URL: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu
BOINC couldn't get the main page...etc
It always fails at work. It works fine at home.
It sure looks like they are trying to use one of the blocked ports on the corporate firewall. A browser fails to get that URL too but I can always ping it. That's the symptom of the firewall blocking traffic.
any ideas...?

Sounds more like your work network has a proxy server turned on.
You need to find out the proxy name and port number, then tell
the BOINC client (Settings menu->Proxy Server) that info. THEN
your computer can get to the outside world to talk to the SETI
servers.

The "blocked ports" are (at least sometimes) blocking the
INCOMING traffic (from the outside world to your machine).
That won't affect your computer contacting other systems.

Give it a try anyway. :)

EDITTED: Hmm, if you can ping it, then it might not be a proxy
issue. Maybe it is port blocking interfering. If so, then you
need some admin to unblock those ports.

Yes, I can ping. Yes, I can traceroute to it too (it winds up at kosh.ssl.berkeley.edu...) but the browser still fails as well as the BOINC client. There is a new heavy push on corporate security. For example, they are blocking IRC ports 6666 and 6667 at the corporate level as well as others. Does anybody know what ports BOINC uses? This is the generic symptom of the firewall blocking web traffic. I should know...I have a firewall into our lab...