Top 10 Ways to Access Blocked Stuff on The Web

The web is a generally free place, but some sites and services want to make it annoying to navigate and enjoy. Stream any video you'd like, see the sites you need, and get at services you thought were down with these tips.

Photo by chidorian.

10. Skip Past Annoying User/Pass Requests

Closed betas, deleted cookies, and over-eager marketing firms want you to log into just about every site on the net. If you're just stopping by to read a story or browse around, the time-tested site BugMeNot often has a quickie user/pass combo you can use to log in, along with a Firefox add-on that can do the checking and logging in for you. BugMeNot has gotten a little soft-hearted since its early days, and will sometimes block posting of login details for sites that request it, but is often a handy resource for those who need to wipe their browser or last logged in a long time ago. (Original post)

9. Read Articles That Rupert Murdoch Wants You Paying For

Many news sites have a curious relationship with web traffic, including the Wall Street Journal. They don't want you stopping by and browsing what's available, but when they've got a scoop to share, they'll go ahead and open a side door for the masses. You can jump in through that side door at most any time using Google News, which most news sites offer at least one click-through to. The simple way, as Digital Inspiration explains, is to simply copy the URL of any article you're looking to read at the Journal or elsewhere, and then paste it into Google. The first result should usually get you right where you're trying to go. Otherwise, head to Google News and enter either a site-specific (site:wsj.com) or source-specific (source:wall_street_journal) operator, then type in your search terms. It's an oldie, but a goodie. (Original post)

8. Change User Agents to Get Around Browser Blocks

Want a peek at what Gmail on the iPad looks like, or get around sites that pretend Internet Explorer is the only browser that works? You should switch up your user agent, the string of text that a browser identifies itself to sites with. Firefox users can install User Agent Switcher for the easy fix, while Safari has a user agent changer built in. Chrome can change its user agent string, too, and other browsers usually have some kind of work-around available. Next time you hear about coffee shops offering up free Wi-Fi to iPhone users, feel free to take advantage.

7. Get to Gmail When It's Down

When bloggers, Twitter addicts, and Gmail fans go nuts over "Gmail being down," they often mean that the standard web interface isn't loading in their browser. The Gmail team itself has recommended using an IMAP client when Gmail isn't loading, and the How-To Geek has quite a few other work-arounds to recommend, including keeping a link to Gmail's HTML-only and mobile versions handy.

6. Get Actually Usable BitTorrent Speeds

The distributed nature of BitTorrent makes it a reliable means to downloading files—unless your broadband internet provider, or your router, doesn't want to play ball. We've detailed the best ways to set up your software, router, and connections in our beginner and intermediate guides to BitTorrent. If it seems like your corporate net provider is the issue, Wired has a guide to outwitting your torrent-stifling ISP. You might not get top-notch speeds with such work-arounds, but you will get downloads that work. (Original post)

5. Get to Sites Taken Down by Traffic

You've just found the coolest new site—unfortunately, so has everybody else on the net. When a site goes down, you can try seeing if Google has a recent cache of that page (by searching for something like cache:lifehacker.com, or try the Coral Content Distribution Network, which has proxies and nameservers and all kinds of geeky network stuff all over the globe, grabbing images of sites on a regular basis. To see what Coral has available, just add .nyud.net to the end of any URL—so lifehacker.com.nyud.net shows what Coral can grab from Lifehacker. It's a fairly solid bet, especially if a site or page has been around for any length of time, and it beats hitting refresh every five minutes for two hours. But for the full spectrum of page-saving options, the Resurrect Pages Firefox add-on offers both Google and Coral's cache, along with a handful of other page-saving services, so you can likely get lucky with one of them. (Original posts: Coral Cache, Resurrect Pages)

4. Control Computers at Home

Your DSL or cable company does not want you serving up a web site or running a game server from your house. That doesn't mean you can't occasionally jump into your home computer to grab some choice music, shut it down, or stream some great video to a hotel room without much on. The basics involve setting up your router for port forwarding, using DynDNS to give your home network a domain name, and, if you want total control, using VNC to remote control your computers. It's not exactly a plug-and-play job, but once you're done, you'll feel like you've got one of those secret tunnels back to your home, the kind you turn over a rock and type a code into an embedded keypad to access.

3. Download YouTube and Other Flash Videos

Every company wants to stream video on the web, but few want their viewers to download it—even if the server hit is about the same, and it's already in the cache, anyways. To get at YouTube and other streaming video sites' goods, the How-To Geek wrote up a complete guide to ripping and converting Flash videos. Among the recommendations: YouTube Downloader or the Get YouTube Video bookmarklet, along with the old Vixy.net webapp standby. If Hulu's where you want to grab from, StreamTransport is, at the moment, working for that purpose. For conversion to nearly any format once the download's done, try the Format Factory.

