SiteMonitor Lite 2.2

Overview

SiteMonitor Free is a free tool to check whether either a web site or a web host are live by pinging the server. This sends a digital message to the server to see if it is still responding to the ping and how long the reply takes. A long delay in replying could indicate that the server is especially busy at the moment or is being asked to handle too much server load presently. No response at all will suggest that a site is down presently.

The user can add a series of web sites to the app and have it ping those sites at regular intervals to verify that the site is live. A green button will light up next to its listing inside the app when it is live and the server response code is shown at the other end of the detail line for each web site being monitored. Each added web site can be ticked to have it continually checking or unchecked to turn off that feature for the time being. An alert is sent to get the attention of the user when a web site stops responding.

Installation

The installation of SiteMonitor Free is simple because it comes as a executable (EXE) file. The file can be clicked on to run it and the app starts up right away without delay.

When starting for the first time, a window prompt queries the user whether they wish to add SiteMonitor Free to the list of application that start when Windows does. This option may be suitable for people with live web sites on web hosting platforms to monitor, but for other people who just want to check that a particular site is live again (which was offline briefly) then probably not.

Interface

The interface for the free version of this application (there is an Enterprise paid version too) is fairly basic.

There is a menu with a few basic options along it: File, Edit and Help. Below the menu are some toolbar buttons to Add, Edit, Remove, Check, Check Selected, Check All, Graph, Options, and Sort List.

Google is added as the first site really just to show that the software works. It displays a green light to confirm the site is live. The Friendly name, web site url, Match ID information, Response from the server & response time, and web site/page status code are all displayed on the same line.

Clicking on the Google test entry, a right click on the mouse will bring up a context menu relating to the Google site. The options are Check, Edit, Remove, and Last Content Returned.

Pros

• Check whether a web site is still responding to pings or has fallen offline
• Be notified when a web site is down suggesting a server problem
• Ping Web Site via http or https
• Ping Host using ICMP Ping type
• Be able to contact the web host for your own web sites when they fail to avoid delays in getting the site back online and substantial loss of income
• Green light visual for each web site monitored and confirmed as live
• Send SMS reminders

Cons

None.

Conclusion

SiteMonitor Live is a good way to check a few web sites and be updated quickly when one falls offline.