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Work PCs have been tweaked somehow to prevent streaming online music

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EvilHorace

Senior member
I use to be able to listen to a very good internet radio station via "Live 365" until we got a new IT person who's done something to all our PCs here at work, preventing most streaming music like the one I like.
There's no firewall. Most PCs run XP, one runs Win2K but none now allow this so some setting, somewhere's been changed. I've checked the basic settings in IE, etc yet I'm not finding anything unusual.
Anyone have ideas? I'd like to get that station back, now just gives an error message whenever I try.
 
I'd suggest asking your IT person. People around here don't usually take too kindly to asking for help circumventing work security settings. That being said, whats the error message? maybe its something simple and unrelated.
 
You said 'most streaming music like the one I like'. Does this mean some can be played.
If so, what formats, or from which sites?
Are they different on each system?

Tyannin is right though, and also, without doing anything illegal, it is more than likely that you wouldn't be able to change security settings.
If you did, you would most likely ah heck up the organisations' security arrangement.
Is your arse getting fired worth listening to Britney. I think not
 
Originally posted by: EvilHorace

Anyone have ideas? I'd like to get that station back, now just gives an error message whenever I try.
Click to expand...

I really love how ppl mention things like this yet fail to tell us the error msg. We can't read minds.

Interpreting error messages is how ppl here can help you.
 
Yes, ask the IT person about his/her policy instead of trying to circumvent it. There is a reason for that policy, and he/she will explain it to you.
 
OK
............ Error:..............................................................................................
Microsoft Internet Exporer

Couldn't listen to stream (error code: PLA-200109)
General error
The station cannot be played.
The server may be down or the broadcast may be halted.
Select a different station
Press OK for more info (note, doesn't help)
............................................................................................................

That's on the Win2K machine that will at least DL the player and try to run it before that error appears. On the new XP PCs, the websight doesn't even load so I know that something's blocking it.

Yes, I can play some stations on the Win2K PC via Windows Media player, just not the one I like and yes, the station's working and plays w/o problems at home. Played OK at work too BEFORE the IT person arrived and did something. Note, the IT person isn't even here on a regular basis but we are. Rules in the employee handbook say "no this, no that" BUT.........I don't care.
 
More error details...."could be connected through a proxy server"

I do not know the settings and no, the IT person won't allow this. Any hope?
 
Is that the real answer or is that a "safe answer" from another IT person who might somehow feel responsible? PC related stuff wasn't so secretive online a few years ago.

I'm not totally ignorant on networking as my home PCs (several) have been networked together for years w/o problems BUT then, I don't have a need to block any specific internet activity at home either.
 
Your co-workers are probably wondering why their network and Internet performance have suddenly improved since that new IT guy came onboard 😉 He's not just being the Fun Police, that change was made for a reason.
 
Originally posted by: EvilHorace
Is that the real answer or is that a "safe answer" from another IT person who might somehow feel responsible? PC related stuff wasn't so secretive online a few years ago.
Click to expand...

It's not about being secretive, it's about you trying to do something you shouldn't. There's a reason they turn that stuff off.
 
Yeah i always loved folks complaining about horrible internet connection and when checking the traffic, finding have the bandwidth gone to streaming video, music and filesharing.
 
"There's a reason they turn that stuff off"

I'm aware of that. The reason is mainly because they fear that it'll compromise security (not so much a bandwidth problem on a dedicated T1 line) BUT before our store was bought by another owner and thus their IT person arrived in my work world, I've had that same streaming music station running daily on my work PC for years w/o one problem.


I now have XM radio working there with my sound system (not related to the PCs) but there are times when I wouldn't mind listening to my old electricblues radio station via internet at work as I use to. I rarely listen to music at home anymore.
 
Most companies large enough to have an IT department, and especially those who host their own onsite mail/web servers prefer to allocate their bandwidth to work related activity, such as client's visiting their websites, etc. Streaming audio, video, etc. is a waste of valuable bandwidth.

Unless of course, YOU are the Network Admin... THEN it's ok... 😉 bwaaahaaaahaaaaaaaa....

 
At our last IT meeting, our top IT guy was ranting about someone who'd started running streaming media over at his WAN. He showed us his Netopia's traffic graphs. There was a huge hump in them from the streaming traffic. If even 10% of their workforce did that over there, they'd be paralyzed.

I've had to tell our office's employees "no" to streaming media after seeing just one person leave their system pulling Internet Radio and bringing one of our slower network segments to a crawl, to the point where employees on that segment were having extreme difficulty getting files from the server and such. Fortunately, our office's employees are cooperative enough that I don't have to force the issue. But I wouldn't think twice about doing so, if I had a rogue employee who didn't care what the rules were. :evil: And if they attempted to defy my enforcement measures, at the very least I would remember that when it was time to choose who gets the new computers this go-around 🙂 but more probably I'd report it to their supervisor and to HR for, mmm, future reference.

FYI, a T1 is probably slower than your own home broadband connection, at just 1.45Mbit.
 
Originally posted by: mechBgon
At our last IT meeting, our top IT guy was ranting about someone who'd started running streaming media over at his WAN. He showed us his Netopia's traffic graphs. There was a huge hump in them from the streaming traffic. If even 10% of their workforce did that over there, they'd be paralyzed.

I've had to tell our office's employees "no" to streaming media after seeing just one person leave their system pulling Internet Radio and bringing one of our slower network segments to a crawl, to the point where employees on that segment were having extreme difficulty getting files from the server and such. Fortunately, our office's employees are cooperative enough that I don't have to force the issue. But I wouldn't think twice about doing so, if I had a rogue employee who didn't care what the rules were. :evil: And if they attempted to defy my enforcement measures, at the very least I would remember that when it was time to choose who gets the new computers this go-around 🙂 but more probably I'd report it to their supervisor and to HR for, mmm, future reference.

FYI, a T1 is probably slower than your own home broadband connection, at just 1.45Mbit.
Click to expand...

Well said mech! I'm one of the IT guys for my company and we also have disallowed streaming media for similar reasons. Nowadays, it's not just Internet and file/print sharing going over our T1 links - no, we've got Citrix(Terminal Services) traffice as well as voice traffic for VoIP phone system. As a rule, we're allocating the first 128 to 256k of bandwidth immediately to phone traffic, and then breaking up the rest as we see fit according the history of the usage logs. If it were up to me, we'd be blocking all IRC and Instant Messaging traffic too, but alas, that's not my call... yet. 😉 Once the department has completed another month's tracking of the usage logs, I don't doubt we'll block those too.

As others have said, the majority of us aren't going to help you override your companies IT policies whether you agree with them or not.


 
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