Do you believe the best employee in your company do not use his/her work computer to do personal stuff? Admit it, majority of us with a work computer in office will at least use them for personal stuff once in awhile. Having been spending 8 hours or more sitting in front of a computer will definitely have the feeling of work computer is a home away from home. While our home computer is office away from office. Sometimes you may treat your office computer like your home computer and instead of using it for office stuff like sending email, preparing reports and others office related work, you may sometimes try to use it to read blog, check out latest clips video on youtube, update your friendster or myspace account, check your personal email account and also keeping in touch with your friends or relatives using instant messaging.
I don't think all company likes you to do your personal stuff with an office computer, most probably 20% of your working hours will spend using it for personal stuff, and this will definitely decrease productivity. Partly employers want us to work while we're at work and it could be reason that they are afraid putting company at risk such as viruses, hackers and compromises the company's computer network. So what they can do is asked the IT department to block us to do stuff which you can do it with your home computer.
It may sounds disappointed, but it can't stop you from continue doing it. Here are some tips you can follow to allow you bypassing block your IT department had set. There's always a risk there using these tips but it definitely will keep yourself and secure your job while you're at it.
1) Can't send big files
Your Worry: Sometimes you may need to send big files, such as vacation pictures or movie files, by doing so you may actually hits the limit sending anything larger than few megabytes. The reason company quota their staff amount of data to be kept on the server because they want to avoid filling up the server and slowing the server down which eventually decrease performance.
No Worry: You can use online services such as yousendit.com, dropsend.com, megaupload.com or rapidshare.com. It's free, you had no worry to send large file online anymore but to keep you stay safe, look for reputable and well known site to upload which will prevent you from hackers stealing your information. If the site offers little information and not much information about the site, don't use it.
If the site's backers aren't immediately apparent, there are other clues that can help. Look for a "secure" icon — in Internet Explorer, it's a little lock on the bottom of the screen — which signifies that the site is using encryption to protect its visitors' confidential information. A logo from a security company such as VeriSign Inc., meanwhile, means VeriSign has confirmed the identity of the site's owner.
2) Can’t download/installed software you wanted
Your Worry: Many companies prohibit their employee to download and install software illegally into work computer. You may require approval from IT department before using it. What if the software that you wanted is blacklisted.
No Worry: For instance, instant messaging software such as Yahoo, MSN, AOL or Gtalk. You can easily download and use it but for some cases, installing it is not a problem but connecting it, is a problem. This is because IT department block the access use by these instant messaging software. But this does not stop you from chatting with your friends and colleagues. You can use web based service which you can access almost all instant messaging available in the market, meebo.com or ebuddy.com. There's also Google Inc.'s instant-messaging service, Google Talk, accessible at Google.com/talk.
To access actual software programs on your computer. You can download the software onto a portable device like an iPod or a USB stick, through a service called Portable Apps (PortableApps.com). Then hook the device up to your work computer, and you're ready to go. To keep you stay safe, some antivirus automatically detect any outside devices hook on to the computer and scan for potential threat, to avoid antivirus from leaving trace into your computer you can actually disabled the function which is normally in options or settings menu. Likewise, if you use a file-sharing service, set it up so that others can't access your own files, also through an Options or Settings area.
3) How to visit block sites
Your Worry: Most companies will block employee from visiting certain web sites, the reason could be high bandwidth usage which could affect network traffic or affect company image. The most popular block sites are porn sites, gambling sites and web-based email services. Some company also block access to youtube.com or metacafe.com.
No Worry: No matter what sites they block it, you can still find your way to sneak onto them. You travel to a third-party site, called a proxy, and type the Web address you want into a search box. Your company will only know that you had access the proxy website but they will never know within what web sites you had access using the proxy, because the proxy site travels to the site you want and displays it for you — so you can see the site without actually visiting it. Proxy.org, for one, features a list of more than 4,000 proxies. Alternative you can use vtunnel.com or securechannel.com.
Another trick to accomplish the same thing is use Google's translation service, asking it to do an English-to-English translation. Just enter this — Google.com/translate?langpair=en|en&u=www.blockedsite.com — replacing "blockedsite.com" with the Web address of the site you want to visit. Google effectively acts as a proxy, calling up the site for you.
Please keep this in mind that you may only use proxy sites or tunnel to access blocked sites and not all your surfing as information will travel to third party site before hitting the actual site you are visiting.
4) Keeping privacy using web email and instant messaging
Your Worry: Companies nowadays have ability to track employee internet usage behavior, they can monitor your work or personal email and also your IM chat conversations. Reason behind is to catch any employee leaking confidential information to outsider. If you do not believe, these tools (MSN or Yahoo Sniffer) can easily download from the internet and use, Yahoo Sniffer and MSN Sniffer.
No Worry: To keep privacy using email, encrypt them. You can do that with outlook, so that only you and recipient can read the email and no others. In Microsoft Outlook, click on Tools, then Options and choose the Security tab. There, you can enter a password — and nobody can open a note from you without supplying it and of course, you'll have to inform the recipient the password.
For your personal email which is usually web-based email, use this trick, whenever you access to your web-based email login page, add an "s" to the end of the "http" in front of your email provider's Web address. For example: https://www.hotmail.com/. By using this trick, you are accessing a secure session and it is almost impossible anyone can read it except you. To date not all web services are supporting this yet.
For instant messaging, try using Trillian where it has the ability to encrypt your conversations without anyone reading it except the recipient. Trillian is a proprietary multiprotocol instant messaging application for Windows created by Cerulean Studios that can connect to multiple IM services, such as AIM, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Bonjour, Jabber, and Skype networks.
If you still want to remains using your Instant Messaging software instead of multiprotocol instant messaging, try using Secway IM encryption software which install separately with your Instant Messaging. By using this, you can still use back your familiar IM application but just that there's additional application running separately to encrypt your IM conversations passing through the internet.
5) Clear traceable tracks on your computer
Your Worry: Either you use PC or laptop, but for company-owned laptop, chances are you use it for personal tasks. Many companies reserve the right to monitor all that activity, because the laptops are technically their property. What if one day someone use your computer to surf online porn and you are being caught? That's embarrassing right?
No Worry: Most browsers available in the market has the ability clear your tracks. In IE7, click on Tools, and then delete Browsing History. From there, you can either delete all your history by clicking Delete All or choose one or a few kinds of data to delete. In Firefox, just hit Ctrl-Shift-Del — or click Clear Private Data under the Tools menu. Ta da … you are safe from being traceable by your boss.
The best practices here is clear your private data as often as possible. If you really do not want your boss to know anything about, better still don't use work computer.
BONUS) Is okay to relax sometimes, how to surf while your boss thought you're working hard?
Your Worry: You are busy surfing the internet doing your own stuff and your boss turns the corner. What do you do?
No Worry: There're 2 ways to avoid this, Hit Alt-Tab to quickly minimize one window and maximize another which is word document. Or Hit Windows-D to show desktop as if you're accessing some folder, mess up your desktop as if you are busy or it's more realistic.
The risk here is, make sure your computer won't hang when making the shift. You might get caught on the spot. 
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