Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with blocking

Why doesn't my spouse let me see his/her facebook pictures?

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:20:37 -0800

Is this normal? Would you be worried if your spouse blocked you from seeing his/her pictures on facebook? My life partner, let's call him/her LP, blocks me from seeing any pictures on facebook tagged with "LP’s name.” LP has photos, albums posted up on facebook, but has not changed LP's privacy settings to let me see these photos.

I know this because LP and I often spend time together when one of us is on facebook. We'll send each other interesting things we've found when we’re apart, or when we're together, we'll say, "Hey, look at this!" We’ll talk about friends in common, and just generally share our facebook lives like we do our meatspace lives.

We've been partnered up for a long time. LP is, I understand, a private person. And I'm pretty sure that LP is not cheating with someone, or putting up pictures that would be explicit or shocking.

I just don't understand why LP would not allow me to see LP's photos. If LP isn’t having an affair, then this doesn't make sense to me. I've asked LP a number of times why this is the case, and LP has said, "I don't know," or "I'll fix it," or "why does it matter?" This makes me kind of sad, because we both work, and spend many hours each week apart from each other. I think it’s nice and reassuring to be able to pull up a picture of LP in the middle of a typical boring work day.

So this is my question: if your spouse did not let you see your spouse’s photos on facebook, would you think it was weird? Are there any circumstances that would make it seem more or less weird? If you asked your spouse to change this, and your spouse refused, what would you do? I guess it may be obvious that our life partnership is pretty much like most others, with good points and bad points. But that’s probably another question.

So, if you’ve read this far, and if you care, you may feel you need to know more. It’s for you that I’ve set up an email account that you can follow up with me on –
anonymailone-askmefi@yahoo.com.

Vedi, Vici, Vent-y?

Nice Guy Mike — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:23:03 -0800

Furniture partially blocking a HVAC return - bad idea or really bad idea? After a recent move to a new place, I find myself looking at the slightly-sub-optimal furniture layout in the living room and looking for alternatives. Ideally I'd like to switch some items around, but my currently-favoured layout would place a tall bookcase completely obscuring a HVAC return.

I don't have much experience with forced-air HVAC systems, so I have no idea how bad an idea this would be. Any inputs?

Additional information: The return is one of two in the property (it's a 12"x12" compared to the 24"x24" one upstairs), the property is a townhouse with a double-height area over the living room, so it's technically a contiguous space that's serviced by both returns - that said, the upstairs return is at the front of the house and the downstairs is at the back).

The bookcase would be one of several in a row, and all would stand off from the wall by 1-2", so we're not talking about sealing the area off. I am aware that changing the filter would be very difficult, but am I risking damage to the system or problems with heating or air conditioning by doing so?

It's the buzz buzz buzz in the drum of the ear, or, making my amplifier a tinfoil hat to stop GSM noises from my phone.

Halle — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:22:38 -0800

It's the buzz buzz buzz in the drum of the ear, or, making my amplifier a tinfoil hat to stop GSM noises from my phone. Like many others, I have GSM buzz in my speakers. But, I frequently don't have the option of setting my phone to silent while I'm working, because I'm working on the phone. That leaves the options as a) not getting to listen to music while working, or b) letting hideous noises that come out of my speakers every hour at a much higher volume than the music make me aggro. So, I've done some research (and read the old and inconclusive GSM noise questions here in AskMe) and I've concluded that it's most likely my amplifier lacking shielding. I'm going to put ferrite chokes on my speaker and audio cables just in case, but the main plan of attack is to put a faraday cage around the amp since it's out of sight. What is a good way to construct the cage with the following specs:

1) blocks interference really well,
2) isn't terribly expensive,
3) will last/can be moved (i.e. alternatives to tinfoil),
4) has some possibility of heat dispersal so it doesn't kill the amp.
5) no negative electrical safety implications (I can't imagine what these could be but I thought I'd throw it in there in case there is anything I'm overlooking in this department).

Thank you!

No! Not my Gmail and Facebook! How to convince work not to block?

raf — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:33:26 -0800

Work is thinking about banning access to Gmail, Facebook, Hotmail and other third-party email and social networking sites. Help me convince them not to? My employer (a law firm) is very close to blocking access to third-party email and social networking sites, purportedly because such sites are conduits for "viruses." I would like to convince them this is a very bad idea, for a variety of reasons: (1) it's unnecessary, since there is no actual virus problem from such sites; (2) it's counterproductive, since it will block various legitimate work-related uses and will prevent people from keeping up with family and personal issues; and (3) it's insulting and childish.

