I use a cable internet conection. My ISP gives me a static IP address. This can be a huge hurdle for some people to overcome. How are people gonna find your computer on the internet? Luckily, there is a solution. I am gonna recommend that you buy some new computer equipment if you don't have it already. It's a router. Now buying a router doesn't have to break the bank. I got mine here. I bought the D-Link DI-604. It was on sale when I bought it, along with a $20 rebate. It seems like these things are always on sale somewhere, so shop around.
Now why did I have you go buy a router? There are a couple of good reasons to have one. First, it can help protect your system by acting as a firewall. Next, you can share your internet connection and files with other computers in your house. Third, it helps people find my computer on the internet. How? Read on.
Surf on over to http://dyndns.org . Sign up ther and get yourself set up as something catchy, like username.dyndns.org . Make sure you give it your current IP address. Now, username.dyndns.org points to your router. Next, I set up my router. No need for an IP updating program on my computer, I just let my router take care of the automatic updating. You'll want to set up port forwarding on your router so that any requests to your router get sent on to your computer. You'll also want to set up the firewall by opening up the ports for the services you are gonna be running. I recommend openning up 21(FTP server), 22(ssh server), 25(mail server), 80(webpages), 110(POP3 server), and 143(IMAP sever).
Next, I'm gonna change the name of my computer. I use netconfig to change my hostname to username and my domain name to dyndns.org. This matches the setting for my account that I set up on http://dyndns.org . Now we are ready to start servin' up to the net.