Comment On Unacceptable Use

Looking stuff up in a public free dictionary is unacceptable use? That's one severe and stupid AUP...

Company proprietary dictionary only!

That way you can have the correct version of words, as approved by management.

Must be that the whole category "educational/Reference" is blocked because "don't need educational sites for business".

(how many times did I check a word in an online dictionnary while writing business documents ?)

Who kneads a dictionary when you half built in spell chequers???

Captcha: darwin

The real WTF is that he is using IE5

Badger:

The real WTF is that he is using IE5

downloads.microsoft.com was probably blocked...

Badger:

The real WTF is that he is using IE5

Looks like IE6 to me (XP). Just running at a low colour depth.

benryves:

Badger:

The real WTF is that he is using IE5

Looks like IE6 to me (XP). Just running at a low colour depth.

On 16-bit colour depth, the home icon in IE6 is still the "perspective" one (IE5 has the "front elevation" one).

Badger:

On 16-bit colour depth, the home icon in IE6 is still the "perspective" one (IE5 has the "front elevation" one).

That's a true MS fan. I like IE and MS, but I don't think I can identify icons from old versions in diferent color depths.

Captcha: tacos (lunch time!)

At just about every company I worked at they had a wide open internet policy. No filters, blocking programs, restrictions of any kind. You were expected to do your job and if you did not because of internet abuse (wasting time) you got the bounce. It's really simple, do your job don't waste time.

benryves:

Badger:

The real WTF is that he is using IE5

Looks like IE6 to me (XP). Just running at a low colour depth.

Looks like IE6 on 256 color mode. The real WTF is that there are people still using 256-color mode...

I used to work on IE. The scary thing was, we could justify almost any browsing as "ad-hoc testing"....

benryves:

Badger:

The real WTF is that he is using IE5

Looks like IE6 to me (XP). Just running at a low colour depth.

16 colours ought to be enough for anyone!!

Look at the back button: IE 6 has a round arrow (even when set to small icons, which is not the default), while IE 5 has a plain arrow (and its default is small icons)

Hm... he's trying to use MSIE on the untrusted internet. No wonder that he got malware which blocks sites.

It's IE6.
The icons look old because IE6 drops back to old icons when you're running in that low a colour depth.
IE5 had everything on toolbars that you couldn't lock, so they always had "grab points" on the left, and the image doesn't. The logo in the top-right is from IE6 (IE5 is a globe).

IE5 vs IE6 from History of Internet Explorer (Wikipedia)

If you want to have and justify unrestricted network access, become a netadmin.

Having followed that advice, one of our public-facing departments (read: reception) recently sent a formal request to my department requesting we allow them access to myspace.com for "morale reasons."

We laughed.

penryu:

Having followed that advice, one of our public-facing departments (read: reception) recently sent a formal request to my department requesting we allow them access to myspace.com for "morale reasons."

We laughed.

Ah, but you have to admit, it was a spirited effort. :)

penryu:

If you want to have and justify unrestricted network access, become a netadmin.

Having followed that advice, one of our public-facing departments (read: reception) recently sent a formal request to my department requesting we allow them access to myspace.com for "morale reasons."

We laughed.

Do you also search their cubicles for contraband like books and wacky desk calendars that could be used to goof off?

Dr. Stumpy:

Who kneads a dictionary when you half built in spell chequers???

Well, I suppose, the rationale is that the dictionary contains 'inappropriate' language. And we don't want any of that on our corporate network.
Sadly, those who need to use a reference when writing business correspondence, do not. I see abuses constantly in corporate communications (http://www.syndicateyourcontent.com/articledetail.php?id=16)

That's not that bad...
we do Java Development and Oracle.com was blocked a while ago. Needless to say I was not too happy. What is more disurbing is that nobody noticed before I did and it had been like that for god knows how long.

Those who can write word well written, but don't know what they mean?

Captcha: tastey, Firefox spellcheker doesn't know that one...

Anonymous:

Look at the back button: IE 6 has a round arrow (even when set to small icons, which is not the default), while IE 5 has a plain arrow (and its default is small icons)

some people really need a woman/man in their life

He's a receptionist. He doesn't have a cube. He has a PC that does nothing but keep track of customers which come up to his station at any time.

If his supervisor wants to raid their stations, that's his prerogative. The same supervisor who, upon verification, asked us to ignore the request to allow myspace.

