OK, say someone has a VPN and a local network with a cable modem that does not have a static IP address. So I think the IP address changes once a week or something. How would such a person get the current IP address when he's away from the office?

I think what I've heard is one would have a server on the network (this is XP pro) would run a process periodically to grab the current IP address, then upload this info to a webserver outside of the network. The person could then grab the file (or whatever) with the new IP address from there, and then manually enter it into Windows networking.

Is this the best way of doing this? My client wants it to be completely automatic, which would require Windows networking to somehow be able to grab the current IP address itself. Is this possible? Otherwise, I think I'll end up telling him, "Hey, if you want it that easy, you gotta pay extra for the static IP address." But I'm just wondering if there's some utility that could automatically refresh the IP address that Windows networking is using for the VPN.

I'm not sure how to do it within Windows products alone, but Timbuktu Pro handles all this automatically. Basically it maintains a server and the Timbuktu client reports as needed so that you can log in. I do this all the time, I just have each of my machines identified by an e-mail address. In Timbuktu I tell the machine I'm using the e-mail address of the machine that I want to connect with, and it does all the work for me and establishes a link. It's also totally crossplatform, which is very handy.

Also a quick google search turns up both of these applications which would seem to automate the process for you.

[link]

[link]

How much is this service? (Busy at the moment, but otherwise I'll google in a bit.)

Timbuktu is remote control software, it's about $89 per machine. I don't think it will truly solve the problem.

The two links seem to be cheap solutions.

Oh, those links look like they might work. Thanks!

Bah. Before I get that far, I have to fix this VPN issue. I can connect using my laptop (with XP) to the VPN, but once there I can't attach to any shares on the network. I've set up the VPN connection to allow access to the network. Any ideas what I'm missing?

Wouldn't it be nice if your screensaver automatically unlocked when you sat down at your computer, and locked up again once you got up and left? Applescripter Jesse David Hollington put together some nifty scripts that do just that, based on whether or not his Bluetooth phone is in range.

[link]

Idly poking around browser features...

Opera lets you define your own searches, so something like "i alan cumming" in the browser bar searches IMDB for Alan Cumming. Plenty neat, and I've been using it on and off for a few versions now.

Only recently did I notice that with your cursor in any text box Opera gives you a "Create search..." option which does the syntax worrying for you.

Brilliant! Made setting up an LA Public Library search (just highlight the text, right mouse click and menu on from there) was trivial, and now that I have my library member ID attached to the monitor, I am only a few clicks away from putting a hold on (instead of Amazon wish-listing) most any book people bring up.

I know what kind of obsessive I am--Wikipedia and IMDB were the first searches I added. Oddly, not Google images yet--but that's only one click away from the normal Google search, and for my purposes I don't mind seeing the next results first--they may give me research ideas too.

This isn't really tech support, but this seemed like the place to start. I was asked to find license information for several different software components (Combobox xp, GridCtrl, TabPageSSL, XML viewer, CColor, cSubClassWnd, and CXImageGUI). Does anyone know how one would go about looking for such things?