Ice Theatre of New York (ITNY) is proud to hit the ice at The Rink at Rockefeller Center on March 23, 2023 at 12:30pm with ITNY Ensemble members Liz Yoshiko Schmidt and Danil Berdnikov performing Lorna Brown’s Timelessness. For more information, visit icetheatre.org/calendar.html.

In order to access the internet, you must have a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address. This is similar to a physical web address, allowing you to send data back and forth between your computer and websites.

Proxies work like a middleman, which allows you to connect to the internet without exposing your real IP address. They also mask your IP address, making it harder for hackers to track your online activities.

1. It hides your IP address

An IP address is a unique number that identifies your computer online. This number can reveal your shopping and buying habits, physical location, and social media activity.

Using a proxy server can help you hide your IP address and prevent others from tracking your online activities. Proxy servers can be found in offices, on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), or on your own system.

Proxies hide your real IP address by routing your internet requests through a server that has an address in a different location. This can help you get around regional content restrictions, such as those put in place by websites and services.

However, proxies can slow down your internet connection and are not legal in some countries. They also can be run on compromised machines, which makes them a risky way to mask your IP address. The safest solution is to use a VPN. This will allow you to access the internet without being tracked by other people or by your ISP (you can find more relatable information about ISP proxies here).

2. It allows you to access blocked websites

A proxy is software that hides your IP address and routes your internet traffic through different public servers. It can be useful when you are trying to access blocked websites or content from a certain country or region.

Proxies are also a good way to get around firewalls and blockages on social media platforms and torrenting sites. However, they are not as secure as a VPN and should not be used when sending secure financial data or other sensitive information.

If you are looking to access blocked websites from your workplace, school, or abroad, a VPN is the best option. It works on any device and lets you choose a location to appear from based on your own preferences.

Schools and businesses often block websites on their networks for productivity reasons or to keep kids from accessing obscene content. They may also use proxy servers to monitor their employee’s or students’ internet usage and log all web requests.

3. It allows you to bypass firewalls

Firewalls are a vital tool for organizations to protect their networks from cyber-attacks. They also enforce organizational policies.

These firewalls typically inspect small pieces of data called packets as they try to enter a network. They then decide whether or not to allow the packets through.

Some firewalls also implement advanced features like cacheing web traffic for improved performance. Some can even enforce security policies based on the IP address and ports an application uses.

The most popular type of firewall is packet filters, which inspect and process all packets coming into a network. They usually enforce simple Access Control Lists (ACLs) based on the IP address and port of the packet.

Proxy servers, on the other hand, are typically used to bypass filtering and censorship by routing web traffic through another server. They are similar to VPNs, except that they are not encrypted and can be exploited by unscrupulous people to steal your traffic and sell it for profit.

4. It allows you to bypass censorship

One way to bypass censorship is to use proxy software. This software allows you to hide your IP address, which will make it impossible for a third party to track where you are.

Your computer is assigned an IP address by your internet service provider (ISP), much like a physical street address. This lets you send and receive data over the web, but it can also reveal your location to others on the internet.

Proxies act as a bridge between your device and the rest of the web, routing your requests to sites that you want to visit. They then fetch the requested content and forward it to your browser.

Proxy servers can be used for many purposes, from ensuring that your personal data is safe to allowing you access to blocked websites. However, they can also be a security risk if they are compromised. Moreover, they can be slow and may not work with all sites and services.

Finances change when you have kids. There’s a reason that a stereotype exists of adults without children enjoying expensive vacations and disposable income while parents can anticipate spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on children. However, there are also many things you can do to improve your family’s financial knowledge and stability.

Build Emergency Savings

As soon as possible, build emergency savings equivalent to at least six months of basic expenses, even if it takes years and you can only put away a little at a time. Six months of expenses can seem like a lot, but this can also be the single most important thing that you do to ensure you have financial stability. Without this cushion, you can get sideswiped by a single bad event, and at least a few of those bad events, which include needing a car repair, losing a job, or an emergency pet visit, will happen to everyone at some point. With an emergency fund, you don’t have to make bad decisions like putting everything on a high-interest credit card that you then struggle to pay off.

Respect the Retirement

Another bad decision that emergency savings can prevent is raiding your retirement account to pay for things. In fact, you should keep putting money away in the retirement account even when money is tight, particularly when you are young, because it will grow exponentially over the years. You also want to be able to look forward to a secure retirement that doesn’t involve depending on your kids financially.

Think Ahead to College

College can be one of the single biggest expenses that parents face. There’s a reason many of them start saving when their children are still infants. Even if you’re diligently putting money away, however, you might not have the total needed for tuition, books and living expenses. Again, avoid pulling from your retirement savings. Instead, help your child fill out financial aid forms and scholarship applications. You can also help them obtain student loans by cosigning on them. This is necessary for many loans since students are unlikely to have a robust credit history.

Manage the Sandwich Years

One difficulty parents often face when their kids are still at home is the plight of their own aging parents, who may have health or money problems that take up a lot of resources. Adults caught in this situation are often said to be sandwiched between these two generations who need a great deal from them, often more than they feel able to give. Anticipating this can mean sitting down with your parents to talk about money before money becomes a problem, helping them better manage it if necessary. You may also want to investigate what kind of senior resources are available since there might be some that will provide assistance.

Talk About It

One of the great gifts you can give your children is financial literacy. If you feel like this is something you haven’t mastered yourself, you can learn together. Try to make money a topic of normal conversation and not something that is fraught with stress and other emotions, even if you feel like you don’t have enough of it. Talk with your spouse about it as well, including how your own family approached money and how that colored your feelings toward it. Both spouses should have a basic understanding of the family finances even if one is much more interested in it and better at managing it. With your kids, help them understand money at developmentally appropriate stages. Young kids can help cut out coupons and save their allowance. You could help older kids open a bank account and even manage a credit card with a low limit.