Solutions for Linux Desktops using NT Proxy?

prac_regex asks: "I'm both lucky and unlucky. Unlucky that im in an NT proxy environment, but lucky that I am able to use Linux at work for all of my work requirements. I can talk to the file servers via Samba and get email from our exchange server via kmail, but for things that require talking to servers outside the proxy, I fail for nearly everything but web-browsers. My question is what solutions exist to communicate to the NT servers for applications that may or may not have proxy settings? Even things like xchat --with-socks I cant get to work. the NT server simply seems to ignore me. I know microsoft does make things difficult for everyone that doesnt use windows, but Im sure people have solved this. My goal in the longrun is to get the proxy off NT but in the meantime..."