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DADDY BOB'S COMPUTER Q & A
February 17,
2008
Q.
With so many websites and other devices that
use an IP address, aren't we running out of
numbers?
A.
Yes. With the current
numbering system, referred to as IPv4, IP
addresses are in the form of xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
where the xxx is any number from 000 to 255.
Therefore, there are only 4,294,967,296
different numbers available (232).
Most broadband connections have a static IP
address, meaning that it is the same all the
time. Most other devices also have a static
IP address and some numbers are reserved for
local networks and overhead. So you can see
that all the available numbers should
already be assigned. In fact, they would
have run out a long time ago except for
something called NAT (Network
Addressing Translation).
NAT is
defined as "a
technique of transceiving network traffic
through a router that involves re-writing
the source and/or destination IP addresses
and usually also the TCP port numbers of IP
packets as they pass through."
Just know that it is the means that has
allowed us to expand the number of usable IP
addresses beyond the 4,294,967,296 that
would otherwise be available under the
current IPv4 system.
So, what is the answer to
running out of IP addresses? IPv6, IPv6 has
just started to be implemented. IPv6 (2128)
has so many available IP addresses
that it is difficult to comprehend.
here is the actual number, 34 followed by 38
zeros.
3,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
This amount is, in theory,
enough to allow the 6.5 billion people
current on the earth to have 5 followed by
28 zeros or
50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
available IP addresses for each of them.
It is inconceivable that more than this will
ever be needed. When IPv4 was instituted, it
was thought the 4+billion addresses would be
sufficient, but it wasn't. I believe IPv6
will prove to be more than adequate. Windows
XP was not designed to accommodate IPv6, but
Windows Vista is.
Q. Many times when I
have a problem with an application, I get a
message that asks if I want to send a
message to Microsoft about it. How do I turn
this off?
A.
This is something that is enabled by default
when Windows XP is installed. I suspect that
this was something in the beta code that
just never got removed. I seriously doubt
that Microsoft wants to hear about all the
billions and billions of problems that have
been experienced by XP users since it was
released 6 years ago.
Thankfully, it is easy to disable, and
here's how to do it. Right click on My
Computer and select Properties. Click the
Advanced tab, then the Error Reporting
button. This dialog will display:
Click the
dot in front of "Disable error reporting",
then unless you still want to be notified on
each error, uncheck the box in front of "But
notify me when critical errors occur". Click
OK, then OK. This error reporting
"feature???" is not included with Vista.
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