IP Scanner 2.50 ($29.95 Shareware)
10base-t interactive

Adding TCP/IP devices to your network is, for the most part, a pretty straightforward process. If you are using DHCP, just plug the device in, and it will grab the next available address. In some cases, you may want to manually set an IP address, but this shouldn't be an issue for small networks. However, if you are on a larger network, or there are devices that aren't under your control, you may start running into issues. Fortunately, IP Scanner can help.

IP Scanner is a program that will probe your network for all available devices on the network. Sure, you can do this if you send a ping to the broadcast address for your subnet, but this only gives you basic address information. IP Scanner goes beyond the basics and will not only show the IP address of each device on your network, but will also attempt to identify the type of device at that address.

IP Scanner Detects Many Different Types of Devices

As seen in the above screenshot, IP Scanner is smart enough to determine if a device is the local machine, a wireless access point, Mac or PC. It can also identify Unix machines, routers, printers, phones, DVRs and PDAs. If you want additional information on a device, just highlight it and Get Info for Device.

This will also show the MAC Address and Manufacturer, and also let you assign a custom name if you don't like the name it displays. The free version will only show information on the first six devices it finds, although you can still get detailed information on the device.

So get a better idea of what devices, known and unknown, are on your TCP/IP network, and check out IP Scanner today! Have any other gadgets that tell you more about what's on your network? Send an email to John and he'll check it out.