Are there other arguments I should be making? Do you have citations or references that would help?

Thanks!

Can I know if my email msg has been blocked?

noelpratt2nd — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:44:17 -0800

Hi. I have a PC w/ Vista from 2008. Yahoo email. My question is, there is an email that keeps bouncing back to me saying... "Hi. This is the qmail-send program at yahoo.com. I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out. : 64.12.138.120 failed after I sent the message. Remote host said: 554-: (HVU:B1) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/554hvub1.html 554 TRANSACTION FAILED." Is this a hint that my message was blocked by the person on the other end? Does Yahoo give you a way to tell if your messages are blocked? Thanks for any help.

Can you beat a San Francisco parking ticket if it has no VIN number on it?

roxie110 — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:28:06 -0800

Can you beat a San Francisco parking ticket if it has no VIN number on it? Can you beat a "blocking sidewalk" ticket in San Francisco if they say "can not read" VIN number, even though it was readable? Or any other way... :) This is one of those lovely "pulled into boyfriend's driveway leaving plenty of room in front of car for pedestrians to walk by, ran upstairs for 3 minutes, came back to find a ticket--even though it was 8 at night in the middle of nowhere in Outer Sunset." All the other identifying info on the ticket is correct--including the gasp-inducing fine of $100.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Why can't I open webpages?

k8t — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 09:49:00 -0800

ADSL working but HTTP not working. I just got an ADSL connection (in Armenia, provider is Beeline, only documentation is here and is in Armenian. 256k though. Woo!)

I can use all sorts of applications pretty well (iTunes downloading podcasts, Flickr uploader, Outlook for mail, gChat, etc.), but I can't do anything HTTP. I open Firefox and can sometimes get a mobile page to load and I can search Google or Yahoo and see the results, but I can't open "normal" webpages at all. I tried IE and Opera but the same problem occurs.

I tried getting into the configuration page for the DSL modem, but doesn't look like it'll work well.

Also, suggesting updating firmware for DSL modem or something isn't possible. I am on really bad dialup otherwise.

Why would this be? (And yes, I've called tech support. They are less than impressive. They only introduced this service this month and aren't exactly supporting it.)

I am running Vista. I have tried to turn off all firewall-related stuff that I can possibly think of.

Any other ideas?

How do I block a particularly offensive google ad?

emyd — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:11:19 -0800

Can I block a particular google ad I never want to see again? I'm a science grad, and receive about 5 emails a day with the word "evolution" in them. Consequently I see a google ad promoting a certain ID movie by a certain ex-Nixon speechwriter many, many times a day. I know I should be able to just get over it, but it really becomes more offensive to me every time I see it. Is there any way I can get google to stop serving me just that one ad??? I am never, ever going to click on it, so it's not like it would be a loss of revenue.

Recommend Storyboarding Animation Software

bovious — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:47:52 -0800

Can you recommend a good, cheap and/or free tool for storyboarding a stage production I'm about to direct? Remember the scene in "Topsy Turvy," where Jim Broadbent walks little dolls around a stage mockup to block out a scene from his production? I'm thinking, surely there's a cheap or free animation software that permits this. Pop in a character, experiment with movement, then when you have what you want, save an animation that you can show your actors. I'm thinking this will save lots of time over moving people around on stage without being really sure about what I'm doing.

I'm on Mac OSX. I also own a Windows 2K laptop that could be pressed into service in a pinch. So, I'd prefer references to Mac OSX software.

I don't own any dolls.

Slow/blocked images at home

eas98 — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 09:23:04 -0800

Why do I have so many problems seeing the images on this image site at home.. Ok, first of all, yes it's a porn site, so don't go there if you will have problems viewing it at work.

Besides wanting to see that site, I am very curious about how something like this could happen in the first place, regardless of the site itself.

For some reason, it works perfectly fine at work (heh), but at home, the site comes up fine (even the ads) but the images themselves take FOREVER to come up, if at all (usually they don't at all, but occassionally one or two will show up). This applies to both the thumbnails as well as the full images.

The site used to work fine, until the last two months or so.

It happens to both Firefox and IE (the latest of both). It's not a hosts file issue, as I've cleared that out and tried. It's not even a computer specific issue, as neither my desktop nor my laptop will get it right. Perhaps a router/modem issue?

My provider is bellsouth DSL.

