Daytime acces to support...

spiel2001 · 07-15-10, 09:51 AM

Well... it seems that it has finally happened... our IT department at work has blocked access to WoWI. So, it's going to be fairly typical for me to not be able to support the forum during work hours unless I have an opportunity to jump on my PDA.

Kodewulf · 07-15-10, 10:49 AM

Originally Posted by spiel2001

Well... it seems that it has finally happened... our IT department at work has blocked access to WoWI. So, it's going to be fairly typical for me to not be able to support the forum during work hours unless I have an opportunity to jump on my PDA.

LOL... The last time I worked at a company that limited access to internet sites it was because the IT department wanted to use all the bandwidth to download illegal games. They didn't want to share the bandwidth with Facebook, YouTube, etc. LOL. I feel your pain!

-- Kodewulf

Vis · 07-15-10, 09:31 PM

Have you tried to get the CEO/President addicted to WoW yet? I'd wager that would be the easiest method to removing internet blocks to WoW sites, lol.

And no worries. I'm sure most users are willing to allow you the time to earn money so you can continue to code/play WoW/buy caffiene products and of course deal with tech support too

Chmee · 07-16-10, 12:46 PM

Tech support, day one: "Hello, tech support, how may I help you?"
Tech support, day 1001: <snarls>"Tech support, WTF do you want?"

Seer · 07-16-10, 01:04 PM

Originally Posted by Chmee

Tech support, day one: "Hello, tech support, how may I help you?"
Tech support, day 1001: <snarls>"Tech support, WTF do you want?"

Day 1001 ?

Try day 3.

Chmee · 07-16-10, 11:02 PM

I guess I have - or at least used to have, back in the day - a greater tolerance for idiots than some.

svar · 07-17-10, 02:28 AM

On my workplace, the homeoffice pages (citrix stuff) don`t work.
Well, no problem for the general user in the company, but for me that need to test the homeofice soulution from time to time (working at the IT department of the company), its not so fun.

So, what I did was setup an Linux PC at home with openSSH.
From my work pc, I used Putty to set up an link to my Linux box for SOCKS Proxy at some crazy port (2000,2001,2002 eg) and setup Firefox to use SOCKS Proxy at 127.0.0.1:crazy_port.

This way, every page the company has bloked, I can get to, because Firefox sends every web query, even DNS if you set it up right, over the proxy, and since I use SSH (and offcause not username/password but key-authenticator), every web page is crypted from my work pc to home pc. (from my home line and out its normal uncrypted web)

This way, I don`t only get past the company restrictions, but they can`t see what pages Im on so easly (or at all)
All they see is (if they ever try to see) is that data from my work pc goes to an IP (that is my home external IP), but not what kinds of data.

You`re company shal be very locked down, if you can`t find any port to run SSH over, normaly standar SSH port 21 is not blocked, but you never know.

Bluspacecow · 07-17-10, 05:48 AM

I can sympathize with this post.

Here at work we have Web Marshall.

Except they have it set to a way too strict offensive language filter.

Which blocks certain pages for no good reason other then there's a word in the source code of the page matching an offensive word in their eyes.

This is extremely frustrating to me because it blocks a lot of pages which IMHO don't contain anything offensive at all - like the order shipping confirmation of an Amazon.com order.

I've had pages blocked that I've saved a local copy on my Dropbox at home which I have opened the source code of .... and nary an offensive word found.

It's even gotten so bad that I've had to put many a link into my instapaper links to read at home.

They even patted themselves on the back after putting it in

Seer · 07-17-10, 08:26 AM

Originally Posted by Chmee

I guess I have - or at least used to have, back in the day - a greater tolerance for idiots than some.

It's not that. 15 or so years ago non nerds seemed way more understanding about computers then the nowadays non nerds who even had computer classes at school, but still don't know the difference between logging of and rebooting.

Just a generic example of 2 different people I had on the phone today to fix a simple issue. (Ask them to log off, they reboot, while the problem they have is caused by login in to fast after a reboot... )

The fact that people are still unable to read simple instructions, then get angry if they get the answer "please refer to the online instructions", they expect me to chew their food for them so to say.. (And these people get educated for this.. wasted money apparently, better to get mindless drones..)

Anyway, working on an IT department we used to block a lot, these days we only block streaming. The managers of the other departments keep an eye out if people are working and not browsing all day. Productivity seems to have gone up all round, people seem more content in going to work.

Seer · 07-17-10, 08:29 AM

Originally Posted by svar

This way, I don`t only get past the company restrictions, but they can`t see what pages Im on so easly (or at all)
All they see is (if they ever try to see) is that data from my work pc goes to an IP (that is my home external IP), but not what kinds of data.

No idea about your company, but circumventing company restrictions means you're out of a job.

spiel2001 · 07-18-10, 09:13 AM

Originally Posted by Seer

No idea about your company, but circumventing company restrictions means you're out of a job.

Yeah... this. If they put up a block and you make any attempt to go around it, you're fired... no questions asked. In fact, you can browse the web all day and never get in trouble... it's when they catch you circumventing a block that you get toasted.

On the subject of blocking web access and productivity, there's studies out there that show that people who use the web for brief "mental breaks" actually have higher productivity than the drones who spend all day task focused. They found the more restrictive a company's web access policies (for any given two companies in the same business) the lower the productivity and visa versa.

And, quite frankly, with the number of smart phones in the workplace now, people are going to get around the blocks using their phones and then you have no way to track how much times they're not on task.

An overzealous web access policy is counter productive.

I've been accessing WoWI from work all day every day since I was employed there and I am still the most productive and reliable software engineer they have. All they've done with this new policy is irritate a good employee.