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Remote system monitoring

T

Topweasel

Diamond Member
I have a coworker continuing to ask me of ways he can monitor whether his home system is down. I have recommended that he try something like Log Me in but apparently it isn't working well with FF3. Even then he would have something that sent a text message or something like that to his phone when it went down.

Know I know that their are services and ISP's that do this but they usually cost an arm and a leg because they are meant for business's. I have looked a little bit but I was wondering if anyone knew about a web service that does something like this on a level for a normal user (0-$15)? The stuff we use at my work is all internal and the text messages sent out are done by one of the locations on our VPN that still has a connection.
 
A great free program I use is Crossloop. You setup the small install on both computers. Then the person who need help the will use the share connection. They will get a number which person accessing them enters. After that I believe it open a secure connection to the 2 computers and starts its remote software. There is also file transfer options the best 1 drag and drop on part of the Crossloop interface to use. The software only annoying features it will ask if you want to setup a account as used by people using the billable through Crossloop function but it not required to work.

Crosslop Link
http://www.crossloop.com/
 
This is great help system. Like a Web version of XP's remote help's functionality but the problem it requires someone on both ends. The problem is this co-worker of mine is trying to set up some crazy stock buying software that buys and sells based on historical data (called Trade Station I believe). The problem is he some random low level monkey just like myself at our work. This means he doesn't have bottomless pockets and wants immediate info if his system or its connection goes down.

I just suggested a remote system so that he could at least check on it. I am sure eventually Logmein or such will get fixed. The real question is trying to find a site that will monitor his connection to his PC and send an alert if it goes down.
 
Sounds like a job for a small batch file:

@echo off
:repeat
ping -n 2 yourhostname
if errorlevel 1 echo Server is down!
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 30000 > nul
goto :repeat

The first ping checks that yourhostname is up. Obviously, replace it with the correct hostname or IP. The second one just waits 30 seconds, pinging nothing, just so that yourhostname isn't getting constantly hammered.
The "" is the Control-G character, or "Bel", character 7. If entered as a single character, it will make the computer beep when printed.
 
That's not a bad Idea and will allow him to see if its active from his computer. I just figured that there might be an sms alert system out there that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. That would allow him to know if his computer went down even when he isn't at his desk.
 
Looks like one could use a command-line Twitter, replacing "echo" and the rest of that line with the curl command. I don't use SMS, but I hear one can subscribe to a Twitter feed with SMS.

Edit: I'd better change the script so he's not sending the same Twitter every 30 seconds!

@echo off
:repeat
ping -n 2 yourhostname
if not errorlevel 1 goto delay
curl -u yourusername:yourpassword -d status="Fixing my server" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml
goto end
:delay
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 30000 > nul
goto :repeat
:end
 
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