The site is: http://www.imagefap.com/gallery.php?type=1

To those of you who have made it this far, I thank you for your interest in the question, and thanks to all who dare answer. :)

How can i block the kids internet access in the evenings?

mrbenn — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:15:27 -0800

Is there a free solution to block internet access at specific times of the day? I want to be able to block access to the internet (i am using a usb adsl modem) at certain times of the day from the kids. They have been sitting up to all hours on MSN messenger and Bebo on school nights and sneaking out of bed to use the connection etc. What i need, ideally, is a freeware program (or configuration option) that will allow me to access (via a password?) the net connection but block it from them at these times

I have this really embarrassing ... ... ... ... ... problem

sarahkeebs — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 10:53:37 -0800

Why have I developed a bunch of verbal tics/eccentricities in undergrad/law school, and how do I get rid of or manage them? Mainly I'm interested in similar experiences, and what type of therapist/doctor/whatever I should be consulting. My symptoms seem a crazy-quilt of a few different speech disorders, or I'd presume it was one and go see a speech pathologist.

BACKGROUND: I've always been an incessant talker, but I was always good at it. I could comfortable speak to adults by the time I was in elementary school (confusing the hell out of my stepfather for many years, the poor man) and was happy to do so--in fact, preferred doing so. I did Toastmaster in junior high (grades 7 & 8 here) and was good at it, and all through high school was the queen of raising my hand, doing presentations, and generally being eloquent and loving language.

THEN: In undergrad I discovered I had an auditory processing disorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Auditory_processing_disorder) and I also become quite ill, resulting in some sort of chronic fatigue/atypical narcolepsy, the most distressing symptom of which was constantly having not just words but whole sentences, concepts and thoughts "on the tip of my tongue". Or in other words, I "got stupid".

NOW: My brain is mostly back on track, but for a few verbal tics that I find extremely annoying, and which I'm pretty sure have worked against me in job interviews and similar situations.

IRRITATING SYMPTOMS: I pause for no reason in the middle of some (all?) sentences. This can range from infinitesimal (only I notice, and only if I'm looking) to where other people assume I'm done and take up the conversation. Is this what stutterers call blocking? It can go on for almost a minute, sometimes only ending if I derail the sentence entirely (and sometimes not even then), and the only "communication" I can achieve is to snap, wave my hand, or hit the tabletop (as opposed to saying "um" or other interjections). I find it almost impossible to recover from these "brain farts" without breaking eye contact, which looks bad to listeners.

I have a tendency (compensation?) to say half a sentence and then break away into a related but entirely new sentence. Imagine speaking with a million parenthetical asides and em dashes.

This occurs whether I have carefully thought out what I want to say (e.g. replying to a comment in class) or in casual conversation.

The only time it doesn't happen (and this is equally annoying) is when I'm all of a sudden hit with a bout of extreme verbal diarrhea, in which I will blather on endlessly about something random until interrupted, and when finished I will not even remember exactly what I said, just that it was interesting but unimportant.

So...any ideas?

How to isolate and unblock google text ad URLs?

lazaruslong — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 11:51:43 -0800

What specific URLs feed the google text ads on my webforum, so that I may unblock them in order to solve my 5 minute page load problems? Ok, so basically I am running a website for my school. Our school's wireless network is heavily restricted in order to prevent students from accessing distracting sites during class. Having recognized the value of my site as a resource for students, our IT guy has unrestricted my sites URL.

The problem is, the site is currently hosted on a free webhosting service that uses google text ads. So the issue is that when students try to access the site, it attempts to fetch the ads from somewhere, and can't, so it hangs for about 3-5 minutes until it times out and loads the page without the ads.

I have isolated one of the urls, pagead2.googlesyndication.com, but I'm trying to figure out if there are more urls I should unblock in order to let the ads through and fix the slow load time issue.

I tried contacting the administrator of my hosting service but they refuse to give me any information. Also, I can't seem to locate a place where I can email google to receive a response.

Any ideas?

I have no willpower

Mbarron2896 — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:52:31 -0800

Can anyone suggest good (and hopefully free) software that will prevent other applications from running during specified parts of the day? The idea is to block certain non-productive applications (media players, games, etc.) during the day when I should be working. Ideally it would allow me to specify which hours each program was blocked and to allow the programs to be unlocked with a password if needed.

O! How to block IM?

bz — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:55:23 -0800

I have a teenage daughter who, as far as I can tell, is destroying her academic standing by spending all of her computer time chatting. She uses various instant messenger clients--including some browser-based--and I have been unable to effectively block or disable this distracting, time-sucking menace. Anyone have any ideas or experience about how I can disable this kind of thing without preventing the browser access she needs to do school work? Oh, she does not have admin access or priveleges. It is XP SP2.

