DING!

December 2, 2008 10:12 PM

DING IT'S UP!

Website alerts via email, text, and Twitter.

posted by ottereroticist (30 comments total)

I've seen sites like this since the mid-nineties.
posted by delmoi at 10:19 PM on December 2, 2008

Lets connect the internet to a coffee machine!
posted by Artw at 10:20 PM on December 2, 2008 [7 favorites]

Wow, that form gets a serious UI fail.

Are any of these services decent? What happens when dingitsup is down?
posted by rokusan at 10:24 PM on December 2, 2008

For compulsive reloaders like myself there is a market for this kind of service but its not a healthy compulsion so I'm opting not to opt in...
posted by christhelongtimelurker at 10:25 PM on December 2, 2008

For those who don't know that ping and loops exist.
posted by benzenedream at 10:29 PM on December 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

I want it to tell me when dingitsup is down.
posted by zippy at 10:43 PM on December 2, 2008

What happens when dingitsup is down?

http://dingitsupisbackupagain.com/
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 10:44 PM on December 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

I don't read email or Twitter or the comments to my blog anymore, but I've been able to connect my website to my email to my Twitter to my website. Whenever anything happens all of my appliances light up. I like shiny lights.
posted by twoleftfeet at 10:48 PM on December 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

I just kinda want to be alone sometimes.
posted by wigu at 10:52 PM on December 2, 2008 [5 favorites]

For those who don't know that ping and loops exist.

Yeah, but where to run them? :)
posted by rokusan at 10:58 PM on December 2, 2008

I don't know that ping and loops exist. How do you use them?
posted by joelf at 11:03 PM on December 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

But how does it know that they're down? I mean, when Flickr goes down, it just claims it's "Having a massage". Meh. I don't really care.
posted by Jimbob at 11:19 PM on December 2, 2008

This would have been more useful when the fearsome JRUNasaurus still roamed the blue and gray lands while feasting on embryonic comments and posts.
posted by loquacious at 11:36 PM on December 2, 2008 [5 favorites]

No text in Australia. I guess I could move to Tanzania or Latvia. Nah!
posted by tellurian at 11:47 PM on December 2, 2008

no privacy policy. no explanation of who owns/operates the service. no promise not to spam, or to keep the data safe. in short: this post is an ad for an untrustworthy site.
posted by jdfalk at 11:47 PM on December 2, 2008 [4 favorites]

Sponsored by the Large Hadron Collider.
posted by netbros at 2:36 AM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

But how does it know that they're down? I mean, when Flickr goes down, it just claims it's "Having a massage".

Usually when I get a massage it's followed closely by DING! it's up
posted by mannequito at 3:39 AM on December 3, 2008 [8 favorites]

Whenever anything happens all of my appliances light up. I like shiny lights.

Sir, that light confirms that it's off.
posted by tapeguy at 4:01 AM on December 3, 2008

I might've used it during Metafilter's prolonged outages back in '01 or '02. I would get nervous sometimes that it was gone forever. Now, I don't think there's a site I care enough about for which a "Huh. It's stuck. I'll check some other time." won't do.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:34 AM on December 3, 2008

Any idea how often it checks? The one I use now for a commercial site costs a nominal fee which is based on how often you want it checked. Having said that, the site does look like some sort of scam.
posted by gman at 4:35 AM on December 3, 2008

Along the same vain, are there services out there that allow you to set up nagios to remotely monitor your stuff?
posted by Mach5 at 4:57 AM on December 3, 2008

Sponsored by the Large Hadron Collider.

Link for the not-100%-up-on-your-memes.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:13 AM on December 3, 2008

If these sites are down so often that I feel the need to track their outages, well I'm probably not going to use them.

OTOH, U R Nerds.
posted by Mister_A at 6:38 AM on December 3, 2008

And I thought this post was going to be about Viagra. Oh well...
posted by jonp72 at 6:39 AM on December 3, 2008

> Wow, that form gets a serious UI fail.

Let us count the ways:
1. All the text is in image files. There's no alt text for the images. So, despite the lack of pictures, there's also no actual text.
2. One of those image chunks is actually a button. It's not the one that says 'submit' or 'click' or 'start'.
3. A cute little handwritten note makes the decision process ambiguous and confusing. Contact me when some service is up (or when it goes down). Huh? Can I choose? No?
4. There's no apparent account handling so I can use this to annoy somebody else.

I told it to to send me a tweet when Twitter is down. If it can do that, I'll retract my criticism.
posted by ardgedee at 6:44 AM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

This is an email harvester, yes?

I gave it some 900 numbers to call. You know, for when it's up.
posted by rokusan at 7:45 AM on December 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

One of those image chunks is actually a button. It's not the one that says 'submit' or 'click' or 'start'.

No, it's the "kthnx" image. How much more obvious could you get? Even Nielsen could figure it out.
posted by signal at 8:02 AM on December 3, 2008

> No, it's the "kthnx" image. How much more obvious could you get?

I turned images off and learned that it actually said "Submit", but since I couldn't tell what I was submitting since none of the input fields have labels and none of the images have alternate text, I put in everybody's telephone numbers and told it to alert the world when Duke Nukem Forever ships.
posted by ardgedee at 8:40 AM on December 3, 2008

Sponsored by the Large Hadron Collider.

Link for the not-100%-up-on-your-memes.

Link for the not-100%-up-on-your-LHC.
posted by netbros at 10:38 AM on December 3, 2008

I don't think it will work for www.dropload.com, which was a fantastically reliable large file transfer service that went down many months back. The site has said it will return for over a year now.
posted by PuppyCat at 11:44 AM on December 3, 2008