7 Easy Ways To Access Blocked Websites

Don’t you just hate it that the best websites are often blocked at work or school? Well, this post is for all of you who just can’t get enough of myspace, facebook, orkut and God-knows-what-else at home.  Aside from work and school, some countries such as China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran extend great censorship on the web. You can use the methods listed here to get round that.  

All of my favorites sites, and especially ogame, are blocked at school so this post is my labour of love in trying to outsmart the school’s techies.  Before you try out any of the methods listed here, I suggest you install Firefox browser.  Firefox is the best browser available out there. When you are accessing proxy sites or similar sites ensure that you use Firefox, never Internet Explorer.

1. Use your Own Proxy Server
This is the best method and will almost certainly always work. Unfortunately, its a bit advanced and so may not be for everyone.  This requires your own proxy server hosted at your home (where, ideally, you can access all sites) or elsewhere.  Here’s a How To on running your  own windows proxy server.  

You can get more details on this approach here.

An interesting alternative is the use of Circumventor, which you have to install. Read the instructions very carefully.

2. Anonymous Surfing
A proxy server (or proxies) is a normal computer that hides the identity of computers on its network from the Internet. This means that only the address of the proxy server is visible to the world and not of those computers that are using it to browse the Internet. Hence, the program that blocks you won’t be able to ‘see’ you.

Just visit the proxy server website with your Web browser and enter a URL (website address) in the form provided.  Here’s a HUGE list of public proxy servers, that still work, hopefully.  Normally, proxy servers won’t work for long so just google proxies to get the latest list. The real problem is that most of these servers are no longer free.

Alternatively, use a URL redirection service like tinyurl.com or snipurl.com. These domain forward services sometimes work as the address in the the url box, and do not change to the banned site.

Note – When using public proxies, do not give out any sensitive information such as credit card numbers because the guy hosting the proxy can probably see everything you’re doing.

3. Use IP Address
If the people blocking you didn’t do their homework, this is the simplest way to beat them. Type the actual IP address instead of the domain name.  For example, instead of using www.myspace.com use the actual IP which is 216.178.39.16.  There are a number of free services to help you find IP addresses, such as this one.

4. Use Google Cache
Just do a search for the site in question and click on cache. This method works pretty well, if you are not bothered by whether the content is up-to-date.

5. Use Online Translation Tools
Here, we use the translation tool as a proxy. Just ‘translate’ the site from English to English (or any language) and you’re good to go! Here are some tools: (Google for more)
a) Google Language Tools
b) Babel Fish Translation
c) FreeTranslation
d) Online Website Translation
e) Language Translation
f) Online Translator

6. Go Mobile
Google mobile search works, but output may not be optimal. This is very similar to using a Web proxy – Google displays the normal HTML pages as if you are viewing them on a mobile phone. It therefore ‘translates’ them somewhat.

Alternatively, use the Opera Mini Simulator.

7. Good Old Email
“Most Internet services can be accessed by email. Just about the only technologies you can’t access by email are those that are inherently interactive by nature, such as IRC and MUD’s, where you need to participate in real time.

The most common form of Internet access by email is getting web pages for people that don’t have direct web access, perhaps because they are not directly connected to the Internet or they have a very low bandwidth connection.” Go Here For Details.

Enjoy yourself, and do tell me how it goes!


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BlogTV

“Hello, blogTV is here! This is the place where you can show off your talent, build a fan base and share your opinions LIVE! You bring the webcam, we bring the stage. We’re here to help you get your 15 minutes of fame. ” From here.

A while ago I got an email inviting me to join BlogTv. I’m pretty happy with ustream.tv so I was a bit apprehensive to check it out at first. I still haven’t really used it – just gave it a short try once – but my experience was good enough to think about shaing it here.

So, what is BlogTv? It’s alivestreaming service combining live video streaming and chat in one window, which you can embed on your own blog. You can also team up two webcams at once – think cohosts, live interviews, etc etc. Moreover, you can record bits of the live ‘show’ and record them in an archive. Your users can then browse through them like they do videos at youtube, for example. Each author has his/her own channel which users can subscribe to.

From their own FAQs:

Here is what you can do with blogTV

  • Broadcast your own live shows, just plug in your webcam and Start Broadcasting
  • Record and archive your shows,press record at any time during your show and it will automatically be stored in your show page.
  • Chat with your viewers, it is the perfect way to get live feedback during your shows.
  • Co-host live shows, split a show with a friend or invite an audience member to co-host with you.
  • Share you shows,send shows to friends, post shows to blogs, send email alerts and RSS feeds.
  • Manage your shows, organize your shows once they are recorded. You can change your show title, write a description, insert a logo/picture and add tags so everyone can find you.
  • Watch live shows, discover something new.

