(1) Vanishd – Access Facebook and Youtube At Work

Make your co-workers, bosses, and friends think you’re working. What if you could cover any webpage with a fake word document or even the Google homepage and peek through a small window to surf access Youtube, Facebook or some other site without anyone seeing. Enter Vanishd.

Vanish hides one webpage behind the other and gives you a small custom-sized viewing window that you can drag around and see contents of the hidden page. You can also use a mouse scroll wheel to resize the viewing window to a desired size.

When you need to quickly hide the viewing window all you need to do is drag the cursor to the side. Easy.

See Vanish in action in the video below:

Read more on Vanishd here.

(2) WebToMail – Get Websites by Email

If the internet access in your office is limited only to email then WebToMail is just what you need. It lets you quickly access a site of your choice via e-mail.

Just send an email to send@webtomail.co.cc with the URL of the webpage in a subject line and shortly after receive that page by email. Check out the screenshot below.

Although WebToMail doesn’t work with the websites that require you to login it’s still a handy tool to have in your arsenal.

(3) TwitterMail – Post to Twitter via Email

Is Twitter blocked in your office? If that’s the case TwitterMail has a workaround for it. Using TwitterMail you can post status updates to Twitter and receive tweets sent to your username (i.e. @your_username) all via email.

You might also want to know that when sending status messages by email all long URLs will be automatically shortened.

(4) MoDazzle – Facebook, LinkedIn, Weather, Stocks and more.

While TwitterMail brings Twitter to your email, MoDazzle brings the rest. Access Facebook, LinkedIn and a number of other web services (local business directory, weather, stock quotes, etc.) via email or mobile text messaging. No Firewall can stop you here.

Here are just a few of the many things that you can do with MoDazzle:

- update your Facebook ’status’,
- get ‘un-read’ messages from your Facebook inbox
- get someone’s profile info from LinkedIn and Facebook
- check weather
- get driving directions
- get the location of the nearest Starbucks
- pull restaurant reviews
- check flight information
- and lots more.

It’s also very easy to use. For instance, to update your Facebook status message you can send an email to ‘fbprofilestatusupdate@modazzle.com’ with your new status message in the subject line. If you’re on a mobile phone then send an SMS message to ‘22553′.

(5) Read At Work

Read At Work is a wonderfully done website that looks exactly like a Windows XP desktop.

Now what no one knows is that those folders you got over there have about 20 ebooks that look like Powerpoint presentations.:-) Definitely check it out!

Bonus: If all you’re looking is a simple web proxy then try www.unblockall.net

Did we miss any cool websites office workers under firewalled connections should know about? Please share them wth everyone in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Web proxies are used for hiding your IP address and by-passing work, school or other web filters. For instance, if Facebook or Myspace is blocked on the computer you are using, you can easily gain access by using a web proxy.

HideMyAss – Free and speedy proxy service. Use it to hide your IP address and get through network filters. HideMyAss is part of a Privax proxy network, so if it’s blocked, there are several others you give a try. There is nothing to configure, just type-in the address of the website you want to visit and press ‘Go’.

Proxy.org – Extensive directory of free proxy servers. There are well over 15,000 Proxy Servers on the Web. As of this writing, Proxy.org claims to have 4,718 working proxies available for you to choose from, so that might be a pretty good place to start.

GlobalPandora – Finally, free and simple way to access a US-only Pandora interactive web radio from outside US. If you haven’t tried it before, give it a try now.

As always, if you have favorites that were mentioned above, please share them with us!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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For those of you who think that the internet does an excellent job of protecting your location, think again. You are easily trackable via your IP address which is the digital equivalent of a fingerprint. So bear that in mind the next time you contemplate using a file sharing network. But all is not lost – you can easily surf the net, hiding your real location, using a proxy service.

A proxy service doesn’t have to be for the shady segment of internet users. There are plenty of legitimate uses for a proxy. Perhaps you just don’t like being tracked via your real IP address and wish to remain in the shadows. Or perhaps you like to surf the web at work and your IT department has decided to block your favourite websites. By using a proxy server, you can bypass those restrictions and surf at will.

There are countless proxy servers out there and I can’t possibly test them all. Plus I’m sure these services come and go as often as a wannabe singer on American Idol. So here’s five that I did try and which seemed to work OK. If you have a favourite proxy service, let us know in the comments. Oh and if you know where the proxy service is based, also mention that. It wouldn’t do to tell someone that you are in your beach house in the Seychelles when your IP address says you’re actually in a trailer park in New Mexico.

1. Corpask.com – apparently shows you coming from Texas.

2. MProxy – this one looks interesting. It allows you to remove cookies and scripts as well as encrypting the URL and the cookies.

3. Hide This – Works fine although it asked me for a password when I tried to access one of my websites. Strange.

4. Da Net Surfer – another one that allows you to strip away information such as cookies and scripts.

5. Fox Surf – seems to be no relation to Firefox!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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