2. Access Country-Blocked Streaming TV

Want to watch Top Gear from Tucson? Hulu from Halifax? Find a good proxy in the country that's intended to watch the content, set up your browser to use it, and you're on your way. Commenter hengehog laid out the process of setting up either Firefox or Chrome with proxy add-ons in a step-by-step gallery, so we can all see what the fuss about this new Doctor Who is about.

1. Roll Your Own Proxy to Access Blocked Sites

More professionally maintained proxies (covered elsewhere here) get you your favorite shows, and the Tor project can make your browsing anonymous enough to get past certain web road blocks. For a lighter, home-rolled solution that gives you occasional access to a more reading-based blog or site, consider making your own proxy. You can set one up on the same space you maintain for a personal site with PHProxy. Lacking for server space? No problem—set up a proxy on Google Apps Engine, or run a proxy server from your home computer. Either way, you'll get good-enough access to sites that work may have blocked, but you occasionally need access to. (Original posts: PHProxy, Google App Engine).

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What's the go-between, work-around tool you use every day, at work or home? What little tricks or software have helped you work past artificial walls? We want to hear all about your clever means in the comments.

RIM unveils its tablet, the 'PlayBook'

RIM President and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis holds up the company's new tablet, the "PlayBook."

(Credit: James Martin)

Research in Motion today unveiled its first tablet offering called the "PlayBook."

The device is due early next year in the U.S., with international availability coming in the second quarter of 2011. RIM has not yet announced a price.

The 7-inch, 9.7mm-thick tablet, which was debuted by RIM's President and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis at the company's DevCon event in San Francisco, features an HTML5-capable browser, both front- and rear-facing HD cameras, and HDMI and USB ports.

On the inside, the PlayBook runs off of a 1GHz dual-core chip and has 1GB of built-in RAM. It will also come with a special version of the BlackBerry software that features multitasking and 1080p video playback. Other specs of note include 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and support for Adobe Flash 10.1.

Lazaridis said that the device is "enterprise ready" and that it will fit in with the company's existing server architecture. The company said in a press release that it plans on "working with developers and select corporate customers next month to begin development and early testing efforts."

Of note, the initial version of the PlayBook appears not to ship with a 3G or 4G cellular antenna. Instead, users are expected to pair the device with their BlackBerry phones (via Bluetooth) to enable data connectivity when out of range of a Wi-Fi connection. The company's press release says it "intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future."

CNET will take a fist look video on the device later today. In the meantime, here's RIM's first promotional video of the PlayBook in action:

When LEDs and math equal high art

A new exhibition of artist Leo Villareal's light works, most of which are done with complex LED creations, is now showing at the San Jose Museum of Art. The show is open until January.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

reporter's notebook SAN JOSE, Calif.--Can math make art? Can logic inform patterns and sequences that are visually compelling? Is light a medium suitable for the artistic canvas? Clearly, the answer to all those questions is yes, and people like James Turrell and M.C. Escher have offered years of proof of that.

LEDs light path to art (photos

But now anyone in or near Silicon Valley has a chance to take in a fantastic collection of light works by the New York-based artist Leo Villareal at the San Jose Museum of Art (see videos below). And having gotten a chance to see the show this week, I have no trouble reporting that it's much more than even I hoped it would be.

When I heard that Villareal, who is behind some of my favorite Burning Man LED art, was having a solo show here, I knew I had to go see it as soon as I could.

But even as a fan of what's possible with modern LED control software and hardware systems, I was blown away. The show, which comprises 19 pieces from throughout Villareal's artistic career, left me speechless.

Yet, while I was tempted to think of these beautiful pieces as a stunning collection of visual imagery and creative thinking, I don't have the art history or criticism background to properly put Villareal's work in context. But others do, including JoAnne Northrop, the curator of the exhibit.

Northrop explained to me that after having curated a 2006 show of artist Jennifer Steinkamp's digital animation projections, she wanted to expand her reach into "digital art that is accessible to the mainstream of contemporary art."

"I'm very interested in the kind of art that is digitally based and uses light that can also be appreciated by connoisseurs and art world people, but also average...viewers."

As Northrop searched for the right artist, she came across Villareal's work, and after reaching out to him "out of the blue" to propose a collaboration, this exhibit--which will tour the United States after leaving San Jose in January--was the result.

