Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with internet and work

Online career change exercises wanted

reenum — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:22:57 -0800

Are there any websites or online resources for people considering a career change? I've been thinking of changing careers for a while, and after some recent events at the office, it's time to get up and start figuring some things out.

I'm going to get "What Color Is Your Parachute" and a few other recommended texts from other threads, but I'm wondering if there are any websites or other online resources (preferably free), that have exercises and other things I can use to try and evaluate what it is I truly want to do.

I have a lot of free time at work. For obvious reasons, I don't want to show up here with career change books.

Thanks!

How to fill time at work using the Internet?

st starseed — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:59:04 -0800

How to fill time at work using the Internet? My workload as of late has been lighter than normal, and I find myself having a few extended (30-minute) blocks of time with nothing to do.

To be clear, this is not the kind of workplace where I can be super-ambitious and go ask my bosses for more work; once my well is dry, it's dry.

My way to fill these empty blocks of time has been to visit the more popular news/essay sites, including slate, arts and letters daily, and the new york times. However, I feel like I'm consuming web candy for 30 minutes at a time...when I'd rather be eating a full meal. What are some more substantive ways I can utilize my time? How do you deal with this?

To be clear, the company watches every single thing we do online, so anything personal (like starting a blog) is out of the question.

Online romance makeing me feel nervous, advice please?

audio — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:10:02 -0800

I'm involved in an internet romance that is takeing a major toll on my direction in life and frankly makeing me feel nervous. I need advice in regards to how to be realistic with this relationship. I am 21 and this boy I am involved with is 22. We met on MySpace through a mutual friend nearly two years ago. Since then we have kept up alot of correspondence by talking on a skype video chat nearly daily.

He lives in California, USA. I live in Alberta, Canada. He is proposeing that I make a trip after I graduate college to see him this fall.

Since I will be fresh out of school, this will require all my remaining funds leaveing me broke. I'd probably only be able to stay maxium two weeks then I'd have to return back to Canada and look for work and save up to return again (if I choose to).

We have been talking about me trying to move there instead of just visiting, since that amount of time probably wont be long enough for us. We're talked about trying to find me a job while I'm there so that I can actually stay. I will be a certified Network Administrator, and though I have a decent resume I predict that it will be somewhat of a hell to find a job and get a work visa.

Just a couple random facts:

- I'm pretty much in love with the guy but I have never physically met him in real life.
- We have always got along and my r/l friends are mutal friends with him and know him as a decent person.
- I never wanted to live in California, I'm not much of a city type person.
- He's never offered me a place to stay/move in with him because he just crashes at friends places as hes currently "homeless".
- He's never offered to support me in any way, as he makes an income but it isn't sufficient to support two people.
- He is a musician that is signed to a major record label and making his way in the industry. There is no way he can move from California without giving up his entire career.
- My parents are retired out in Arizona so worse case I have a place to fall back to.
- He's never been able to visit me in Canada because of his kind of work.

My question to Metafilter is,

- How can we make compromises so that both of us are happy with this arrangement?
- Are we moving too fast and if so what is the right way to progress with this relation?
- Are we getting ahead of our self? am I setting myself up for failure?

I really like this guy and I want to see this relationship work out, I'm sure he does too...but we are young and don't really know what the next best thing to do is. Thanks.

Did you just get way more done when you worked in an office before the Internet?

jeb — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:50:35 -0800

Did you work in an office before the Internet? What did you do? Also, what was on your desk? People always joke about how the Internet is just a big time waster for people who work in offices, and the whole blog industry is basically a drag on office productivity, and everyone who works in an office has stories like, "oh man, I really didn't get anything done today, I played some dumb flash game for two hours/got sucked into wikipedia/facebook-stalked people/whatever". I'm sure at some level it becomes a problem when people actually stop doing their jobs. But for most people, I imagine its a mostly harmless break. I think I actually read some research that supported this hypothesis.

But either way, what the hell did people do in offices before the internet? Did they just plug away on their work, straight through for eight, ten, fourteen hours a day without stopping? Or did they take breaks by like staring into space or something?

