hi i don't much know about networking. and im trying to create a simple server and client to exchange text messages using winsock2. they work fine when i run both in the same machine (using ipa "localhost"). but how can i use them to exchange data over the internet? i think my ip address is a regional one, so i guess all other computers on my region has the same ipa. so, if i give my server to a friend and tell him to run it on his computer, would my client program will able to connect to my server at his end with the same ipa? or is there another way to do this? how does progs like yahoo messanger do it?
thx for any help.