Long time eh? Well it’s been a hectic month already… Apart from the tests that just got over, I finally got the SPICMACAY chapter started in my campus & organized the inaugural performance by Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia (Spent some time with him too… He’s amazing! _/\_) and then had Quark’09 – Technical festival of BITS Pilani Goa Campus. (Yeah that’s my college :|)
Anyway reason why I’ve been away isn’t either of the above. It’s because BLOGSPOT had been banned in my campus for apparently no reason. Our network admins are known for blocking random keywords (Design, Firefox, Game, Girl, Manchester, Analysis….) , but banning blogspot was just too much. After trying for some 10 days, I finally got a few of these unblocked. So now we can read blogs (Go read about the changes to Gmail Contacts!), surf Designer sites (Saw the Photoblogs@Smashing?), go to the FireFox homepage, and look for websites with Analysis in it.
Sounds too good to be true eh?
Here’s what the net admins did now: They’ve set a limit to the maximum size of the webpage you can load. Great!! So the Wikipedia entry on "BITS Pilani", greets me by the message: “The request or reply is too large.” Ditto with the official BITS Pilani Goa Campus website, or the BITSAA website (That's maybe the only reason why our Campus can survive - The BITS Pilani Alumni). Oh & don’t even dream of opening something like DesignShard (This time, it's not because it has ‘Desi’ in it :X)
That’s not it. Pages now load without half the images (Like AlexBuga's Site or Tutorial9). Formatting of some sites is completely screwed (Smashing Mag & Our very own Waves site for example). And Sourceforge.net, Orkut, Facebook, Picasaweb, Newsgator, Youtube, Metacafe & Game Development websites (XNA related) are a few of those hundred other websites that are still blocked.
Sad part is, people in the campus don’t really care about this. I’m tired of getting things changed for those who just sit and play CS/Dota in their rooms and abuse Net admins but can’t go upto the authorities to complain. What's the point? I guess I’ll just go & sit in CSD and surf net unrestricted instead of going around getting keywords unbanned. :-/
PS: My mood changed from “I hate this campus” to “Yey my blog’s unbanned” and back to “Great. So now half of Wikipedia is banned. I still hate this campus” in a span of an hour.
PPS: For those who care, Webpage size of Google is 11606 bytes; My blog is 342357 bytes; BITSAA Website is 365549 bytes; BITS Website is 595399 bytes. Check it out yourself!
PPPS: Now that I can post, I have a few sketches & (Yet another) BIG Gmail Tips compilation (New ones!) coming up very soon, so do subscribe to my blog if you haven’t. :D
The content on the blog shouldn't be shared without the permission of the writer,
12 comments:
blogspot block was sad. But I am happy that now at least it's unbanned and even the speed I am getting is better.
The thing which I don't like is the fact that they block whatever they like, whenever they like. For example, you'll notice that my Statcounter (the numbers) is no longer visible (It's also blocked).
Now tomorrow if I work on a simple application for the campus that uses some data from the net, I can never be sure if it'll work in campus because a day later my data source might be blocked. Amusing isn't it?
I wish they would atleast inform us when they change the restrictions. :(
inqualaab zindabaad!
inqualaab zindabaad!
ye andolan nahi rukegaa,"sir" humaara nahi jhukegaa!
;)
That is really really bad both from an education and from a livelihood point of view. Surprising that such a thing happens at a BITS campus, one of the last schools in India one would expect people to be sane.
Can't you get one of those USB modems and unsubscribe from the campus net?
@Rashie
I'm just going to be one of those people who abuse the net here. :(( You know Rash, we're out to save our own skins more than do something for the campus.
Oye, can you make a small post about waves, informally? And mention the waves blog link too plweaaase, waves09.wordpress.com.
@Prateek
Uh, those connections are pretty expensive and most parents aren't willing to pay for stuff that'll distract their kids.Plus the speeds we get here are not stellar.
I agree, I never expected that such things would happen at BITS.
@Sameer: Wish mere campus ka koi aise bolta :(
@Prateek: Trust me, I sometimes do doubt my decisions. But that's only when I'm really pissed (I guess every campus would have pros and cons).
And yeah, ppl do buy separate net connections (Data card etc) but again, price is a problem. And asking parents for money means giving them another reason to scold you (So that's why you aren't getting marks? Trying to surf net all night?) :P
@shalini:
What ppl (like you) don't realise is that in this attempt to save your own skin, you're actually ruining your own future. You let them ban blogspot, facebook, design, wikipedia... Eventually you won't have access to anything online. Trust me you'll repent that attitude later (PS: This is meant for ALL those who are reading this, not just you :P :D)
Must say it is really sad :(
The same story everywhere!!
Wish more people would take some initiative & stand up against the injustice
Yeah. I wish people would change their attitude & try to bring about a change! :P
Still, this is one thing why I'll miss Delhi. (Read: DU Strikes) :(
@RG: Smart thing you deleted the comment :P
Anyway moving to US seems unlikely (Looking at my current cgpa I won't get a decent MS anywhere) :(
So I guess I'll have to live with this net only :(
wow....bits pilani goa was my dream coll....but slow internet well that changes everything
Hehe.. Well it isn't all that bad :P
Remember that this post reflects my extreme anger at that time. So it the opnion might be slightly skewed :P
But yes, if you're coming here and need internet more than oxygen, then it'll be a good idea to get a data card. (Or loads of tunneling softwares!) :P
Post a Comment
Have something to say? Anything to add on?
I'll feel glad to hear from you! :)