I just received this e-mail and I thought I would share it.

"Came to your web site by following a link in the TER discussion board. I’m not in Arizona hope you forgive me in sending you this email, I just cannot understand why people have music in their Website it is annoying and even dangerous when we browse at work. Hope you take it as a constructive criticism. Wish you a prosperous, safe and a wonderful day."

Now I know I don't have the fanciest music on my website.... truth be told I was planning on having it changed, but that is besides the point as my site is actually still a work in progress.

I was curious gents how do you feel about browsing sites from work? Is it safe? Is it acceptable? Is it in poor judgment as many companies keep logs of internet usage via SPY programs? Have you ever taken into consideration what would happen if you got caught browsing at work or what are company policies on adult sites and personal surfing? Has anyone ever been caught and if so what happened? Have you surfed from work or will you continued to surf from work after taking in to consideration everything I mentioned above?

Come on Gents let me have it!! I want the scoop on this thing!!

Ladies as always please be generous enough to post all your thoughts and opinions as well.

You never know who is watching at work.  Music or not people lurk and spy hoping to add value to their jobs.

So crank the music you wild, mad, women!  Get some damn moaning in there as well.  Video clips are good for getting caught by my boss.  Bright colored backgrounds stand out and get noticed..bringing curious fellow employee's eyes to my screen.  Oversized photos of naked parts of the provider's body, particularly moist body parts make me linger longer, lose track of other people in the office and increase the potential of discovery.
 Photos of untraditional sex practices, even if you don't provide them, might be good.  The lady could have a button on her site that says: "I don't do this - click here"
and a loud clip of a golden shower or sex with a monkey would pop up!  Now this would make me jump up from my desk and say: "whoa Mama!!!"  really really loud and everyone at the office would say, "what happened?!! Are you all right?!  Let me come help you!  What did you see--  omigod, Jockeypants, what the hell website is that?  Hey boss!  Come look at the urinating Monkey on this website!"
 I think it should be the provider's goal to make their website something that will get me completely screwed at work because my boss can't use the more technical spyware stuff and won't discover my pre-occupation unless you help me.
 Let me review:  Bold colors, moist body parts, loud banging sexual noises, monkey.
 Thank you for any help.

Many folks don't know that everything they do (sites visited etc.) is retrievable at work.  Really bad idea to surf this site while at work.  

Music:  I usually have my music all the way off anyway (home or work), so I never hear it.

Browsing at work can be very bad now of days .... As for websites I perfer no music, no flash (or intro), or at least a skip to get around it .... and no slid show .... I perfer to know that I can get in and out really really fast if I need to ... so speed of the site loading is also a concern and content should be very easy to follow... don't have me fill out an info page and have your e mail address posted don't have it linked directly to go to my messenger ... just a few thing since you asked.... I would love to have the time just to browse at leisure .........

-- Modified on 8/9/2004 5:32:26 AM

I only use my personal laptop that's not connected to the network. This puppy stays at work so I can browse the TER board.

And then the computers are employee machines that are isolated and fairly anonymous.  If they have it spied and logged, there is no log on, so they can't know who is actually using it.  

But no, even here, I don't cruise providers' websites.  I may occassionally go to TER discussion and see what's being posted.  If anybody passes by the room, I minimize the window.  

I have seen posts by guys here because they were "outed" by a site that played music.  If I were providers, I would take this into account and warn on the opening page that the site will play it.

what you just expect to slip back in here quietly?  

Welcome home, oh disturbed one. :P

unless you have a pretty open work environment that you are VERY certain of, DO NOT take chances on this subject.  I was "encouraged" out of a job I had for 12 years (that thankfully I was just in the process of leaving anyway) because of this very issue.  It was used as a wedge issue.  I now work at a place where I have a lot of discretion in how I spend my hours, and my boss gives me a LOT of leeway, and has told me that what I do, as long as I get my work done and don't download viruses into our system, it up to me.  However, unless you have that type of scenario, you are playing with fire.

In some respects, I still am, but there are certain aspects of my life that have always been on the edge.

"Fire...walk with me"

1.) Depends on the company, smaller ones often don't monitor the internet logs, but still a bad idea. I DEFINATELY would NOT browse adult and especially hobby related sites from work. I know of several people that were fired for this.

2.) I don't like music on sites, you should at least have a button to dissable it, displayed prominently.

I used to check TER several times at work, thinking of it only as one of my Email Boxes, and discussion groups until, duh..I realized, OH! This could be considered a porn site or certainly an off limits site, and so I stopped. I had to wonder, though, if I was 'caught', what would be my reason for even being on there? Hmm..

As far as music goes, I vote no music. No music, no flash, nothing fancy. Just the good stuff.

One of the ladies who emails me all the political crap that I mentioned in the bitching thread, also sends every email with music. I now just delete ALL of her emails..

KISS (Keep it simple, Sexy!)

Being the IS person at my company, and the one responsible (yeah right, me responsible ) for all the networking and internet connectivity in the entire company, I am absolutely sure my boss is not watching me, because I would have been the one to set it up for him.

As to audio and sound on websites, I hate them on every single site because they take away from the main reason for going to the site, and that is the visual information that is to be delivered.  

I cannot remember the site, but there used to be one that had a great name, but only brought up a page with a very loud "HEY EVERYBODY, I'M LOOKING AT PORN" at a very loud level.  At my old company, that turned a few heads of course.

Being a techie has its advantages...

-- Modified on 8/9/2004 12:36:12 PM

A man is not allowed to even have a Sports Ill. swim suit issue in my plant.....or face being fined, or fired. Generally, bad idea if your company keeps a log...mine does.

Keep the music. Not heard it...but I usually listen to music (jazz) when on my computer at home....I view any damn thing I want then......

Oz

Whether I'm at work or at home, I don't want anybody looking over my shoulder to see what's going on. Puhleez Ladies, no music or voice over sweet talk.

This has become a non-event at my company, they have filtering software configured within the network, which will not allow you to go to any sex related website. If you  attempt to do so you get this message "You are attempting to access a website which contains sexual content", your IP address has been logged".

This is usually enough to scare most folks, the second offense and you recieve a written warning. The third offense is immediate termination. I do not know of anyone who has been fired, but there was a Sr. level IT guy fired on suspicions that he was running a kiddie porn ring at work. Just when you think you've seen everything.

I have music on just a few pages and sound clips on every other one.  I love it...it adds character and is fun!  If you don't like it or it is dangerous, just turn the sound off.  Duh!  lol

discretion is probably the most important word in the vocabulary, I'd say better not to have it.

Sexy as hell, too.

is recorded by the firewall or some other system (I am not savvy enough to know exactly what it is) even without spyware, and if the administrator were instructed to do so (or if he or she did so on their own) your surfing habits could easily be found out.

Therefore, if I am surfing from work or anywhere else that I believe I need to be anonymous, I use idzap.com.  I believe (hope?) that by surfing this way, I leave no tracks (it also blocks popups).

Re the music--I vote no (although I have my volume off when I surf anyway).

No way the filter can distinguish between a breast cancer site and a porn site.