I've worked in restrictive environments in the past, some that didn't allow internet access at all (!) ... and that was 1997, but now 10 years later, I'm once again restricted, and all I can do is shake my head.
Because of the industry my client is associated with, and probably more because of attitudes and opinions, here is a non-inclusive list of things I can't do or places I can't get to:
- Hotmail
- GMail
- Any POP3
- Any Webmail other than that belonging to my company
- Yahoo mail
- Google mail
- Yahoo groups
- Google Groups
- IM -- except for internal -- folks are on that continually -- wonder why that's allowed
- ftp
- Flickr
- YouTube (duh)
- any other picture or video site (insert name here)
- Blogspot
- Any other blog site that has or has knowledge of, or may in the future have knowledge of, or may possible be associated with a blog that has anything someone in IT decided we shouldn't have access to
- Any site with the word 'game' in it... even if it's not a game site
- shinkster
- tinyurl
- streaming or downloading would probably get the black golfcarts rallying down the hall in your direction
- Installing pretty much anything unless you think you have the cajones to make your case
Many technical blogs are on blogspot, and ones that aren't put their pictures on flickr so I can't see images, and quite often links fire off into somewhere that's blocked. I bet I get the blocked screen a half dozen times a day.
So this weekend I put the Windows Live Messenger icon on my site that shows when I'm logged in, and although I haven't tested it with anyone, supposedly you can click it and start an IM session with me.
At work, that icon doesn't show up as "offline", it shows up as if the icon doesn't exist... geez...
OWA as Web Storage
Something more positive... and sort of related to the above...
I was trying to send someone some code on Friday. Now this situation has to do somewhat with my company. I guess I can send docs, but that is probably all. I obviously can't send exe or zip since I tried both. I tried sending both through my client's email system, and they were blocked there as well. Even the screenshot bmp file I tried sending was blocked!
Then to make matters worse, I didn't take the files home on USB drive ... oh yeah.. USB is fine... go figure!
So Saturday I fired up my company's OWA, went into sent mail, opened the one with the attachment that got blocked, saved the zip file and there it is...
Who needs web storage when you can use OWA??
-Dave
posted @ Monday, November 19, 2007 10:50 AM