Hi – i've started a new job, it's in a school and I can't get hotmail or ebay or any sites that i need to use in order my my job bearable. I know a lad from last year (12 years old) managed to sort it so another memeber of staff could get into a few sites. I'm not very tech savvy and the IT debt seem to be nazis. Is there anyway someone could tell me how i can get it 'changed' so i can get my mail, without having to resort to bribing a 12 year old boy with sweets (never good policy in schools!)

i suspect that getting it "changed" would be a great way for you to not have a new job any more…

I would bother messing with the school system – not a great way to impress your employers.

There may be separate security settings for staff accounts – have you asked?

If not, laptop with 3G/mobile internet, or big screen smartphone (iphone/nexus one etc)?

get an iPhone or equivalent

Wot John sez. Just use a 3G connection if its only for email.

Or alternately do some f**king work? 😉

Don't think using a phone to surf the web during lessons would be advisable. Out of lessons ok

hehe! My son and all his friends have worked out how to get past their schools security systems, it's really easy, I'm not going to tell you though, seeing as I'm one of those nazis.

Security controls are there for a reason, not because people feel like exerting their power over everyone.

Sounds like you may need to set up a proxy server, but on balance a laptop with 3G is the answer.

We used to play Quake 2 when I was at school after some enterprising person installed it on the server. It took IT 'support' over a year to find and eradicate it, despite pretty much every workstation on the network sporting it at lunchtime 🙂

Users of school IT system don't have unrestricted access to the internet? It's an outrage.

You're a pillock, do some work.

Hi – i've started a new job, it's in a school and I can't get hotmail or ebay or any sites that i need to use in order my my job bearable.

Deal with it, your there to work.

Your boss may well be reading this right now!

Thanks, i forgot about those 3g usb things.

Also thanks for the not so constructive comments, i'm sure none of you lot have never had to read personal emails at work, or even in your lunch hour. It's only hotmail and searching for suppliers for my subject, i don't want to have to do the work again when i get home.

most places will block personal e-mail and ebay as the IT network is not there for browsing the internet blah blah blah.

If you have a justifiable need to use such sites then put it to IT with a robust case as to why the current system is preventing you from doing your job to the best of your ability.

Have you tried turning it all off and on again… 😆

I'm the only one on our site that has access to eBay as I buy obsolete electrical stuff to keep the equipment running, I can fully appreciate why the access is restricted as can you imagine the disruption if people sloped off to bid on some tat in the auctions dying minutes!

Can't access webmail either and I can also see why. Your paid to work not dick around sending silly emails.

Yahoo & Google, for example, allow you to login to your account via their main search engine page. You can then set your account preferences to bring up a sort of combined-search/news/weather/sports results/etc page as the default when you go there.
This can be setup to show/preview your emails too. It used to work for my Yahoo account and somehow goign in that way got around the filters but i've stopped using it as it was a breach of security policy & was daft to try & get around it.
Microsoft's version (and therefore Hotmail) is here: http://uk.msn.com/?st=1

There is another way that I can practically guarantee would work – not using a proxy server (as any decent IT dept. would block those too!), but I aint telling either – get back to work learning those kids some stuff! 😉

Thanks Overshoot, I need ebay also to keep stuff going, same situation i guess, and to source other things as loads is sold on it that i can't get elsewhere very easily.

I'll put my case in to the IT debt and see if i can get it changed. I can't see why it should be a problem, every other education establishment i or my wife have worked in have use of internet for these things, so it shouldn't be an issue.

Thanks for help, now i must get off this forum and learn up some kids about stuff 'n that innit.

Cheers

Iphone has the added benefit of receiving porn at just big enough resolution, just **** the day away at work. But from the staff toilets.

Can't access webmail either and I can also see why. Your paid to work not dick around sending silly emails.

Indeed but that's not the main reason why webmail accounts are blocked. Think about it, the school (and it will most likely be part of the local council's network who actually set the rules), spend a lot of money keeping the network safe. They place controls to stop people bring dodgy files in which takes time, money and effort. Then someone with a webmail account logs on and downloads a funny picture someone sent them via their webmail encrypted link (so the perimeter controls can't even see it never mind do anything about it). Bingo, that funny picture has a virus embedded in it and it runs riot across the internal network.

Now the IT staff have to work out how to get rid of it across the entire internal network. It will take them days, or even weeks to get it all back under control again. Lots of malware means a visit to each individual PC followed by some seriously skilled work to remove it. Some malware just isn't worth the effort so it's a rebuild of the PC.

Or, they could just block webmail accounts. That makes a lot more sense, yes?