Even people I know who work in offices where they are really tight about internet time wasting (e.g. trading floors), they all have tricks they use to send or read personal email, etc. I just can't imagine what an office was like without the internet.

I've been wondering this for a while, but I was watching Mad Men last night, and Draper goes into Duck's office and he's like, "Nice battlefield," gesturing to Duck's desk, and Duck goes, "I don't like anything on it but ashes." Seeing as how in Mad Men, basically all their work takes place standing around and BSing, why did they even have desks? I could see for the secretaries, they are always typing stuff, but the other guys, no typewriter, no computer, what's the point of even having a desk?

Do I spend too much time online at work?

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:55:36 -0800

How much time do you spend online at work? Am I spending too much time online? My job isn't that challenging, and though I'm working towards (and slowly getting closer to) an improvement in position that I'd really love, I find that I have a lot of free time between tasks to read online. I could read work-related information, but instead I peruse RSS feeds and use social media.

The amount of time I spend online depends on how busy I am. Some days I might spend 4 out of 8 hours messing around online, and some I only have time for an hour at lunch. I'd say I average 2 hours, though most of it is in 30-second to 5-minute bits.

My direct manager is a friend, and also tends to be online a lot (and even uses one of the same popular social media sites as me).

I'm getting my work done, and have the highest ratings on my performance reviews. Still, it makes me a little nervous and I'm wondering if I'm actually not spending more time online than everyone else, and we've all just learned to hide it well.

internet self-discipline

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:39:25 -0800

Is there a way to ensure that firefox can only access specific sites for a specified period of time? I need to use the internet for my research but I find it easy to get distracted. Usually when I work, I try to be somewhere that has no internet connection, but some of my work requires me to browse through papers and references online.

I looked at answers to previous questions, such as this and people suggested OpenDNS and LeechBlock. I'm more interested in specifying five sites that I can have access to for a fixed amount of time (and ideally in a password protected way) rather than a list of things I want to block. Perhaps this is possible in OpenDNS - from looking at their website I couldn't tell.

I'm using firefox on windows.Thanks.

Problems with large scale telecommuting

Raichle — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:53:31 -0800

What are some obvious problems you would forsee in large scale telecomputing/telecommuting? Essentially, I'm looking to brainstorm on a few big technical problems that would occur if a city decided to move most of it's resources into telecommuters to solve traffic issues, etc. What would be the foremost problems that would have to be addressed to make this possible?

Streaming movies @ work = fired?

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 08:14:15 -0800

I've been streaming movies and tv shows while at work. Is my job in jeopardy? Let me say first that I am stupid.

I work at a university at a job I love, and for the past few months have streamed movies and tv shows to watch at work while I'm working. Some sites I've used are legit (I think - see question below), like Hulu and Netflix, but I've also used other sources, to find other movies at various sites. I assumed it was legal because it's so easy to find and access these movies. I know. Stupid.

I feel terrible about this misjudgment. I really love my job and now I'm afraid that my hard work and professional relationships could really be damaged by this. Also, I don't want to make any enemies within the information technology department. I have to work with them often, and I've been careful to rebuild bridges with them that had been burned by the person who held my position before me.

The paranoia is settling in. I have some questions.

. I'm thinking that Hulu, Netflix and other network sites are legal, but asking here just to make for absolute sure.

. Am I screwed for real? Is it just a matter of time before legal letters are sent, and these viewings traced to me? How closely is this stuff typically monitored? I'm guessing that students probably do this a lot. Can it be traced to my office/building?

. If I use something like CCleaner, will this help? I'm also going to clear my Google Desktop Timeline. Anything else I can do? Besides work on my multi-tasking habits, obviously.

Thank you, Hive Mind.

WorkFriendly.net has been gone for a while, though I'm looking for other potential websites that do the same job.

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 06:13:27 -0800

WorkFriendly.net has been gone for a while, though I'm looking for other potential websites that do the same job. Like many of you I've got an asshole boss who loves to look over my shoulder. I can see the reflection of his computer screens from my desk, and he spends more of his day on MySpace than I spend on all of my sites combined... though that doesn't stop him from calling me out once a month about my "obsessive Internet use". (Ironically: I work for an Internet company.) The "powers that be" at the organization are beginning to notice that my boss sucks at more ways than one, and it's like he won't be with the company much longer... however, I wanted a site that is like the former "work friendly" site to keep him off my back until he leaves/gets canned.

