Dynamic IP Lost & Found

While working in the US through the winter I stay connected to my house through the internet. I need a better setup, especially to keep my IP address up to date. Aliant DSL changes the IP address every few weeks, which if I am in PEI is not a problem. But when I need to connect to my computer while travelling it is a pain in the ass. Nothing new here, I could buy a static IP address but that costs more than I want to pay. I've tried to find a good IP poster program, which will keep me updated with the current IP address, but they either cost money or the free ones did not work for me.

So, my temporary solution was to make a webpage on my server which reloads itself every half hour - and then I set my PEI computer to start IE with this as the homepage. That meant I had to go through my website logs, but I could always find my home IP.

This worked up to a few weeks ago, then something broke.

I lost contact with my PEI computer. This meant I couldn't reach my files there, or back stuff up to my PEI computer, or monitor my house. Only because of Skype could I even tell my PEI PC was running, but Skype doesn't report IP addresses. Then a moment of inspiration: I started up Ethereal, a packet sniffer program, and voila! I could see the IP address returned from Skype on my PEI PC! So I am connected again.

However, there must be a better way to track dynamic IP's...