configuring squid

hi all,
i am running RHEL 5.3
i am practicing squid in my test environment. i am able to configure squid alright and with another machine i am able to access the internet through firefox.
to access the internet i had configure the browser so that it fetches the connections from the proxy.
this means i can access the net only through firefox and i need to do the same for all web based applications chat clients etc in my LAN.

is there a way to configure the client machine to access the net in such a way that i do not need to configure each web based application to use the proxy?
to the client machine (be it windows or linux) it should look like it is directly connected to the internet while it is using the proxy.
is it possible?
thanks for your time

Go to System >> Administration >> Network Proxy

or run

gnome-network-preferences

Select Manual proxy, then Check "Use sam proxy for all protocols"

specify your proxy and you are sorted.

thank you bro ...

meanwhile i had posted the same in another forum as well
i got a suggestion to configure a Transparent Proxy.
Transparent Proxy with Linux and Squid mini-HOWTO
i will have to look how i should go about it

hope this helps others as well