He's too stupid to use any tools which examine my Internet history and pages visited... so i don't have to worry about "covering my tracks"... not that I would even ave to.

Any suggestions?

Help me fuel my Starbucks addiction through freelancing!

adverb — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:41:32 -0800

What are some good sites to find short-term freelance writing/Internet gigs? Similar to this post, I'm looking for some temp work that will bring in a little supplemental income. I've been using Mechanical Turk for a few weeks, and have made some nice pocket change, but I'd like something a bit more substantive (and, of course, better paying).

A lot of the freelance boards seem to focus on more full-time/daytime contract work, which won't work for me. I have a full-time job and would like something to work on during the evenings and weekends.

An ideal situation would be a site where I could view some projects, bid/accept them, and work a few hours/days to finish a product for $25-$50. My background is in writing and editing, but any type of broad IT-related jobs (IA, usability, blogging) would also be good.

How to stop torrents at work?

numlok — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:13:20 -0800

I'm sure this question will not make me the most popular student at the dance, but is there a way to identify (via IP) machines running BitTorrent clients within an internal network (ie. work)? My company has around 50 employees, and the old, "Please don't torrent at work" doesn't seem to be doing much good anymore. It brings our email and web browsing to a near standstill, and dropping by the "usual suspects" is not only tiresome, but doesn't seem to find all the sources of traffic any longer. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Internet documents archive security

tom123 — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 15:29:34 -0800

I want to archive my personal documents like birth certificate, mark sheet, bond, bank statement details etc by scanning them and storing in the internet. I thought i will scan and store them in my email accounts. (like yahoo etc) However i am not sure, whether storing those documents in yahoo email etc is safe. Can some one suggest a good safe option, where i can scan documents and put them in internet not accessible to others. Are there any free encryption software which encrypts the documents and stores them. It is okay, if some budget software is also available, instead of freeware.

Gray is the Color of the Day

Smarson — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:42:06 -0800

Looking for a Firefox extension or alternative browser that allows for web pages to be grayed out (specifically images) a la Ghostzilla. My daily work load comes and goes in cycles and so I often find myself with any where from 5 to 20 minutes of free time to do what cube monkeys do best, surf the web. I'm pretty active on Flickr as are many of my friends and so I'd love to be able to be editing image tags, descriptions, etc. during these intermittent periods of lulled labor. Unfortunately the way the desks are arranged in my office more than a few people have a clear view of my monitor. Clearly nothing x-rated going on in my web meanderings, but it still doesn't scream productivity to those that see my monitor from 20 ft. away on a regular basis.

Thought about using Ghostzilla purely for the grayed out image capability, but am worried about incurring the wrath of IT since that would be using an unsecure browser. I'm not worried about IT tracking what I do since I'm pretty sure they don't care as long I'm not posing any kind of security threat. I mainly just want to be able to browse knowing that the images of my friends doing stupid stuff aren't crystal clear to my bosses/co-workers who sit behind me.

Any ideas?

Should network administrators have their mobile phone and home internet expenses reimbursed?

Xazeru — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:53:59 -0800

Is it reasonable for a network administrator to require reimbursement for his personal mobile phone and home internet connection? The network admin at my workplace says that it's a standard practice for a cell phone and home internet connection to be provided to someone in his job. He says that he needs them in case an emergency arises.

There may be an inequity here, since other people at the same office perform work from home using their cell phones and internet connections without reimbursement. Is this an appropriate thing to require of an employer?

Is our landlord allowed to monitor our internet?

negatendo — Fri, 11 May 2007 13:14:47 -0800

It seems our new office building's landlord is monitoring and logging our internet traffic. Is this OK? So my work recently moved into a new building. As a part of our leasing agreement we were allowed full use of the building owner's internet. I won't go into details on how I found out, but it looks like all web traffic for this connection is being "logged" to a server in-house. Nothing is actively being blocked, yet, but we obviously have some privacy concerns about this. I realize that the landlord can do what they want with their own employees, who work in the same building as us and were probably the original reason this was done, but is this really OK to do with us as tenants? If not, does anyone have suggestions on what recourse we can or how I should approach them with this?