To Northrop and other art world professionals, Villareal's work is important because, as she said, "he really does bridge the world of contemporary art and the world of digerati."

From Burning Man to beyond
I had actually heard about Villareal's show while I was at Burning Man this year. A friend, San Francisco Art Institute professor Mark Van Proyen, mentioned the exhibit, and said he expected it to be well worth a visit.

So after seeing the show, I asked Van Proyen to tell me why he thinks Villareal's work is worthy of a show at a museum like the San Jose Museum of Art.

"Whereas most of the art [at Burning Man] reaches upward to connect heaven and Earth," Van Proyen, who wrote an essay for the book version of the Villareal exhibit, said, Villareal's "projects electrify [the event] laterally and represent the diffuse nervous system of [Burning Man's] social space, beacons that bring people together and facilitate navigation in what I claim to be the re-inhabited desert of the real that [philosopher Jean] Baudrillard proposed to have been evacuated and abandoned by the realm of the virtual...The platonic choreography of the lightworks can be seen as an abstract mirror of the convivial comings and goings that take place at [Burning Man]."

Of course, Villareal's work has appeared in many places beyond Burning Man. Indeed, he has completed major pieces for, among others, the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., and museums all around the country.

And one consistent factor seen throughout his work is the presence of mathematics, logic, and coding in the pursuit of what could be seen alternately as incredibly simple, or truly complex installations.

"My work is focused on stripping systems down to their essence to better understand the underlying structures and rules that govern how they work," Villareal told CNET News. "I am interested in lowest common denominators such as pixels or the zeros and ones in binary code. Starting at the beginning, using the simplest forms, I begin to build elements within a framework. My work explores not only on the physical but adds the dimension of time combining both spatial and temporal resolution. My forms move, change, interact and ultimately grow into complex organisms.

'Inspired by mathematician John Conway's work with cellular automata and the Game of Life, I seek to create my own sets of rules," he continued. "Central to my work is the element of chance. The goal is to create a rich environment in which emergent behavior can occur without a preconceived outcome. I am an active participant, serving as editor in the process through careful selection of compelling sequences."

But it doesn't end there, Villareal said.

"These selections are then further refined through combination with other sequences through simple operations such as addition, subtraction and multiplication," he explained. "The sequence's opacity, speed, and scale can all be manipulated through custom software. Ultimately, complex compositions are formed and then displayed in random order and for a random amount of time in the final artwork. I am interested in the idea of generative art and rendering the patterns on the fly, but have not found a way to generate compelling sequences enough of the time."

Northrop, for one, is enthralled by the idea that code can have so much impact on the artistic representation of light, and that light is merely the manifestation of the "sensual experience" that can come from nothing more than series of ones and zeroes.

"I think it's just fascinating," Northrop said, "that you can start with something that's just a set of simple rules, and from those simple rules, you can create these lights that can behave in uncanny ways."

And the possibilities inherent in Villareal's work seem almost endless, at least as far as anyone looking at his work is concerned. Villareal said that LEDs combined with his software and hardware systems, give him the possibility of millions of colors with which to work. And that, among other reasons, is why he has chosen LEDs as his primary media.

"Solid state lighting is exciting for several reasons including longevity and energy efficiency," Villareal said. "The ability to create over 16 million colors is truly incredible and offers a tremendous range of subtle and sophisticated possibilities."

To Northrop, being able to present Villareal's work to the public--especially an initial Silicon Valley public that is likely to appreciate the technology of it--is a rare chance to impact not just what people see, but also the way they feel.

"I think that what's interesting to people is the immersive quality of his work," Northrop said. "It doesn't just talk to your eyes. Your entire body reacts to it. Sometimes [you get] the feeling that these works are trying to communicate with you directly."

Added Northrop, "In a way, he's a modern Dr. Frankenstein. He's creating something alive from inanimate materials."

The security suites to beat

"Most impressive" is one way to describe the latest Norton updates from Symantec. After three years of progressively better versions and significant improvements, Norton Internet Security 2011 and Norton AntiVirus 2011 look incredibly sharp. Gone are the days of crippling system behavior and debatable security efficacy.

Instead, Norton gives people blazing installs and quick scans, useful system-managing tools and security extras like the capability to scan your Facebook wall for malicious links, and most importantly, extremely high ratings in threat detection and prevention. With a 30-day trial that has no other restrictions, anybody who's willing to pay for Windows security should check out these two suites. Read CNET's full reviews for Norton Internet Security 2011 and Norton AntiVirus 2011, and let us know what you think.