Would anyone mind telling the difference between dedicated IP's and what one reseller advertised as Semi-dedicated IP's? Does a dedicated IP have ns1 and ns2 nameservers or is that for a static IP? Thanks for any clues.

A dedicated IP address is an IP address devoted to a particular site. A static IP address is an IP address that does not change. I don't know what the heck semi-dedicated IP addresses are. My guess is they mean a shared static IP address. You need two static IP addresses for personal name servers.

Thanks for the info. So if I obtain a webhosting plan with a couple dedicated IP's, I don't have to register name servers?

No.
you need 2 dedicated IP for your nameservers, and you need to register your nameservers at your domain registrar.
Anyway, those IP can be used to host sites, but can't be shared with others nameservers.

Nameservers are registered by your domain registrar, your host or server provider can do nothing about it - but for you to register nameservers [or hosts as the correct technical term is] you need IP's and these are provided by your host.

The way nameservers work is like this:

1. Justforkix goes and types www.example.com in the browser

2. His computers start asking around if any other computer knows anything abour www.example.com [DNS resolution]

3. The first likely reply is that:

I dont know anything about example.com but I do know you need to contact internic.net about .com TLD's and the internic DB is in the address ..what.ever.is.theIPs [these are called glue records and recursive resolution - but if you cant understand it never mind]

4. Then the next thing your DNS server does is to go to the internic.net IP's and ask again about www.example.com

The likely reply is that : I dont know anything about www.example.com but I do know that the following hosts [nameservers] ns1.somehost.com and ns2.somehost.com are the authorised holders of dns info for example.com and you can reach them at : ns1.ip.add.ress and ns2.ip.add.ress

5. Then your never-say-die DNS server goes to the IP address of either ns1 or ns2 and again asks "Do you know the IP address of www.example.com?"

Now if you have created all the DNS entries pertaining to www.example.com, mail.example.com, mysubdomain.example.com and whatever.example.com in the server hosting ns1 & ns2.somehost.com then the DNS resolver returns the IP address of www.example.com [let's say 1.2.3.4]

6. Then your browser takes you to the server with the IP 1.2.3.4 and asks the web server "Hey I want a peek at www.example.com cos I am told you have all the nice pics here"

7. The web server goes to its config file and then lokks for the directory where all the juicy pics of example.com are stored and it returns the index.html [or whatever it is configured to serve first] and Voila and Presto you have your www.example.com on your browser!

Cheers
Balaji