Crude remote server availabity checking

I was having problems reaching a web server and I wanted to make sure the problem wasn’t on my end. Even though I could reach other Web servers without any problems, it seemed odd to me that this one was down. What I needed was a way of checking if some other system located elsewhere in the world was able to see the errant server.

The first thing that might come to mind in this situation is to use some service like NetMechanic. These services will take a look at your server periodically and make sure it is still running. That’s great if you need to check your server on a pre-scheduled basis, but in my case, I only needed to see if the server was up right this second.

There are a number of third-party services out there that will download a web page, process it in some way, and show you the result. Google Translate, Babelfish, Visicheck, and many others are designed to translate a page, show you what it looks like to someone with color blindness, or a million other things.

So to see if a server is online, simply use one of these services. If they can’t get to the server, then the problem most likely isn’t your fault.