Hi all,

Telephone access is now available to all users of QWK.Mon, QWK.Net's web site status monitoring service.

If you don't know what QWK.Mon is, a quick recap: Our servers monitor your site for proper operation at a defined interval. If your site doesn't respond, you'll be notified of the problem via e-mail, pager, or ICQ. Performance statistics are also logged and displayed via graphing, so you can see how your site is performing.

With the new telephone access option, you can call in and get the status of all your servers. This is especially handy when you're away from the computer or out of pager range. In the near future, you will be able to define a response to be executed from the phone system, such as a form post. For those of you with hardware like APC's remote power managers, this means you could power-cycle a down server from the phone access system.

This service is free, including telephone access. Enjoy!

Very nice Travis :)

Going on a short vacation (3 day) on the 28th, so I'll be sure to use it.

Glad to hear the system is proving useful... I know I've wanted it on many occasions, just for that peace of mind when out of pager range. :)

a little off topic BUT...

i'm going to try to break this down. first:

is there some sort of service that will notify/page/call your cellular phone from the web?

with that in mind, is there a server side way so when your server stops responding for let's say 3 consecutive times at 5 minute intervals (15 minute total outage), the above procedure will occur?

example: your server is monitored by qwk mon at 5 minute intervals. your server stops responding for 15 minutes which causes 3 error messages. as soon as that happen, qwk can do something, maybe through a third party, that will notify your cellphone or pager (would prefer cell phones since pagers are obsolete:) ..


anyone understand me or am i just talking b.....

is there some sort of service that will notify/page/call your cellular phone from the web?

Yes - that's what QWK.Mon does. If your site is down, and you have a digital phone that supports e-mail-to-SMS, you'll get a message on your phone. QWK.Mon will actually have support for placing a voice call in the future, too.

example: your server is monitored by qwk mon at 5 minute intervals. your server stops responding for 15 minutes which causes 3 error messages. as soon as that happen, qwk can do something, maybe through a third party, that will notify your cellphone or pager (would prefer cell phones since pagers are obsolete

Well, sort of. As it stands, QWK.Mon will notify you on the very first failure, as that's what most people prefer. It's possible to add an error count threshold, though, and that feature will likely appear.

Yes - that's what QWK.Mon does. If your site is down, and you have a digital phone that supports e-mail-to-SMS, you'll get a message on your phone. QWK.Mon will actually have support for placing a voice call in the future, too.

ahh yes, i think my sprintpcs phone has that...i gotta check it out.

Well, sort of. As it stands, QWK.Mon will notify you on the very first failure, as that's what most people prefer. It's possible to add an error count threshold, though, and that feature will likely appear.

well, sometimes the net can be congested or there can be a network hiccup which will cause the server to fail the first time it's checked. but after 2 consecutive or even 3 consecutive failures, then theres a problem. for me, i think i'm allowed about 50 email messages to my phone per month. like i said, i have to check. having an option of getting mailed after 2 or 3 failures would be great :)

It would definitely be a useful feature, and I've added it to "the list"

That's unfortunate that you have a limit on the number of text messages - with AT&T I get unlimited. Then again, I've sometimes gotten messages up to 12 hours after they're sent, so I guess there's always a trade-off. :)