Working Net Connection on a Train?

yellowbkpk — Mon, 07 May 2007 14:23:07 -0800

What's the best way to get net access on the train from Minneapolis to Milwaukee? I work on the Empire Builder going between Minneapolis and Milwaukee (and back again) quite frequently. I'd like to be able to use my company's VPN to retrieve e-mail and do occasional source code updates from the SVN server while on the train.

I currently use the GPRS modem in my Cingular phone to get a connection, but it tends to be very slow and intermittent. Without a solid net connection for at least 30 seconds or so, the VPN connection gets dropped.

There are two train stations along the way with open net access points, but that only gives me 1-3 minutes of network connection to do all the internet conversations I need.

Anyone have any better ideas that I'm missing?

PS: It'd be interesting to hear user opinions on whether or not a long chain of 802.11 access points would work along the track.

How to work through the internet with mobile phone?

Tnuocca — Tue, 01 May 2007 05:06:48 -0800

I'd like to work through the internet. At the moment I access the internet through a mobile phone (Sony Ericsson W850i). I have a laptop but the phone can't be used as a modem so I have to access the internet using the phone's internal software. Are there any jobs I could do with this type of internet access? I can wordprocess files with the laptop and then transfer them to the mobile phone so they can be uploaded to the internet. But I can't use real time programs like Messenger or Habbo Hotel.

Are there any jobs I could do with this type of internet access?

I saw a thread on a similar topic before but I can't seem to find it now (something to do with a person who had applied for disability benefit and was currently working with a charity that deals with Palestine). Could you please also tell me where that thread is?

Thanks in anticipation.

Is my company logging web activity at home?

jules1651 — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 18:18:05 -0800

I use a laptop at work, where all web traffic goes through a proxy server and is logged. I don't have a problem with that. If I don't change my configuration in Firefox when I am back home, and keep the routing through that proxy server, are they still logging my activity even though I am accessing the internet on my home network?

Bored at work.

speranza — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 13:07:48 -0800

I've started a new job doing tech support for an ISP and have quite a lot of downtime between calls. What can I do on the internet that will make me smarter and/or better at my job? We're allowed to use the internet (within reason), but instead of just reading Wired or The Register or whatever, I'd like to focus more on techy sites that I can work through and learn from at my own pace. Maybe sites that have mini-courses or good overviews of new technology. Right now I'm just typing random words into Wikipedia, but I'd like something more structured. Thanks!

Where can I find "low-tech" jobs online?

panzerboy — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 06:55:50 -0800

Where can I find "low-tech" jobs online? We just had a baby and so my wife has to stay at home and take care of him. However, she still has some free time and she would like to do some stuff from home. She's a medical doctor with a bit of IT experience (mostly as a user, though). So I was thinking to find her some work online, maybe entering some data or as a translator (she speaks English and German, German is her mother-tongue) or maybe other "low-tech" jobs like this... So do you have any idea where can I find such jobs? Thanks!

Goodbye, Metafilter. Hello, cubicle.

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 13:43:12 -0800

How do I stop surfing the Internet at work so that I don't lose my job? I work in a cube at a computer all day writing, editing, and doing graphic design. While I work, I usually click back and forth from my task to reading articles on the Internet -- stuff from blogs and sites like Metafilter about politics, science, web design, you name it. (I know I can't be the only person around here who does this.) If our internet connection goes down, I feel cut off from the outside world; I have an almost constant need for external stimulii. No, I'm not ADHD; just a high-functioning information junkie.

At times I've felt guilty about my Internet tendencies; after all, time spent reading is not time spent working. But I justify it to myself by thinking that the "input" my brain gets feeds the "output" that I create. And I am productive -- not a superstar, but I get my work done and make my boss happy. My job is creative and challenging, but I have a high IQ and the ability to retain an absurd amount of this information I read; I feel like this is just what it takes to keep my overactive brain happy.