We have our very own language, so no dictionaries are allowed here, don't insist.

This reminds me of the time my old company's filters got inverted. All of the OK websites were blocked, and all of the forbidden websites were allowed. We had some fun that day. =)

dictionary.com lists the definitions of many obscene words. If that isn't sufficient justification to block all of dictionary.com, block all of the Internet, and gouge everyone's eyes out who's ever had a dirty thought, I don't know what is!

Badger:

benryves:

Badger:

The real WTF is that he is using IE5

Looks like IE6 to me (XP). Just running at a low colour depth.

On 16-bit colour depth, the home icon in IE6 is still the "perspective" one (IE5 has the "front elevation" one).

The Real WTF is that you guys use IE enough that you can tell the difference.

JenK:

I used to work on IE. The scary thing was, we could justify almost any browsing as "ad-hoc testing"....

Ah, so that's why pr0n sites always work really well in IE?? Err, apparently.

I used to work at a company that had bizarre blocking policies. They would block PETA, for example, but not Earth First. They would block some, but not all, of Planned Parenthood, but openly let Operation Rescue through. I used to amuse myself finding interesting, contradictory, or ironic parings of blocked/unblocked pages.

buggy:

I used to work at a company that had bizarre blocking policies. They would block PETA, for example, but not Earth First. They would block some, but not all, of Planned Parenthood, but openly let Operation Rescue through. I used to amuse myself finding interesting, contradictory, or ironic parings of blocked/unblocked pages.

Sounds like their policy is really paying off...

Reminds me of one day a year or two ago when Websense blocked Google for 'sex'. Yeah, it would have been an unpleasant day at school for me had I not set up a personal proxy server already....

It seems that people have figured out ways to circumvent these restrictions. Research should thus proceed into uploading biocontrol software directly into worker's brains. This software will, for the duration that subjects are at work, preclude them from accessing sites deemed "off limits" by patching their behavioral control centers with neuronal implant interfaces. At the least, it will allow easier panoptic monitoring from the master control center. We should also proceed with, but maybe not tell people about, additional hidden control capabilities that will be available to be engaged after work hours, as that sort of thing tends to scare people.

Ted:

some people really need a woman/man in their life

The irony of this idea becomes apparent when you realise that nerds who are getting laid are still as nerdy as they were before they got to make use of the sack.

For what it's worth, I can confirm that IE 6 reverts to the old icons in 256-colour mode. Although the screenshot fooled me too -- I wasn't aware of this "feature".

Edit: Oooo something I did (either the depth switches or the re-assertion of my colour scheme (which gets broken when I switch down in Win2k)) has triggered the bug in my Firefox profile whereby Firefox gains an empty toolbar above the menu bar. Whatever the bar is, it won't respond to mouse clicks and you cannot drag icons onto it.

Clearly they're not allowing access to dictionary.com because it contains a lot of mistakes. Flavour, colour, the list goes on. I bet if he went to the Oxford English site he'd find it nice and accessible ;)

dew knot trussed yore spell chequer two fined awl miss steaks

H3SO5:

The real WTF is that there are people still using 256-color mode...

I understand that that sort of thing is more common when using remote desktops, or at least that's the only time I get bug reports filed against software I maintain about poor handling of 256-color mode.

H3SO5:

benryves:

Badger:

The real WTF is that he is using IE5

Looks like IE6 to me (XP). Just running at a low colour depth.

Looks like IE6 on 256 color mode. The real WTF is that there are people still using 256-color mode...

Citrix/thin client/RDC or similar, probably.

Oh really, and in which country can you discriminate so openly and hire only people with the maturity level of a 16-year-old or better?

Here in the US, you can do a lot of things to your employees, but firing them often requires defending a lawsuit.

I think you're all missing the point here.

Forget about all this censorship. Dictionaries, social networking, Greenpeace... all this pales next to my employers "no beard" policy!

nwbrown:

Badger:

benryves:

Badger:

The real WTF is that he is using IE5

Looks like IE6 to me (XP). Just running at a low colour depth.

On 16-bit colour depth, the home icon in IE6 is still the "perspective" one (IE5 has the "front elevation" one).

The Real WTF is that you guys use IE enough that you can tell the difference.