Complaints
I really haven’t used it enough to start complaining but I foound something that may be of importance: BlogTV’s embeddable player isn’t quite up to snuff compared with some of the other livestreaming players I’ve seen. While it does show you how many people are watching a program, the integrated chat is a one-way experience. You can see what others are typing, but you can’t type back or see who is in the chat room. READ more.

Finally, all the info you want on BlogTV, all on one page.

Joost Revealed

Thanx to Kayliz for suggesting I review Joost. We’ll look at a Walk-through, Pros and Cons. The screen shots are from Version 0.10.3, which has since been upgraded to 0.10.4. My Cons list may be longer than Pros, but I still love Joost!

Walk-through

I adding my email address at the URL www.theveniceproject.com/apply.html (which now redirects to the home page), and finally received an email invite from Joost back on April 5th . This page also allows you to download Joost for Windows.

Joost’s setup file indicates my Dell laptop barely passed the minimum requirements, but performance is smooth overall. When a program initially loads, there is a lot of jitter as it buffers, and finally smooths out. Picture quality is also good through a 1.5Mbps download and 256kbps upload connection.

Programs can be accessed through “My Channels” or Channel Catalog. “My Joost” pulls up various Widgets to invite others, blog about your experience, or chat with others, to name a few. Pros

1. Potential
Bringing together the “best of TV with the best of the Internet” is a promise hopefully leading to a good execution. For example, it’s an election year in Kenya, so I would gladly log on every day for quality analysis of grassroots efforts directly from those “on location”.
2. Resume Playback
After logging on, the last viewed program starts where it left off, even after a reinstall. Very convenient.
Cons

1. Yanked or Unavailable Content
Joost, where’s “Cops Uncut” in the Channel “Braindead“? Back in April the show would stream for about for about 10 minutes, then “this program is unavailable right now, #121” would pop up. After the upgrade to Version 0.10.2, the show was unavailable! Now, even Braindead has been yanked. I can envision Couch Rage from regular TV users used to 99% reliability. OK, 90% reliability.
2. Time counter removed
A minor issue, but is noticeable for those of us that watch TV in small increments. Earlier versions like 0.7.3.1 reviewed here had a time counter that helped me return to a certain point in a program, but Version 0.10.4 does not seem to have the counter.
3. Cryptic error messages
Yes, I know it’s Beta, but hear me out. If you log on and get this “Panic” error, it probably means they have upgraded from 0.10.x to 0.10.(x+1). It happened to me twice, from 0.10.2 to 0.10.3, and from 0.10.3 to 0.10.4. Isn’t it just better to upgrade in the background?
Also, I’ve tried exiting Joost, and after trying to relaunch it, get this error, and have to reinstall Joost.
Thanx again, Kayliz!!

This post was written by Erick, a regular reader of Let’s Explore! Erick has also written: Why I don’t Blog. So that’s why he has not yet got his own blog despite his obvious potential. Thanks, Erick.

What is RSS? How Can it help You?

Using RSS feeds can change your life, trust me.

There are two types of Internet users, those that use RSS and those that don’t. This video is for the people who could save time using RSS, but don’t know where to start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU
Link to Video Page.

Recommended Feed Readers

Feed Reader – Software that you have to download to use. This is its main advantage as you can access your feeds even when offline. It may cause problems if you use it on a slow computer. I currently use this one and recommend it for everyone.

Google Reader – A simple, powerful reader from google. It’s nothing fancy but it is simple to use and excellent for beginners. However, it may take a while to load at tmes.

PageFlakes – an impressive start page that gives you access to all your feed content, and more. I haven’t used this one for very long but so far I’m loving it.

Now that you know what RSS is, don’t you think it would be much easier to read Like Chapaa from a feed reader? Subscribe to my blog’s feed.

In Search of Free SMS

UPDATE: If you take a look at the comments at the end of this post, you will notice some criticism. I’ve responded to these here(and also in the comments below).

Three months down the road, the most popular page in this blog is, by far, the ‘Sasanet.co.ke Opera Mini Hack.’ Everyday, I get 30-50 visitors to this page who are brought my way courtesy of google. It seems many of you are interested in sasanet, free sms and hacks. Not being one to let an opportunity go unused, I’ve decided to write more on sasanet and free sms.

Sasanet.co.ke – wtf!?

Please not that in this context, wtf has not been used to mean “where’s the fire”

Sasanet.co.ke used to be one of my favorite sites as it allowed me easy, free communication. I even came up with a hack specific to this site. Things change, however. Right now, I have an extreme dislike for sasanet.co.ke. Why?

