How to Open Facebook at School and Office

These days most academic institutions and corporate offices block popular social networking websites like Twitter, Facebook and Orkut so that students/employees don’t waste their time chatting with their buddies or checking their status updates and focus on being more productive instead. However if you are addicted to Facebook but are unable to access it due to Facebook being blocked at school, college or office, here are some methods that will let you open Facebook and access it without any hassles:

1. Change the DNS Server

Most sites including Facebook are usually blocked at schools, colleges and offices by blocking it in the DNS server itself. But you can easily bypass it by switching to some other DNS such as OpenDNS or Google Public DNS. Only a while back some websites including Youtube & torrent sites were not opening up in my PC. No matter how many settings I tweaked, I was unable to access these websites. I had heard of OpenDNS, so I decided to change my DNS settings to those of OpenDNS. Right after I did that, I was able to access all of those websites without any problems. Fortunately, you can do the same since changing your Internet’s DNS setting is quite easy. If you are using Windows, go to Control Panel > Network Connections and select the connection that you are currently using. Right click on it and click on Properties. Then choose Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).

Click on the Properties tab and check the “Use the following DNS server addresses” option. Now enter the following values in Preferred DNS Serverand Alternate DNS Server respectively (OpenDNS):

• 208.67.222.222


• 208.67.220.220

2. Using Gmail

Since Gmail can never be blocked by any institution or office, you can use it safely for accessing Facebook indirectly. All you have to do is to add a gadget by going to Gmail Settings > Labs and looking up the ‘Add any gadget by URL‘ option. Click on “Save changes” button.



Return to the Settings page and you will see that a tab called ‘Gadgets‘ has been added. Click on it and enter the following URL in the ‘Add a gadget by its URL’ field and click add. Here’s the URL:

http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/104971404861070329537/facebook.xml



After adding this gadget, a Facebook gadget will appear at the bottom-left of your screen, just below the Chat. Click on expand and login to your FB account. When you first login to your account, a ‘request for confirmation’ screen will appear. Simply click on the Allow button. Once logged in, you can easily update your status and read all recent status updates by your friends.

3. Using Opera Mini

Another method to open blocked Facebook is by using the web version of opera mini browser. Just download Opera mini simulator that functions exactly as the Opera mini browser would do on any mobile phone. In order to access Facebook, you will have to use the mobile version of Facebook –http://m.facebook.com.

4. Edit the Hosts File

Here’s a simple trick you can use to unblock Facebook on the computer you using.




Go to C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

Right click on hosts file and open it with notepad

Add these 4 lines at the end of the file:

125.252.224.88 facebook.com

125.252.224.88 www.facebook.com

69.63.181.12 apps.facebook.com

153.16.15.71 upload.facebook.com

153.16.15.71 login.facebook.com

Now save the file.

5. ScrapBoy

Scrapboy is a desktop application that allows you to manage Facebook, Myspace and Orkut from your desktop. Just enter your Facebook login details andaccess Facebook directly from your desktop. You can change notification options from the Notifications tab in the Preferences window of Scrapboy.



Do you know of any other methods to open blocked Facebook? Share them with us.

You Might See Facebook Browser & Dead Opera – Soon!

The rumor is spreading like fire, that Facebook is looking to buy Opera Software. If it turns out to be true then we will probably see a new web browser, Facebook brand.



Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Microsoft Internet Explorer just got a new competitor few days ago, namely Yahoo Axis, but it looks like they will have to make room for another one. If the said deal confirms, most probably we will see a brand new Facebook browser. If you don’t know about Yahoo Axis yet, it’s a web browser (of course) which has many new features, but the one it’s bragging about is – thumbnails. It has replaced the standard search results page and address bar suggestions with thumbnails, which shows a quick preview of the web page. Know more about Yahoo Axis.

We are saying this because, a few weeks ago the social networking giant bought Instagram and after a while launched a camera app very much similar to Instagram and apparently, Facebook is serious about developing its mobile services and make its own space in mobile sector – Acquisition of Opera Software is a very good move for this purpose. Also, it has plenty of money as it just went public, in figures its more than 16 billion dollars.




Opera claims to have 200 million users worldwide. Undoubtedly, the mobile browsers by the entity are very good and recommended by many people. Even I recommend it for mobile devices, but when it comes to desktop… I’d rather use Firefox or Chrome. Opera recently launched its very own browser for Android and Linus based TVs. We can only imagine what will happen when the growing and innovative company will get support of social networking giant and its huge public funds.

We can also expect some integration of the said browser with the social network to increase the engagement of its users and may be some exclusive features, similar to desktop notifications of Gmail which are only available in Chrome. To check the authenticity of the rumors, when Mashable contacted the PR team they replied, “Thanks for checking in, but Facebook isn’t commenting on this.” Well, what can we conclude out of that?

What do you say about this? Will you use Facebook browser instead of Chrome or Firefox?

Gmail Notifr

Gmail Notifr sends you notifications about the received e-mails and other events in your Google account. It supports multiple accounts, checks mail at a specified interval, has Growl and sound notifications and has no background daemon processes installed as Google’s official notifier. Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5+ (Leopard).

How to Access Your Gmail Account When You're Not Connected to the Internet

Reader David is an avid Gmail user who recently spent five weeks in Brazil, where "any form of permanent [Internet] connection was far from possible." In other words, he quickly grew frustrated with Gmail because of his limited connectivity.

After all, Google's mail service lives in your Web browser, and when you can't get online, you can't access your messages (new or old). This is true of other Web-based mail services as well, like Hotmail and Yahoo, but Google recently unveiled a new option for offline mail access.

Known as Gmail Offline, this browser plug-in allows users to read, respond to, and search mail even when there's no Internet connection. It has a nice-looking, simplified interface that's similar to what you typically see in Gmail--but with fewer options.

Unfortunately, for the moment Gmail Offline is available only for Google Chrome. On the plus side, similar plug-ins are forthcoming for Google Calendar and Google Docs.

There is, of course, another option, one that can solve the offline problem for not just Gmail, but also Hotmail and Yahoo Mail Plus: an e-mail client like Windows Live Mail 2011 or Mozilla Thunderbird 6. Programs like these can be configured to download e-mail and store it locally, thus allowing you to read, respond, and search--just like with Gmail Offline. Just make sure you stick with a POP3 configuration rather than IMAP, as the latter requires a live Internet connection for many functions.