[Member-Found Deals] nerys71:
well lets look at it this way. for anything to connect to the internet it has to have an address. no two objects can occupy the same address at the same time.

I live at 123 Main Street America

nothing else can live at 123 Main Street America but me.

so what happens if I have more than one person or "gadget" at 123 Main Street America

I would need a SEPARATE address for each "THING" a separate IP ADDRESS

otherwise how does one device talk to another without cross chatter?

now we came up with a simply solution to this.

a router. when you connect a router you are "CREATING" a new "PLACE" from scratch.

a new "America" so to speak.

and that new america can have its own list of addresses.

think of this as subdividing your house into apartments.

you have the "external" address 123 Main Street America

but if you have 4 people living in 4 apartments how do I get mail to them?

well I create INTERNAL addresses.

APT1 APT2 APT3 APT4

so MY address is 123 Main Street APT 1 America.

now with your apartment the HUMAN BEING is the "router" we realize APT1 is a "subset" of 123 Main Street.

you can not send mail to APT1 Main Street America. thats a fictional invalid address. its a SUBSET of a "real" address so you have to INCLUDE the real address.

you have to include the RIGHT real address and real SUB SET to get to the person you desire.

your ROUTER does this.

right now your router does this intelligently.

when you goto www.xda-developers.com did you ever wonder why it does not "pop up" on your other computer's screen?

when the data COMES BACK from the internet how does it know where to "GO" ?

that is where your routing tables come in. the router knows 192.168.1.4 (think APT 2) made the request.

so the router goes to the internet and says HEY I want xda.com

the DNS servers go ok XDA.com is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and sends the request.

xda.com has NO IDEA that APT4 wanted its data. it just blats the data back to the EXTERNAL IP address that requested the data (123 Main St)

123 Main street has a router. it REMEMBER that APT4 ASKED for this data so it ROUTES the data requested BACK TO APT4 or 192.168.1.4

that is how you form a link.

the problem with a WEBCAM is that your router recieved "NO" outgoing request for the incoming request from YOU to ask for the camera feed.

so when YOU send a 8080 request to 123 Main St the router has NO IDEA where you mean to go.

SO we have to manually PROGRAM the router. we "TELL" the router OK if you get "ANY" requests to port 8080 I want you to forward those requests to 192.168.1.4

now any INCOMING unassigned request to 8080 at 123 Main Street is automatically routed to and delivered to 192.168.1.4

and now the link is complete.

dyndns.org is free service (there is a free option) that handles the NUMBER translation for you.

my IP address is 68.84.121.212

I need to get my camera request to 192.168.2.115 (my droid phone on wifi)

so in my ROUTER I say anything going to 9001 (the port I chose) please forward to 2.115

this means I have to type 68.84.121.212:9001

but thats annoying AND if my modem reboots I might not BE 68.84.121.212 tomorrow.

so I also programmed my router with dyndns.org information. dyndns assigned me grrhome.homeip.net

the software built into my router (or software on your computer) checks and see my IP is 68.84.121.212

it TELLS dyndns.org HEY YOU my IP is 68.84.121.212

so now dyndns can associate grrhome.homeip.net with 68.84.121.212 now they are ONE AND The same.

if my router or software see's that my IP 68.84.121.212 changed to something else say 68.84.121.213

then it reports BACK to dyndns HEY new ip update your records.

so now i only need to remember grrhome.homeip.net to get to my home network.

so I put in grrhome.homeip.net:9001

this goes to dyndns.org dnydns says OK I recognize that you mean 68.84.121.212:9001

the 9001 request goes to 68.84.121.212 my modem forward that to my router at 192.168.2.1

my router checks the routing table and goes AHA I know what you want your want 9001 that means shunt you to 192.168.2.115

this gets the request to my ZTE 500 which says HEY here is your camera feed.

make more sense now? hehehe just read it carefully it all makes sense. YES it is complicated but that is because routing traffic "IS" complicated.

we just take it for granted because our brains do a lot of this "processing" subconsciously you don't even realize your doing it.