Work Friendly!

August 2, 2006 11:43 AM

Work Friendlyis the greatest website ever for people trying to get away with web browsing at work. You enter a URL, it launches a new window styled to resemble a Word Document window. It even includes a "Boss" key to convert the page to regular text. Check out MeFi in it. [via waxy]
posted by mathowie (39 comments total)

Firefox users: This works much better if you open the page in IE and then hit F11 (full screen).

This is very cool. Almost makes me wish I had a job.
posted by null terminated at 11:46 AM on August 2, 2006

Awesome. Very cool
Thanks.
posted by dios at 11:49 AM on August 2, 2006

This is the greatest thing I've ever seen ever. Thank you.
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 11:50 AM on August 2, 2006

The OnMouseOver "Boss Key" feature is especially good....
posted by pax digita at 11:56 AM on August 2, 2006

Still can't get around all of the Net Nanny style program (which blocks some sites that are perfectly work appropriate but have banned keywords) we have here, but otherwise awesome.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:58 AM on August 2, 2006

Feh. No Mac version.
posted by adamrice at 11:59 AM on August 2, 2006

reminiscent of Ghostzilla... (though this service appears to be much safer, since it isn't based upon a very old version of Mozilla)
posted by terpia at 11:59 AM on August 2, 2006

It's allowing me to read MetaTalk and AskMe right now, both of which are not otherwise working for me because of the DNS issue.
posted by caddis at 12:02 PM on August 2, 2006

Feh. No Mac version.

Why would you need one? I thought that PCs were for work and Macs were for listening to your iPod. Or have I been watching too many Apple commercials?
posted by eyeballkid at 12:06 PM on August 2, 2006

im so happy! Now I can view real sites from work. whoopee!!! worldofwarcraft.com, here i come!
posted by Dantien at 12:11 PM on August 2, 2006

Why would you need one? I thought that PCs were for work and Macs were for listening to your iPod. Or have I been watching too many Apple commercials?

Oh no you didn't.
posted by purephase at 12:15 PM on August 2, 2006

Bizarre - just today I was wishing for something like this, except I would need it to look like an AutoCad window - all black.
posted by Flashman at 12:16 PM on August 2, 2006

Cool, just wish the window was re-sizeable. It looks tiny and out of place on my 1400x1050 desktop.
posted by de void at 12:22 PM on August 2, 2006

It seems like there's a lot of demand for this kind of stuff. I've been kicking around the idea of creating a ghostzilla-like extension for firefox. Maybe I should get on that.
posted by anomie at 12:30 PM on August 2, 2006

"Is this good for the company" - I will now always call it the Lumberg Button - That is priceless. What a great find.
posted by Sk4n at 12:30 PM on August 2, 2006

Weird, this works in FireFox, but when I use it to view a page in IE, it gets blocked by our filter.

The site itself is not blocked, neither is metafilter.

Use the site to open metafilter in firefox and it works. Use the site to open metafilter in IE and I get blocked, but if I just try to open metafilter in IE, it works.

For reference, when at work I use FF for personal browsing and IE for "official" purposes.
posted by utsutsu at 12:36 PM on August 2, 2006

Hear that?
That screeching sound?
That's "productivity" coming to a halt all over N.America.

love the "Is this good for the company?" button!

I'm with utsutsu: FF for personal browsing, IE for company stuff (also, our intranet only deals with IE, so it's an easy split to maintain)
posted by I, Credulous at 12:40 PM on August 2, 2006

if you like the internet without images or formats, then it's perfect.
posted by 1-2punch at 12:47 PM on August 2, 2006

Didn't check the link--I'm at work--but I've been using GhostFox for several months now.

It builds on GhostZilla (mentioned above) but works with the newest versions of Firefox. It will scale Firefox into any window without a title bar, status bar, etc. I use it in the preview pane of Outlook and it just looks like I'm reading a particularly HTML-rich email.

