A warning regarding Firefuxing
Approximately 2 and a half years ago, Springbrook SysOp Mr. Garrett decided to tighten security on the school's network. I, faithful to my trusty Firefox, was shocked to find that FIREFOX.EXE had been blacklisted and I was left only with Internet Explorer. I soon realized the means to bypass this inconvenience and since then have gotten the better of him every time.
Mr. Garrett, I've been told, is now extremely pissed, because a certain individual has mimicked my method (at my instruction, which I regret) and distributed his copy of Floefox to large numbers of people, who have been using it to bypass the proxy settings. This produces the obvious security risk and reduces the teachers' ability to control their students' internet activities.
He has since blacklisted my copy of Firefox, or Firefux, and for a short time made my prefs.js read-only. Within the past week he went through my documents at school and personally wiped Firefux and related files, as well as my shortcuts to the command prompt. He did the same to friends of mine who happened to share my programming class. And yet I continue to use my own personal Firefox.
He has now threatened, as I am told, to suspend any student he sees using Floefox or Filefox or Firebox or Firefux or Feuerfux or Feuerfox or Finefox or etc. in a classroom in which the teacher has disallowed access to the internet.
So be warned: don't do it unless you're willing to accept the penalty. Personally I don't care; suspension seems like a valid excuse for being absent.
And speaking of the school's network, this email came to me this morning:
Due to an electrical problem in the central office, all central computer systems will be temporarily shut down effective immediately (Thursday, 2/9/06, 8:57 a.m.). Systems include E-mail, web site, student systems, mainframe, Blackboard, MMS. Updates will be provided when systems become available.(Chris Sturm, Director of MCPS Web Services)
So if they still don't work tomorrow, this is why.
Best Actor/Best Picture 2006