I have been very lucky to have two friends, Aaron of Groundrocket and Brendan of I Hate Linux, try different ways of tunneling through the Great Firewall. Aaron’s solution was open source, relying (on my end) on only Putty and changing a setting in Firefox. Brendan’s solution was to attempt to use Microsoft Windows Remote Desktop.

Ultimately Aaron got his solution up quicker, but I strongly thank both friends for giving me more web freedom than the Chinese masses enjoy. It has allowed me to comment on my own blog again, which I have done on four threads

• A Forbidding City
• The First Full Day
• The Summer Palaces of tdaxp and PRC
• UNL Year-End Roundup

Another note is of congratulations to Catholicgauze, who has enjoyed a lot of good luck recently (when he’s not busy debunking and scooping major news outlets). Catholicgauze has been guest blogging at Platial and featured on linkfilter and About.com.

To Aaron, Brendan, and Catholicgauze: thanks! and congrats!