Sasanet exhibited what I call classic jerky jock behavior. A jerky jock courts you, uses you then abuses you. Sasanet courted us by providing free sms services. I suspect this propelled them to widespread popularity and drove thousands to their site – that’s what they (sasanet) wanted. Later, they discontinued the free sms service and monetized everything on their site. See, that’s classic jerky jock. Now the thousands who visit (or used to visit) sasanet are probably either as disappointed as I am or got sucked into the ‘trap’ and now help sasanet make more money.

I’m not against making money in this way. In fact, I respect the jerky jock approach to business. However, I think the viability of this approach is ebbing away. Think web 2.0: freedom and equality geared to user (that’s you and I) satisfaction. This just goes to show that the web2.0fication of the net is not equal in all places. Kenya, evidently, still lives web 1.0.

With sasanet having gone the jerky jock way, does this spell the end of free sms services in Kenya?

There’s Always Someone Looking to Stab You in the Back and Kick You When you’re Down

The jerky jock approach is simple, fast, efficient, and makes sense (and money). As I said earlier, I think this approach cannot be used effectively anymore – it cannot work in the long run nowadays. The internet, after all, is the international network. This simply means that there is always someone somewhere who can, is and/or will compete with you.

Take sasanet, for example, they probably still make loads of money from visits to their site by people looking for free sms. Unfortunately, this is bound to be very short-term – the site’s visitors will eventually realize that sasanet cannot satisfy their need for free sms and will go looking for others who can satisfy that need. The lesson here is: do not go the jerky jock way. If you must go this way, make sure you don’t piss off your users (read customers) by keeping something, anything in it for them. Then again, if you must go this way, check your business model and re-strategize.

So, is there an alternative to sasanet.co.ke? You bet!

The Competition

Needing to send a text message to someone, for free, I went about on a search for a way to do just that. (No I’m not trying to spoil the sasanet party.) The search was too long for my liking but I did get results. The winners are:

First Prize – sms.ac: Just register as a user and you can send 3 absolutely free texts per day to anyone in the world. An added bonus: this site can help you make money. Plus, sms.ac is more than just a place to send free sms, its the largest mobile community on the net. An absolutely shocking thing about this site is that it is not ‘optimized’ for Firefox.

The also-rans: Both sendsmsnow.com and textnation.com provide free sms services. You have to register as a member of these sites before you can send any texts. A problem with these sites is that the recipient gets the sms as an email. This presents two problems:

  • Recipients must be able to receive emails on their phones.
  • Retrieving emails is not free in some countries. Countries like, you guessed it, Kenya.

So you send someone an sms and they get charged for reading it. This, in my point of view, is just plain evil good old robbery and begs the question : Isn’t safaricom even worse than a jerky jock? (I kindly ask Celtel users to elaborate on email retrieval charges, if any.)

My advice to sasanet.co.ke : find away to re-introduce the free sms service. As you can see, the competition is way behind what you used to offer (10 completely free text messages per day). It makes sense – you are likely to make more money that way. Did you know that sms.ac had, like you, scrapped free sms only to re-introduce it due to ‘public’ demand? Learn from their mistake.

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Is Firefox Really Free?

FACT: I know more people who’ve bought Firefox (and other free software) than I do those who got the free software for free.

Does Your Ignorance Betray You?
I turned off the busy street into the alley and suddenly felt an uneasy feeling of loneliness. I suppose it was because the place was a bit spooky, to say the least. The alley was almost empty, dirty and seemed dark, even though it was probably midday. An eerie wind blew seemingly directly at me, blowing polythene bags at me. I skipped over them and headed for the dirty little sign that said, ‘Cheap Software’.

The software was indeed dirt cheap. You could get the latest Microsoft software for pocket change! Not to mention many, many other notable software. Despite the temptation, I had not gone there for bootlegged software ( yes, I think piracy is wrong, immoral, and criminal) – I had come for something very specific. I had come for Firefox, the award winning browser. To my surprise, the guy at the counter told me I could have the latest copy for just under $5. He went on to add that for that same price, each, I could have some other software too. The interesting thing to note is that Firefox, and all the $5 software on offer at that particular place is what is normally termed as free, open source software. The guy was offering to sell me stuff that I could get for free. Surprise, surprise.

The sad fact is that millions of people the world over, especially in the so-called developing world buy all their software at roughly the same price. They get Microsoft and other for-sale stuff dirt cheap because what they pay for are illegal pirated copies and they get otherwise free software at a price because they have no idea it’s free.

I have no problem with you willingly buying something that you can get for free – heck, I’ll even sell it to you! I believe we should all have the option to pay for whatever we want to pay for, even free things. What ticks me off, however, is when one is ‘tricked’ into buying anything. Of course your ignorance is always your fault but taking advantage of it isn’t nice at all. That’s what this post is about: getting rid of buyer ignorance. So go on, gather all your friends and let me tell you about an award winning software whose price is shocking!


