In November of 2008 my brother asked me what his cheapest
option was to host a small web site. In short, I told him
that I would host him for free as long as he didn't create
a traffic problem for me.
Less than six weeks after beginning this service agreement,
my brother texted me at about 5:00 AM Alaska time to tell
me there was a problem with the site. In short, the IP Address
had changed and the problem for him was fixed within maybe
30 minutes.
He did not realize what had happened until he contacted me
later. He had given me access to his registrar's control
panel when we had first set up the hosting. He had purchased
the domain name more than a year prior to that but it had
remained parked until I became host web host. I had updated
the zone file for his domain name as well as my own in the
interim and all was working again at a new IP Address.
This was only the second IP Address change since January of
2007 when I had begun the current cable modem internet service.
It did however make me realize that, in short, at the current
time I did not really have the ability to address this problem
except from my home.
I vacationed in December of 2008 in Kuaui, Hawaii for a week
and spent some additional time with my sister in the Seattle
area of Washington state. We did not have another IP Address
problem but I decided that I needed to address the ability
to correct it from anywhere I could access the internet.
This site is part of my answer that I want to have in place
before my next vacation in February and March of 2009 (this
year - next month) when I will be in Cabo San Lucas with
another brother and his wife, my mother and stepfather, and
my sister (again).
All this is because I do not pay an additional $10.00 per
month for a static IP Address.