How do I block the websites that kill all my time?

logovisual — Tue, 23 May 2006 19:17:47 -0800

For the sake of my productivity and my sanity, I need to block certain websites that eat up waaaaay too much of my time. I use Firefox (specifically, Deer Park) on a Mac. How can I do this? Oh, and there's a twist inside... I poked around the Extensions listing at the Mozilla site, but it's strangely impossible to find anything there (I searched the AskMefi archives about this, but couldn't find AdBlock, one of the original suggestions, on the Moz site... all they seemed to have was "AdBlock Plus," which didn't have a "Block Website" option that I could find).

But really, it'd be best to find some kind of program that would make me jump through a bunch of hoops if I ever wanted to unblock said sites again. Some programmer with dubious self-control must have invented this at some point -- maybe something that asked you multiple choice trivia questions or used an iSight to watch you do twenty jumping jacks or something? (These are slightly fanciful examples, but you get the gist...)

How do I block outside access to an online coupon on a Microsoft IIS webserver?

ssmith — Mon, 01 May 2006 06:29:29 -0800

I have a client that's just beginning to experiment with online coupons. We want to make it so that you can get to the coupon (currently a GIF image) through a specific link on his website, but if that link gets passed around (via email or IM, say) access will be blocked. I've got a little experience blocking access to files and directories on an Apache server, but the site is being hosted on a Windows IIS box and I'm out of my element. At first we tried following the instructions listed here to try and filter requests by IP address, and it even worked for a little while, but then it started blocking all access no matter where the request came from.

I'd really love to solve this problem server-side, but If I needed to make the html wrapper for the coupon in .asp or .net we could do that.

Kyrgystan's religious censorship via web: technique?

vanoakenfold — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 17:20:32 -0800

Does anyone know, loosely or extensively, of Kyrgystan's methods of web censorship of religion? More specifically I need to know how the actual censoring action works: by scanning words and phrases, by domain/IP blacklisting, by a person actually checking them out with their eyes, etc?

Help me find a personal email venue that my employer can't block.

Haize — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 18:53:03 -0800

My employer blocks access to webmail-based email like yahoo and gmail. Is it possible to get around this? Really, I just want a personal email address that I can access at work. There is no set policy against personal email at work that I can find, but they seem to block every webmail portal I can think of (gmail, hotmail, yahoo, anything with "webmail" or "mail" in the URL). I know why many employers choose to do this (security, productivity), but I really just want to check mail at lunch. Suggestions?

Webpages with lots of Ads

blue_beetle — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 16:10:40 -0800

I'm doing some research on Adblocking software for web browsing. I'm interested in webpages with a lot of ads, or various types of ads on one page to run tests against. Do you have links to any particularily annoying pages?

Block All But A Handful Of Websites

kc0dxh — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 15:19:06 -0800

My four year old now has his own account on my computer and I would like to deny access to all but a handful of pre-selected websites. Can this be done with what comes with XP Pro? Failing that, how can I do this for free?

AIM blocking and spellchecking

trinarian — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:40:37 -0800

Is there any program out there that will let me a) spellcheck AIM messages and B) show myself as being "Away" or even offline to only certain people on my buddy list?

Needed: blocking software.

itchie — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 12:17:55 -0800

Looking for website blocking software. Suggestions? I'm looking for something simple and (more importantly) free that will only block websites I wish to block - not all pornography or questionable websites - and works with Windows 98. If there's a Mozilla extension that fits the bill, even better. Any suggestions? Heard of anything like this available?

How can I stop referrer log spam?

Anonymous — Sat, 04 Dec 2004 23:09:55 -0800

"Reffy is a Windows-based mass referrer spammer.... Reffy comes with a pre-generated list of 3047 active blog websites...." My blog is on that pre-generated list. These people are spamming my logs and filling my referrer page with crap. Paypal has, unsurprisingly, not responded to reports that they're being used to transfer money to spammers, and .htaccess deny blacklists are no good when your URL is being distributed to spammers all over the place. So, (1) how do I stop them, and (2) what legal recourse would I possibly have to get my cut of the money they're making by putting my website URL in their application?

What do you use to block ads when you browse the internet?

dabitch — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 12:41:53 -0800

What do you use to block ads when you browse the internet? Does it ever erroneously block sites? Does it cost much, does it have special features? I'm looking for something to scrub the web clean - any/all platforms - without blocking innocent third parties. I say any platform since many of my friends are asking me for advice on this, and probably a few in here are interested if you have found the perfect blocker. Personally I'm a panther gal, but lets spread the joy.