Where I live internet access is frustratingly dependant on a phone line with expensive line rental. I should add the line rental fee has no included calls. Over a year this means (at a minimum) you spend $240 for the privilege of a phone connection even if you don’t use it. Since I make and receive all my phone calls on my mobile, I don’t require a home phone and refuse to pay for this "service". </end rant>

In short - for the reason above I don’t have the internet at home so most of my baking is done at work.

Problematically, there is a direct link between the 'bakery and workplace productivity; as time spent baking increases, productivity declines. This means my boss isn't as keen on the site as I am.

The solution is to apply an MS Office looking skin to the 'bakery, so that to the casual observer a quick glance at your VDU appears as if you are studiously working away in Word or perhaps Excel.

"He is working late again. What a good employee."
-- sprogga, Oct 21 2007

On the down-low. http://www.halfbakery.com/lr
The classic lr halfbakery skin, developed (I presume) for speed, but perfect for disguising as an open text-editor. [zen_tom, Oct 21 2007]

Lynx http://en.wikipedia.../Lynx_(web_browser)
The classic text-only browser. [zen_tom, Oct 21 2007]

Links http://en.wikipedia...s_%28web_browser%29
A browser less well known than Lynx, but one that I prefer because it's a bit prettier, and it blends into the background a bit more. [zen_tom, Oct 21 2007]

I've never explored this myself, but isn't there something clever possible with css layouts that allows a person to override any formatting performed server-side, and in effect personalise/homogenise their internet experience? Might be useful here.

Alternately, you could look at the lr version of the bakery - and if you're really looking for a clandestine baking experience, try surfing using one of the all-text browsers such as links/lynx (there are plenty of others too) that run in a command-line-environment.

The other thing you could try is building an internet browser using the vba capability in word - essentially having word hosting your internet session - that might be marginally cool.
-- zen_tom, Oct 21 2007


It's a rite of passage Ian, everyone these days has to begin their working lives attempting to navigate the MicroSoft product suite, learning its myriad paths. To begin with, one is led to believe that anything of any worth can only be achieved within 'Office' and that things external to that are simply 'not yet integrated' - it's only later that one learns that the Microsoft product suite is nought but an edifice, only then can one free oneself of such diabolical perversions such as pivot tables, embedded documents, automatic word correction, other people's shit macros and (shudder) amenable 'help' avatars.
By the way, I'm very pleased with myself having managed to download, install and connect with links, in order to key this very annotation.
If anyone were watching, they'd think I was merely fiddling about with my computer.
-- zen_tom, Oct 21 2007


I have always thought that having the hb open at work does look more like a *word* document than people who are watching movies or checking My Space.
-- xandram, Oct 21 2007


[zex_tom]: top link! I only just noticed that 5 months on.
-- sprogga, Mar 20 2008



random, halfbakery