Suggestions on Internet Radio Player
August 25th, 2007Today I received a widespread e-mail from my company stating that any non-work related audio/visual streaming is not allowed. This includes all internet radio as well as Youtube.
While I work from home most of the time I need to VPN into work every day, meaning that I’m effectively on their network and subject to their policies. I doubt the occasional Youtube/Gametrailers video or small download would really raise any eyebrows, but if I’m listening to internet radio all day that could definitely trigger some some less than polite responses. So, I have a few options: use my personal laptop to play my internet radio, which would crowd up my work desk a bit more than I’d prefer; or invest in an internet radio player. The only devices that I really found that would work are the Roku Soundbridge and the the SlimDevices Squeezebox. For some reason, the Squeezebox is twice the price of the Soundbridge, but other than a few supported format differences (which can be remedied by using a different server) I haven’t found anything that would make the Squeezebox worth as much as it is. Does anyone have any experience with these two devices and have any suggestions regarding them?
Posted in Etc, Jeff, Non-Gaming |
August 25th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
I don’t know about these two devices, but what is keeping you from VPN’ing in to work and running the internet radio app/site locally such that is does not traverse the VPN. The default settings in windows is for VPN connections to assume all local internet traffic, passing any requests your home PC makes to the internet via the VPN connection but it doesn’t have to be so. If you are working at home, your internet radio feed does not have to come across the VPN.
August 25th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
I’ll have to look at exactly what I can customize with my VPN software. It’s specific software from my company, so I don’t know if I would be able to open up ports from being redirected. I’ll definitely look into this though.
Thanks!
August 25th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
I wouldn’t be in the VPN software, it would be in your windows connection settings. Windows has a default setting that says, anytime a VPN is initiated, route all outgoing traffic across it. You can change that setting such that certain traffic, will go out locally. Its much simpler if you are using an RDP client, or citrix, or terminal server over a windows VPN but I think you should be able to do it with any setup. What kind of VPN is being set up?
August 25th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
I think it’s called “Fiberlink”.
August 25th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
This would be great if I could do this. I might even be able to route the Youtube traffic around the VPN as well, although this could effect internal web pages.
August 25th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
I can’t seem to find any good docs on the fiberlink VPN setup to confirm, but depending on how fiberlink works, and how your work has the network address structure/domain set up, it may be as simple as unchecking the box “use default gateway on remote network” in the advanced TCP/IP settings on your VPN connection. I would do some testing with my VPN machine at work, but everything is shut down on the weekend so I can’t connect at all right now to test it out.
Assuming your fiberlink VPN connection is visible in the control panel network connections subsection, right click on your fiberlink VPN connection icon, choose properties, then the networking tab, then make sure Internet “Protocal TCP/IP” is blue, click properties button, click advanced button, and there should be a check box there. This checkbox is the key to your problem. When it is checked, its telling your machine, any traffic bound for the internet should use your work default gateway, which means traversing the VPN.
If you uncheck the box and reconnect the VPN, your local traffic not destined for an IP address on the VPN network will not traverse the VPN. The only problem is that depending on how the fiberlink VPN works, your local machine may not understand what happened (no route to host) and may need help finding your work servers via the VPN connection. A five minute phone call to the guy who runs your work network should be able to sort out any details to make sure everything is kosher. Hopefully he’s not a dick, but I would think he would be happy to keep your porn off his VPN.
August 26th, 2007 at 12:51 am
Haha. I am very careful about not viewing any porn or any sites that might potentially accidentally have pornographic ads when using my work computer.
That said, next time I boot up my work machine, I’ll give this a shot. Thanks for the tips!
August 26th, 2007 at 7:00 am
No problem. Its kind of related to what I do for a living, you know, the whole used cisco thing, routers, switches, networking stuff. Besides, it’s nice to have a conversation on here that doesn’t turn into a fight between FX-1 and Laesperanzapaz!