7 WAYS TO ACCESS BLOCKED SITES
Are you suffering under oppressive IT rules and conditions at your workplace? Here are a few tips that might help sate your irrational need to chat (and more)..
1. Run Portable Applications from your Flash disk
So, you can't install anything on your computer without authorization from God, you can't access any other part of the internet apart from your office mail and of course you can't chat. Here's a novel idea, buy a flash disk and copy onto it, portable Firefox or portable Chrome for all your browsing requirements free from that demon Internet Explorer and VLC media player portable will sort out all your multimedia requirements. Get the full list of portable apps at portableapps.com. If you're a security freak, try anonymous surfing by copying TorPark onto your flash disk. If you need to read PDF files, try Foxit
2. Try Typing the IP address of the website you want to access instead of URL
This is of course, hit and miss. If your overzealous IT manager has red-bull and icing sugar for breakfast, this may not work. In his high energy zeal, chances are the blocking software he uses maps the IP address to the web server - which is referred to as a reverse DNS lookup.
3. Use a URL redirection service
Before you groan and zone out because I've used a word with more than ten letters that sounds "tech", bear with me for a few seconds. I am positive that you have used services like tinyurl.com or snipurl.com or (this is genius) Google translate. Type in your URL into these sites and they will work as proxies. Translate your page in Google from english to english and you may (or may not) be home free. This same approach will work using Yahoo's babelfish translation service.
4. Use mobile browsers as proxies
Use Google Mobile, Phonifer or Mowser to browse the net. Granted it will look nothing like what you usually would see on your desktop browser, but it will be in a language you understand and more importantly, it will be ACCESSIBLE!
A quick and dirty hack is by going straight to your site via Google Mobile from your address bar by typing it like so:
www.google.com/gwt/n?u=URL_HERE
Opera have made this method even easier. Opera offer an Opera-mini - their popular mobile browser - simulator.
http://www.operamini.com/demo/?url=URL_HERE
Take that, overzealous IT guy.
5. Chat some more
If you have a gmail address and can't log onto gmail, or install the standalone client, try chatting using Google talkgadget. You can also copy Pidgin portable or Miranda IM portable onto your Flash disk.
6. Anonymous surfing
Use websites like hide my ass to anonymously surf the internet. To the website blocking software, you are simply surfing hidemyass.com. Seeing as there's the term ass in hidemyass, this may get blocked by your software but there are tons more anonymous surfing websites out there.
7. Convert your IP into a decimal IP
I didn't know you could do this either until I began researching this topic. Just type in the IP address here and voila! http://Facebook.com appears as http://1161805072. The theory behind it involves black holes and quantum mechanics so I just glossed over it and didn't remember a single word.
