MSN Messenger: finally connected

Do you believe in the fact that when you've got a problem to solve, relaxing and forgetting about it for a while is the best way to ACTUALLY solve it?



On the network of the place where I currently live, we've had a problem accessing anything related to Microsoft such as HOTMAIL, Microsoft Passport enabled websites, Windows Update (and you know how critical this one is), MSN Messenger, registration site for Microsoft Pocket Reader and a few others. I first thought that the problem was on our ADSL gateway machine. I've tried a bunch of things such as reconfiguring Iptables, trying a straight connection to our ADSL line and many other things in that sense and I never got a result.



At some point, I even thought that Microsoft websites and servers were banned from access in SA, which didn't make much sense. And as any problems that you can't solve, I sort of put it in the back of my brain and forgot about it till tonight.



I was really bored, just finished watching "Corky Romano", one of the funniest movie I've seen in a while and came back to my computer. For some reason, I thought about how we used to connect to the internet through a proxy server in school and it got me thinking.



I looked up a list of free HTTP proxy servers available, configured the connection in IE and MSN Messenger and boy, I was surprised I was online! I couldn't believe that I haven't thought about this ALL THIS TIME! You know, it's one of those things that make you look like an IDIOT! But I got the solution and I learnt something new: that's the best thing that happened today.



As a friend of mine says: "A day without learning is a day gone wasted."