Yesterday I wasted about an hour of good time on Facebook. And worse, I found that even when I'd started doing productive work, I kept shifting back to facebook and wasting more of my time. I can't say that I gained anything out of this effort. It was a dead loss. So today, i removed it from my life, in a single step.

Sites like facebook are such effective time-wasters because they relax the 'executive brain'-- the centre responsible for focused decision making, and leave you at the mercy of your impulses and compulsions. Much like watching reality tv shows, or being the subject of hypnosis.

Many of us spend a lot of our time with the 'executive brain' switched off. We become volunatry zombies. Let's say that again, in big writing:

We Are Voluntary Zombies!!

In order to delete Facebook, i opened this file:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

and I added this line:

0.0.0.0 www.facebook.com

Now when I go to facebook.com, it gets routed to 0.0.0.0 and the browser shows 'Connection closed by remote server'

I can bring it back of course, by deliberately unblocking the site.

But the key word is 'deliberate'. Giving in to temptation is not usually a deliberate act.

When given the chance to deliberate, i'll need to engage my 'executive brain', and one of two things will happen:

I'll decide i don't really want to visit facebook, or
I'll visit it briefly and conscientiously, then re-block it afterwards.

(note, to unblock it, just add a comment symbol, '#' to the front of that line in the hosts file)

And, at the risk of being tarred, feathered, shot, drawn, hung, quartered and teased -- i only realised I was wasting time at that site because of the concerned intervention of my good and discounted friend, TimeSnapper. Thanks ts for stepping in where others didn't dare!

I'm using TimeSnapper more every day. For monitoring, understanding, accounting, timesheeting... there's so many ways to benefit (yeh, and more to come of course. we never rest... we're like that terminator guy in that movie, what was it? terminator).

Anyway, I block whatever sites I feel I ought to, and I've got some half-formed ideas about a toy to automate the blocking and temporary unblocking. Do you see a need?

Yep, I see a need!

But make it scheduleable -- block my Facebook/Digg/Pownce/whatever access during my defined work hours, for instance, would be very nifty...

A while back I read a good book called Block that talks about how to resolve that kind of thing...for those whose problems aren't as easy to fix as just modifying the hosts file:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0818405163

I actually do the same thing to avoid goofing off at work, which can be challenging if it is a slow work day. Host file work until...it gets easier it to switch/edit the hosts file. Right now I have a batch file that makes the switch from a goof to work-mode (fun sites point to 0.0.0.0) host file. The batch file made goofing off worse. I haven't tried it but I got the idea reading this--a scheduled task that would put the host file back to the work file every 15 or so minutes. Even better would be some spurious steps like a password or a 5 minute wait before the switch happens.

good stuff matthew.

i was thinking about this today. what if instead of 0.0.0.0 we used a 127.0.0.1, where a local website is running that says

"Do you really want to access [facebook]?

For 1 minute, 5 minutes or 10?"
and there's a captcha code you have to type in -- a longer amount of time requires a longer captcha code.

And there's charts showing you how often you goof off.

Cripes, are you lot the sort of people that set your watch fast so you don't run late? Why do you have to trick yourself by fudging your own hosts file? Just don't fuck around with shit when you're on work time! Of course I have the "advantage" of an employer that always knows what I'm doing on work time and kicks my arse if it's not work. Very motivating. Shit! It's 12:58 - I'm off this now!!

I'm liking the scheduled task idea - good one.

Surely there must be an easier way though? I'd pay good money for some mISV to stop me arsing about when I'm supposed to be working! (HINT. HINT)

If any of you are using firefox, you can install the "Grease Monkey" add-on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748 and the "invisibility cloak" script to do this for you. See http://lifehacker.com/software/greasemonkey/invisibility-cloak-update-149252.php for more details. If support wildcards and you can time-limit it.a

hi,

we came across this conversation just yesterday. We have built an application just for this purpose try it out at www.seeplain.com/donotdisturb.htm apologies for the deliberate plug ..BUT I thought you guys might be interested...

donotdisturb

If I recive an notification from hotmail informing me I have an email from facebook, will the link still take me there?

heyy
i used that host thingi i did everything right but stil some websites r not blocked i dont know y plz help tanx

ok can sumone plz tell me how to block a page i dot really get how u guys block them well im trying to block this page call unblockpoint.com because i went on at school and it took me to myspace and stuff like that but then every body saw me get on it and now want to block it because every body is getting on it now i want to block it plz plz plz tell me how to block and tell me a easy way to do it at skool

simply visit..

C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

How on earth do you get there? What is it? Not all of us are computer buffs...

@puzzled

>C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

>How on earth do you get there?

if you don't know how to find this file then maybe you shouldn't be messing with your hosts file.

but you can open notepad (under accessories) and choose open file. Then paste "C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts" into the name of the file to open.

Hopefully though you won't have permission to do this and the computer will stop you before you truly harm yourself.

Bolcking IPs via host files may not be effective. There are always free proxies out there.

Better solution is to block on occurance of "facebook" or "myspace" keyword in the URL. This can be done with third party software such as Website Block from Ashkon.com

an even better way to block FB within linux would be to configure IPTABLES to block sending data to the facebook servers at the IP address level (use dig or ping to find these out).

eg my firewall script contains the following lines:
iptables -A OUTPUT -d 69.63.176.11 -j DROP
iptables -A OUTPUT -d 204.15.20.80 -j DROP
iptables -A OUTPUT -d 69.63.176.10 -j DROP
iptables -A OUTPUT -d 69.63.184.11 -j DROP

Our company is using WFilter to monitor, filter and block internet access.
It is very easy to block websites.

Thanks for putting this up.

I know nothing about simple fixes like this, and this definitely helps me from 'cyber stalking' people.

On a slightly related note, someone I know said I was trying to commit 'Zuckercide' by not being as active on Facebook. Stupid bastard.

How to block websites that kill your productivity.

We Are Voluntary Zombies!!

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