 changing your ip
If you have cable like me, it is a little harder to change your i.p. address. But, there is an easy way to do it considering you have Vista.
It might work with XP, but i havn't tried it yet.
I just use to unplug my cable modem for about 30 seconds and plug it back in.
However, there is not much control in this method, and you're not sure which ip you will get.
You can also do the following for Vista, without even going near your cable modem, and you can change your ip in a better/safer method.
This method was tested with a cable modem, vista, and microsoft router.
1) Click on start
2) Click on network
3) Open residential gateway device (if it doesn't open, open using right click)
4) It will bring up a new webpage asking for your router password, login
5) Notice your ip address on the main page
6) Click on 'local area network settings' on the right
7) You'll see device name, ip address, subnet mask, etc
8) Change your device name to something generic, like mshome (this makes your device less personal and harder to track)
9) Below you will see a dhcp starting address, and ending address. you can leave it as is or change it. Some numbers can't be changed or it will give you an error. You can play around with this however. I only changed the middle numbers (example: starting : 123.xxx.x.1 ending: 123.xxx.x.199)
The x's were only changed to prevent errors. I was able to change these numbers without any problems. Also if you do the unplug modem for 30 seconds method, it simply puts your ip address within those starting/ending numbers. so by changing the starting/ending numbers, you get a totally different ip.
10) For added security, i also changed my ip address on this page to something different. I used the same numbers 123.xxx.x.199 but changed the .199 to something larger than the ending .199. So my ip is actually different than any other assigned ip given to your network. I did this for a couple reasons, I use the laptop for my ebay stuff, and my other devices in the house can be assigned an ip address that never matches my laptop.
11) You can also change the lease time for your ip on this page. I think the default is 2 weeks, but you can go as low as 15 minutes for a new ip.
12) Click 'apply' and it should restart your modem automatically and set your new ip settings/address.
All this is done without touching your cable modem. Try it on different routers, ec. Like i said, this was tested on Vista with a cable modem and microsoft router.
Oh, and I refuse to go back to dialup, so I am constantly finding new and better ways for cable ip changing.
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