It hides itself whenever you move the mouse outside the borders of the webpage you're viewing! It's great.
posted by jckll at 12:47 PM on August 2, 2006

Clever. Try putting in the workfriendly.net.
posted by lyam at 12:58 PM on August 2, 2006

Oh wait. don't.
posted by lyam at 12:59 PM on August 2, 2006

They'll just block that URL like they do with any other prozy type of site they discover.
posted by raedyn at 1:11 PM on August 2, 2006

That was meant to be proxy, not prozy.

It's naptime.
posted by raedyn at 1:11 PM on August 2, 2006

lynx was there when you started this whole magical on-line silliness and has never once delayed an internet. It never suffered from the pop-up or banner ad plagues and loads pages lightening-fast. It also looks just like work—if'n you usually work from a shell. Still, this made me chuckle.
posted by Fezboy! at 1:18 PM on August 2, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Not to be picky or developer-ish, but this could (and should) be built so it stretches to fill your ginormous monitors. Or then again, maybe most Office jockeys are stuck with the 1024x768 that their machines were set up with?
posted by DefendBrooklyn at 1:33 PM on August 2, 2006

this office jockey is stuck with 1920 x 1200
posted by caddis at 2:10 PM on August 2, 2006

omg, Am at work, this is sooo naughty! I love it! Thank you.
posted by nickyskye at 2:53 PM on August 2, 2006

All of you:

If you have a job where you need this... quit and get better jobs.

You will thank me later!
posted by j-dub at 3:19 PM on August 2, 2006

GrumpFilter: This is weh kewl, but generally speaking you aren't going to get caught goofing off by someone shoulder surfing you - you're going to get caught by someone looking at the firewall/proxy/router logs, which, I think, this does not address.

/grump

Still, funny.
posted by sidereal at 3:59 PM on August 2, 2006

awesome.
posted by cell divide at 4:38 PM on August 2, 2006

Cool, but it's a shame my office uses the previous and substantially less ugly version of Office.

Not that it matters, for me. They don't mind my MeFi crack habit.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:41 PM on August 2, 2006

<3 <3 <3 @--}----
THANKS!!!
posted by Doorstop at 4:47 PM on August 2, 2006

People here don't even bother trying to look like they're working - they just watch their Cartoon Network DVDs in peace.
posted by hoborg at 5:05 PM on August 2, 2006

Works fine on my Mac.
posted by Wolof at 5:39 PM on August 2, 2006

Dang...I thought it was going to be a standard "boss button" but this one really is cool -- thx Matt!
posted by davidmsc at 5:59 PM on August 2, 2006

Wolof said: Works fine on my Mac.

Heh, yeah, the site works, but the point is, the faux Word window doesn't look like a normal Word/Mac window, so any nosy boss who knows anything about computers would notice, and the jig would be up.
posted by Fofer at 9:55 PM on August 2, 2006

That's "productivity" coming to a halt all over N.America.

I know this was intended to be humorous (and it was), but this kind of represents the worst to me about American corporate culture: the thought that if people are fucking around, work somehow isn't getting done.

Unless you are a total loser (which would be obvious in a 6 or 12 month review cycle), you are probably doing work, and meeting your deadlines, despite your stopping to check out MeFI every hour (or 30 minutes, or 30 seconds) or so.

It still boggles my mind that there are still people that consider themselves to be managers out there that obsess about superficial issues, like how everyone looks busy, have to be eating lunch at their desks every day, and not measuring performance by gauging output and meeting expectations, having integrity (doing what you say you're going to do), etc. Just drives me crazy that there's even a need for such a thing as work friendly.

That said, this is pretty cool. I'll hit it.
posted by psmealey at 2:27 AM on August 3, 2006

Blocked by IT.

*impotently shakes fist at sky*
posted by slimepuppy at 4:27 AM on August 3, 2006

I've been simply turning off the colours and fonts and replacing all images with a placeholder for ages. Makes any and every website appear work related - all white text on a black background.
posted by talitha_kumi at 4:43 AM on August 3, 2006