yes I was a bit ruffled too when I read
the title. It went like this:
Someday when my children are old enough to
understand the logic that motivates a parent, I will
tell them, as my Mean Mom told me:
I loved you enough . . to ask where you were
going, with whom, and what time you would be
home.

I loved you enough to be silent and let you
discover that your new best friend was a creep.

I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours
while you cleaned your room, a job that should have
taken 15 minutes.

I loved you enough to let you see anger,
disappointment, and tears in my eyes. Children
must learn that their parents aren’t perfect.

I loved you enough to let you assume the
responsibility for your actions even when the
penalties were so harsh they almost broke my heart.

But most of all, I loved you enough . . . to say
NO when I knew you would hate me for it.

Those were the most difficult battles of all. I’m
glad I won them, because in the end you won, too.
And someday when your children are old enough to
understand the logic that motivates parents, you will
tell them.

Was your Mom mean? I know mine was. We had the
meanest mother in the whole world! While other kids
ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, or eggs,
or toast.

Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all
times. You’d think we were convicts in a prison. She
had to know who our friends were, and what we were
doing with them. She insisted that if we said we would
be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less.

We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve
to break the Child Labor Laws by making us work!
We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, take care
of the pets, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trash
& and all sorts of cruel jobs. I think she would lie awake
at night thinking of more things for us to do.

She always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth. By the time we were
teenagers, she could read our minds and had eyes
in the back of her head. Then, life was really tough!

Mother wouldn’t let our friends just honk the horn
when they drove up. They had to come up to the door
so she could meet them. While everyone else could
date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until we
were 16.

Because of our mother we missed out on lots of
things other kids experienced. None of us have ever
been caught shoplifting, vandalizing other’s property
or ever arrested for any crime. It was all her fault.

Now that we have left home, we are all educated,
honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean
parents just like Mom was.

I think that is what’s wrong with the world today.
It just doesn’t have enough mean moms!

I dont know where my friend got this passsage from but I felt reaffirmed
when I read it…. so often one is plagued with

doubts about parenting and how to go about raising kids right. I believe
strongly in letting your natural instinct help you

out - and have never rued it. Yes I too am a mean mom - one who insists on
my child participating in household chores, who
tries some old fashioned rules in this modern world - rules that I believe
are timeless, be it maintaining timeliness or
accounting for your actions.

Are there more mean moms out there?

Targetwoman women directory was conceived to complement our main vertical information portal. To summarize our blurb on the home page of the directory – targetwoman directory “lists thousands of high quality websites - carefully chosen by human editors exclusively for women. Combined with the painstakingly written articles from the Women Portal section, we strive hard to offer one of the most rewarding experiences on the Net.”

Initially the idea was to include websites, which will add/throw more light on the information provided in the main body of the article. Alternatively, if we are talking about digital photography, a listing of hand selected sites detailing software, techniques or processes would add to the “rich user” experience we so strive hard to create.

In another instance we have added a site where the owner of the site is selling hand crafted metallic jewelry – tailor made and customized for individual preference in the appropriate section of the directory.

Running a niche – in our case – women directory calls for hard work and tons of patience. These days most stand-alone directories have become staid collection of links. There are literally thousands of such directories dotting the landscape of the Net.

There is profound wisdom in these words – “Creating additional services around your directories sends a very clear message to your site visitors and potential advertisers. It is telling them that you mean business, you understand what they want and you want to provide the most value to your visitors and advertisers.” - http://www.youshouldknow.com/directories/directory-owners-%E2%80%A6-incredible-bright-people-doing-incredible-stupid-things-25.html

There are many kinds of directories now – free directories, paid directories and the new avatar of paid listings in the form of bid-for-position directories. If you look closer, the number of free to list directories has started dwindling down for a reason. The cost of running a high traffic directory is not exactly cheap. Marketing a plain Jane directory and the cost to make them appear in the primary SERP space is very high.

You must carve a niche in your area in order to succeed in the web as in all things in life. So when it came to take stock of the situation, it was decided that we must add more value to the visitors – enrich the user experience and provide value for their time. The first step was to make the directory internals more accessible to the search engines and users alike. No matter how hard you try, URLs like “targetwoman.com/links.php?cat25& …” is not going to make search engines robots and humans alike to sit up and take notice.

So the internal linking structure was modified to look more meaningful – http://dir.targetwoman.com/Aerobics

It was decided to shift the contents to a subdomain for more effective management. In addition, to emphasize the correlation between the information section and the directory section, a corresponding navigational aid had to be stitched together. Hence, the left pane was introduced where articles appropriate to the category appear now.

To alleviate the monotony of the text, we added suitable images on the right, keeping in tune with the regular portal section. The individual page displaying the site in more detail now has more space to show additional information. We are not using the space as of now.

After all the cosmetic makeover of the section and the changes to the internal linking structure was effected we checked out the server stats. We were rewarded with better in-depth crawling of the entire directory section by most of the leading search engines.

Now on to more ambitious changes (to –do list ):

1. Add more detailed information about the site – Contact number and contact details if you are selling a service. We plan to display (edited for clarity and objectivity) information about any product, services you may have. This adds value to the eventual visitor.
2. Use our internal crawler to make the directory more responsive to real time changes. This would eliminate the manual task of weeding out defunct websites.
3. Use some element of popularity to rank the sites when listing them.