blocking the internet!

[bfm]

I'm sure this is not the right place to post this, but I thought I'd shout out to everyone to see if there's anyone can help. I have GOT to get off the internet more and I remember vaguely in the back of my mind from a million years ago that there is a kind of "alarm" you can install to restrict your internet use. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? The idea is that I would have to do other work during the day and not be constantly distracted by email and so forth. I can't find it anywhere. On Google all I get is stuff to keep the kids from looking at porn. Help! Would really appreciate it.

[donaldw]

Is this at home or at work? Do you have a router in the picture? Most routers let you set up access restrictions to block access to certain domain names, IP addresses, computers on the network, etc. and can be configured to do this at certain times.

In Linksys routers, for sure, it's under the "Access Restrictions" tab in the setup page. This may be the easiest way to do it.

[bfm]

Hey Donald, many thanks. I actually work at home so it's not an issue. But what I'm looking for is something that actually makes it impossible for me to turn off. So if I set it not to allow me online for three hours, I can't deactivate it. I just CAN'T THINK where I saw an article about a downloadable free programme that does that...

[donaldw]

I found THIS , which has a free trial. There's also another one called K9 that's free, but I'm not sure it does what you want. I've never heard of one that wasn't reversible.

Just about anything you do will be able to be reversed or disabled. I think the router trick would probably be best since it would be pretty cumbersome to go to the router configuration, navigate to the access restriction setup, change the settings, save it, etc. By that time, hopefully, you would have come to your senses and realized that you should be working rather than surfing :D

The only way to really make absolutely certain you couldn't turn any of that kind of blocking off would be to password protect it with a random password or have someone else control it.

[donaldw]

FOUND IT ?

What do I win? :)

[bfm]

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is exactly what I was looking for!
Many thanks for your help - my productivity will soar!

[BestJewSinceJC]

I'm sure this is not the right place to post this, but I thought I'd shout out to everyone to see if there's anyone can help. I have GOT to get off the internet more and I remember vaguely in the back of my mind from a million years ago that there is a kind of "alarm" you can install to restrict your internet use. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? The idea is that I would have to do other work during the day and not be constantly distracted by email and so forth. I can't find it anywhere. On Google all I get is stuff to keep the kids from looking at porn. Help! Would really appreciate it.

It's called self control, you can find it in aisle three

[bfm]

'Preciate that, #######.

[diafol]

Great, can I buy one for the wife? How about one that only allows her to speak when she's at work? Click! Ahhhh.

[donaldw]

It's called self control, you can find it in aisle three

LOL, now I'm kind of thinking of trying it. I spend WAY too much time on the net. I don't know if I could handle not having access though. I might give it a shot this weekend.

PS...Don't forget to mark the thread as solved, bfm. :)