I’ve figured out how to use the Blackberry as a modem to connect my computer to the Internet so I don’t have to share the awful, over-utilized Internet connection in a hotel and so I can connect to the Internet while I’m on the road.
So, how does one set up their computer so they can use their Blackberry to connect to the Internet?
I have updated the Wide Area Network (WAN) tutorial under our Networking section. Enjoy!
Time for another question from the mailbag:
Why is the Loopback address always in the range of 127.0.0.0 to 127.255.255.255 ?
This range of IP addresses is reserved by the Internet Assigned Names Authority (IANA) for use as the Internet host loopback address. All Internet connected hosts (hosts running Internet Protocol) can use this adress for local loopback processing. This address range is typically used for special purposes such as testing the network interfaces and the network software.
A ping sent to any address should always work if at least one interface is enabled. Here is an example of what happens on a Windows XP host when you ping an address in the 127.0.0.0 – 127.255.255.255 range:
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
C:\Documents and Settings\inetdaemon>ping 127.127.127.127
Pinging 127.127.127.127 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time=-63ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time=-63ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time=63ms TTL=128
Ping statistics for 127.127.127.127:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = -63ms, Average = 1073741808ms
The current list of reserved blocks of IP address space and their designated use are listed in RFC 3330 and RFC 1918.
Cisco routers have a virtual loopback interface and this should not be confused with the loopback address, even though the loopback address can be used on the Cisco loopback interface.
The DNS tutorials have always been a bit of a monster and in need of better organization. There’s a lot to how DNS works and there are a lot of individual tutorial pages in that section of the site. I’ve updated the DNS tutorial and reorganized it. The reorganization means that if you’ve bookmarked the DNS pages, the bookmark probably isn’t working any more because the page moved.
The DNS tutorial was organized as a set of pages in one folder. I’ve now grouped them into categories. I still need to go through and sort the pages into the correct reading order and update some scripts so that the ‘next page’ functionality works properly. At one time, I looked into converting the static pages into WordPress ‘pages’, but there are over 800 individual pages within this site and WordPress apparently has problems handling more than 160 pages (WordPress would crash and I’d have to wipe out the installation, reset MySQL and reinstall it).
Click here to go to the DNS Tutorials