Show ONLY to certain regions or states?

[painthappy]

I want to show some text or whatever to only certain regions. I want to run a contest on one of my sites, but only for 1 state at a time. It's a 50 states in 50 days contest.

Anyhow... I know you can figure out where someone lives by the IP address, i've seen them on scammy sites and what not.

How do I use that for my contest?

Say I want to do something for the state of california to start. Is there a way to figure out the IP address range? Or use "ereg" to do this?

Thanks in advance. I've looked around but no one seems to know how to do this.

[keyaa]

You need a GEO-IP-database and code to use it.
Here's both for free: http://software77.net/geoip-software.htm

[painthappy]

I was hoping for something a bit more simplistic....

[keyaa]

This is how it's done.

[painthappy]

Well, I just looked at the database and this tells me the country only.... nothing more specific.

[keyaa]

There are more detailed databases available, though I don't know of any free ones.
http://www.maxmind.com/app/region should suffice for your needs

[!Unreal]

You can do it nationally but not within a country. Its too specific. You would stop most people but there would also be an awful lot who slip through.

[stickycarrots]

You need a GEO-IP-database and code to use it.
Here's both for free: http://software77.net/geoip-software.htm
Thank you very much. I am going to give that a look myself :)