Is Firefox Really All That?

Yes it is, and more! You can skip my long explanation why by going here.

I’m sure you’ve heard tons about the virtues of Firefox so I’ll keep it short. Like any other surfer, I am concerned about my speed and efficiency online. Lately, I also think about my privacy and security. The only browser that meets all my need is Mozilla Firefox. Firefox was built to be the fastest, most efficient and secure browser available. It lives up to all that and also gives you the option of personalizing it by getting useful little add-ons.

I know there are hundreds of faulty and plain useless software out there so you are probably skeptical. I would be too. My secret of telling whether any software is any good is finding out whether that particular software has any fanatical fans who sing its praises. Firefox passes this test:
Yes that is the Firefox Logo in a crop field. These guys made it. If they love Firefox that much, it just goes to show that Firefox is simply that damn good. Period.

How To Buy Firefox and How Not To Buy Firefox
As I said earlier, if you want to buy something that you can get for free then go right ahead. However, since you’re going to pay, anyway, wouldn’t it be better to pay the person who made what you’re paying for? In this case, that is the Mozilla Foundation. If you want to pay for your copy of Firefox, then go here.

That, though, is your problem because Firefox is so free that I can even get paid to give it to you. Don’t believe me? Check out the orange image at the bottom of my sidebar. Otherwise, you can get Firefox for free, no strings attached, by clicking on the image below:
Firefox 2
Go here to grab 27 cool tools to personalize your Firefox and make it even cooler(after your download, of course).

I know! How can something so cool be free? Well, technically you’ll have to pay for internet access. (If you write me a nice letter, I can send you a copy on CD.) 😉

What everybody ought to know about Online Sex Offences

The thought that the internet opens up a vast new avenue for sex offenders to reach out for kids scars me stiff. Ever since I started this blog, I’ve wanted to write on ways to protect ourselves and our kids from such criminals. But I’m no expert at this and the actual writing of the post was rather difficult. However, I recently found a way of overcoming this. Yesterday I told you about using Yahoo! Answers to research for your posts and just to expound further on how this can be done, and also to show how useful it can be, I went ahead and prepared the rest of this post using Yahoo! Answers. (Yeah, now your research doesn’t have to be limited to 2 hours at the library and 4 more googling) 😉

What exactly is an online sex offense?
Amber puts it this way, “I would think an online sex offense is when an adult goes online and finds minors to try to coerce them to meet and commit sexual acts on/with them or even inappropriate sexually charged conversations with a minor on an IM or through email. ” Personally, I think that an online sex offense’s victim isn’t just limited to a minor. Such an offense can be committed against anyone. Therefore, unwanted and undesired sexual advances of any kind are a sex offense, online or not. Obviously, some of these offenses are more ‘serious’ than others. Particularly, I think sex offenses committed against minors are horrible and are the most serious of these offenses.

How Can we Protect Ourselves?
I don’t get much help from my research on Yahoo Answers on this one. That illustrates a basic problem with Yahoo Answers: your questions won’t always be answered as well as you want them to. Keep in mind that the guys answering your questions aren’t necessarily experts; they are more likely normal everyday people like you and I.
So, how do you go about protecting your kids?

  1. It is important to have open communication with your kids and educate them on safe online behave and on online safety procedures like these ones. Your kids don’t need you to be their friend, they need you as a parent. Clearly outline the possible dangers in everything they do online and make sure they know what’s safe to do and what’s not.
  2. If they are not co-operative then you need to do whatever you can to find out how they spend their time online and who they associate it while online. If you have to, spy on them using the excellent spyware programs available. Here’s an excellent tool for doing just that.
  3. No internet profiles. Not on myspace, not anywhere else. This may sound extreme but i is the safest possible approach. Think about it. If you(or your kids) don’t put yourself out there, then no one can find you. Not even a hardened sex criminal. (At least not easily)
  4. There shall be no computer in your child’s room. The computer should not be your child’s ‘go to’ place when he/she is feeling lonely or sad. Nor should it be a secret personal playground. The computer should be placed in an open area, like the dining area or living room, where people pas by regularly. This way, your child will think twice about getting intimate with anyone or about breaking your rules on net safety (see #1 above).
  5. If you suspect anything, anything at all, is amiss then notify the authorities A.S.A.P. Better be safe than sorry. None of us wants to see another horrendous crime (think murder, rape etc) on CNN that started out ‘innocently’ on the net.

For more on safe internet practices go here.

This post was prepared with assistance from a question asked on Yahoo! Answers.