Thanks to a new facility in Dreamhost.com, this blog is now IPv6-ready ! 🙂

(1) “What’s the meaning of that ?“. Well, basically now you can also access this blog via its IPv6 address, which is :

2607:F298:0001:0107:0000:0000:02FF:2B5A

(2) “Cool ! I’d like to do that too, how ?” – if your website is hosted in Dreamhost.com as well, then it’s really easy.

On the “Manage Domain” menu, find your domain name; then click “Add IP” link. See the screenshot on the right for example.

And that’s it 🙂

(3) “Why ?” – alright, this will take some time. Bear with me 🙂

This morning, I got news that IANA just handed it’s last IP blocks to APNIC. Now they have ZERO block available for further allocation.

It may sound nothing of importance, until you find out that the Internet runs on IP addresses 🙂

Imagine for a moment, if houses have no street names, and no number. How would Mr. Postman deliver the packages ?

Same thing with Internet – when new IP address / street names are no longer available, you can not build new streets. Therefore, we’ll be stuck with existing streets only.

The Internet will stop growing.

This may still sound like nothing of importance though – until you realize that, in the last few years, The Internet has been expanding like an exploded nuclear bomb. Suddenly, everyone and their pet got connected to the Internet – Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Suddenly, we can do everything on the Internet – do groceries, buy car (I know I did), revolt (hello Tunisians & Egyptians), shop for music, watch TV, do Xmas shopping, play games with friends, get involved in many communities, etc.

A sudden halt to all these can have a devastating impact to many. Especially businesses, big & small ones alike.

Thankfully, the clever people of The Internet has foresaw this, and devised the solution since 1996. Let us welcome The IPv6.
While IPv4 only has 4 billion of available addresses, IPv6 have 340 undecillion addresses.

“340 undecillion addresses” – to find out how many that is, try writing “34” followed by 37 zeroes. No, I don’t feel like writing out THAT many zeroes 🙂 so, you do that, heh.
Another way to imagine that kind of number is this – if IPv4 is the size of a golf ball, then IPv6 is the size of the Sun (and remember that 1 million Earths can be fit inside the Sun !)

Crazy, I know. But better to overkill rather than face this exhaustion problem again, right ? Right ?

Anyway, back to IPv4 — with the old addresses taken & gone with such speed, we need to start transition to IPv6, like, YEARS ago. But somehow many of us managed not to.
Sure, many of the foundations are ready & in places – the routers, Linux, etc. However, if the houses themselves continue to ignore IPv6, then we’ll risk a parallel Internet : A vast IPv6 world with nothing in it, and a small IPv4 world, crowded & jammed.

So I decided to chip in and do my bit – I’ve booked an IPv6 address for my blog. So when the world moved to IPv6, then this website is ready to welcome you.

Let’s start moving ! 🙂