I do webprogramming for living and I have this handy tool that enables you to have ALL IE versions installed on one PC (3.0 - 7.0) ...

p.s. I often use VPN to dial in to a external company intranet and than use mstsc to connect to a computer on their network where i have to work in 256 colors with all stupid policies and i am not admin so i can not update the IE ....

At my old company, we managed to avoid filtering by demonstrating that our manager, and her copious use of horoscope and dating sites, would be the worst off.

Another time, she had me launch a big investigation into why our ISDN internet was connecting every 5 minutes, 24 hours a day - hinting that disiplinary measures would result for the culprit. Turns out that she had installed one of those stupid "virtual dektop buddy" things and her PC was crawling with spyware. No action was taken.

penryu:

If you want to have and justify unrestricted network access, become a netadmin.

Having followed that advice, one of our public-facing departments (read: reception) recently sent a formal request to my department requesting we allow them access to myspace.com for "morale reasons."

We laughed.

^ There's morale right there. ^

Having said that, I'm at this very moment asking my girlfriend(through gmail chat) to send me an HTTP monitoring program I want to help me debug my webapp.

Freeware/Download sites are blocked here, so she helped me browse the site via gmail. :)

(worsethanfailure.com isn't blocked, fortunately)

dingo done snatched my baby:

It seems that people have figured out ways to circumvent these restrictions. Research should thus proceed into uploading biocontrol software directly into worker's brains. This software will, for the duration that subjects are at work, preclude them from accessing sites deemed "off limits" by patching their behavioral control centers with neuronal implant interfaces. At the least, it will allow easier panoptic monitoring from the master control center. We should also proceed with, but maybe not tell people about, additional hidden control capabilities that will be available to be engaged after work hours, as that sort of thing tends to scare people.

All I need now is a Persuadertron

abx:

Badger:

The real WTF is that he is using IE5

downloads.microsoft.com was probably blocked...

"... categorized as Virus/Malware."

A WTF from the WTF is a load of IT professionals arguing about the colour depth.

It might originally have been 32-bit colour, but 256 is more than adequate for an emailed image that's going to be posted to a website.

If I had submitted this error, I would have reduced the colour depth on the image before sending it, out of consideration to Alex. Why should I use up my bandwidth and his storage on a 500k image when 50k will do?

As for the version debate, it's IE6 on Windows XP (logo) with "Classic" appearance - no round "back" button.

I've been lucky enough to only ever work somewhere which had web filtering once; it was a large state hospital. The filtering wasn't generally too obtrusive (it was really just there to stop people browsing porn) but for whatever reason, it decided for a week or so that Jakarta/Apache Struts (a large, rambling Java web framework in vogue at the time) was an unthinkably filthy subject, and blocked the site and mailing list.

Everywhere else I've worked has either been pretty small or a university, so no web filtering in either case.

nelle:

I do webprogramming for living and I have this handy tool that enables you to have ALL IE versions installed on one PC (3.0 - 7.0) ...

But that's not EVERY IE! Remember IE 2, which came with NT4? Completely and utterly useless, of course, but IE nonetheless. I'm sure there was an IE 1 at some point, too, but I've never seen it.

rsynnott:

I've been lucky enough to only ever work somewhere which had web filtering once; it was a large state hospital. The filtering wasn't generally too obtrusive (it was really just there to stop people browsing porn) but for whatever reason, it decided for a week or so that Jakarta/Apache Struts (a large, rambling Java web framework in vogue at the time) was an unthinkably filthy subject, and blocked the site and mailing list.

Everywhere else I've worked has either been pretty small or a university, so no web filtering in either case.

nelle:

I do webprogramming for living and I have this handy tool that enables you to have ALL IE versions installed on one PC (3.0 - 7.0) ...

But that's not EVERY IE! Remember IE 2, which came with NT4? Completely and utterly useless, of course, but IE nonetheless. I'm sure there was an IE 1 at some point, too, but I've never seen it.

http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=msie

The real WTF is that he has "reference.com" in his bookmarks bar...

We have a real WTF at my work when I discovered that all the "translate this page" links on Google have been blocked, even though the original pages aren't. I had to manually cut and paste snippets of German out of a page into the Google language tools (which aren't blocked) and translate piece by piece (while losing all formatting).
I reported it 3 weeks ago and they still haven't fixed it. Stupid Blue Coat.