I'm not trying to discourage anything, merely pointing out that there are far quicker methods of getting your external IP - for all I know, papa4 may not have known any other way than to send yourself an email and inspect the message header.
If you want something quickly, surely you would like to take the quickest route?
Apologies if I came accross differently but I, like many others, like to be able to do things as quickly and easily as possible.
Also, more importantly, if you send yourself an email when on a LAN, the message may not leave the confines of your network/network segment (ie it may not pass through a router, so it is not tagged with the external IP). So when you go to inspect the internet headers, you simply find a blank entry - therefore, not helping.
This is the case for Outlook 2003, I am not sure about other clients however. The network I manage is not subnetted, and there is only one router - this may well differ in different situations but i'm sure you get my point.
'When all else fails.......read the manual'