IP - Internet Protocol
IP address - an address that conforms to the Internet protocol
These are displayed in the form a.b.c.d where the values of a, b, c, d can be between 0 and 255.
IP addresses are associated with a network interface that is connected to the network. So whenever you connect to the internet you connection is given a unique address. This means that when you request data across the network the other machine knows where to send it.
Static IP. This means the connection always has the same address. this is most usefull when you have a server behind the network connection. ie. each web address(web server for a particular domain),
www.techist.com for example, is associated with an IP address. This makes Domain Name look ups a much more easily manageable and efficient process.
Dynamic IP. This means that your network interface is assigned a lease for an address from a pool of unused addresses each time it connects. This lease may need to be renewed if you are connected for more than a certain length of time, though the frequency of this will depend on the ISP in question. this internet has a problem under version 4 of the Internet Protocol. This is the fact that the number of available addresses could quite easily be exceeded by the number of machines that want to connect. However not all machines want to connect at the same time, therefore you can use an address sharing mechanism to more efficiently use the available pool of addresses. (there are other solutions as well and many different methods are used but this is the most obvious example that is apparent to the common home user). this makes sense if you are only connecting to download information, however if you then want to run a web-server you have to update all the domain name servers everytime you re-new your lease. This is totally impracticle and really in-efficient.