My company is going to start cracking down on "personal" Internet usage in the next few weeks, and I'd like to avoid getting busted. They're not just being Internet Nazis -- our company requires a massive amount of thruput to execute our Internet-based services, and employee Internet-usage sucks up bandwidth. (Being intentionally vague about my industry, but indeed, we stream a tremendous amount of data.) They'll be monitoring not only which sites we visit, but also the number of pages we load, so feed readers or GhostSurf won't really help.

Short term: what are some alternative ways to take rejuvinating "mental breaks" at the office? Are there little tasks, exercises, something I can do with a pen and paper that will get my brain out of a rut when I hit a wall? Frankly, I'm terrified that I'm not going to be able to give up my reading/surfing at work, and that this will lead to Job Problems.

Long term: am I seriously screwed up, or just lazy, that I can't manage to concentrate on work for 8 hours a day? I like my job, but I don't love it passionately -- is this a sign that I'm in the wrong field? Compensating for a lack of something in my work life? Or just the inevitable result of sticking a smart girl in a cubicle instead of graduate school? I spend relatively little time on the internet at home, so "Internet addict" doesn't really fit.

How to block most websites for a given time

underwater — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 10:38:15 -0800

Is there a whitelist-based internet blocker to help me focus on work? I am finding myself wasting too much time at work surfing the net. I've tried 'just focusing' but it's not working for me. I would like to find a Firefox-compatible program/extension that will prevent me from accessing most of the internet for a certain period of time, but will allow me to access a whitelist of sites that I need to be able to get to do my job. This idea was inspired by Temptation Blocker but that solution won't work for me because there are a handful of (un-fun) sites that I need to access whenever I want. Any ideas?

They are watching me!

eas98 — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 08:30:41 -0800

How can web usage monitors measure times spent on the internet? My company just installed Surf Control. I am, of course, interested in getting to know my enemy. In particular, I see reports showing time spent browsing the internet. How can they possibly know how much TIME I spend? I understand them being able to measure how many pages I request, etc. But can they know how long I looked at a particular page?

Also, any general tips on how to deal with this particular application?

Many thanks!

We don't want the IRS mad at us.

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 20:48:07 -0800

We have a couple of blogs and use a combination of Google Ads, AdBrite and Amazon Associates placements on them. We're trying to figure out how best to approach the income from these ads on our tax filings... We never thought we'd be making as much as we are making (which still isn't much...not enough to live on), so we hadn't really thought through the tax implications in advance. We were blogging for fun and then...well, income.

Since our Google Ads income exceeded 4 figures this year, we think that we probably have to cover our bases on our upcoming tax return. (More than $7500, less than $10k). Our other income sources posted more modest returns (Amazon, $500+; AdBrite: $500+). To facilitate our blogging, we purchased domain names, paid for hosting services, attended a conference, bought a digital camera, etc. Are these officially expenses?

Also, we'll probably get paperwork from Google for filing with our tax return, but can't imagine that Amazon or AdBrite are going to send us something for those amounts...are we wrong?

I'm a temp and my spouse works full-time so we really don't have experience with this little "side business" situation. Any suggestions for where to research this? Any other folks out there dealing with a similar situation? We are not incorporated or anything "official" like that. Just two regular folks with a laptop who are passionate about the subject we write about.

We talked about hiring a CPA but we've been told that may cost us close to $200-300. Since we're already going to owe the IRS this year, we'd rather try to do this ourselves with Quicken/Turbo Tax. We just don't know how to categorize this unexpected income. Thoughts?

How do I get past internet monitoring at work?

ieatwords — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 18:13:11 -0800

My company has recently started internet monitoring. I believe they have set up some kind of proxy server. Unfortunately, they have blocked sites that I use for productivity. Is there any way of easily getting around the proxy server. I'm not sure if I'm right, but there must be a setting in Internet Explorer that can route my websites through another server? How do I do this and who do I use. I don't mind paying, but would perfer free. The owner of my company has become big brother and it's unfortunate because now sites can only be "work related" which can be widely (or narrowly defined) I would also like to know how to find out what they are using to do this (for curiosity purposes). Where can I look on my computer to see this. Also, I think they may have set up remote viewing. Is there any way to detect this?