Ding It’s Up is a unique service that provides you website downtime alerts via Twitter. You can get updates in your email, mobile or Twitter about when a site goes back up. The service sends you a message about the concerned website (that you entered), and you don’t even need to register for this service.

Ding It’s Up and more services like these are used by webmasters who have to monitor their own sites, though it’s also useful for people who are frequent users of Twitter, YouTube and other social tools/networks.

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Related Articles at Startup Meme:

One of the interesting observation regarding this incident was the fact that the terrorists used BlackBerry smartphones to monitor the world’s response in real-time after all the cables to the hotel were cut down.

Even though iPhone was launched in India earlier in August this year, it still doesn’t seem to have become an integral part of the mobile communication system.

Blackberry still leads the market share with over twice the percentage of the iPhone and is still known to be more user-friendly and feature enrich.

Apple needs to focus more on usability then merely on eye-candy and touch effects. As the technology evolves, it will surely bring new horrors and disasters like it always has.

After all, terrorists use technology to track the world too.

© 2008 Sizlopedia All Rights Reserved

However, there are a couple free Web analytics programs that are easy to hook up and use. One of the newest is Microsoft adCenter Analytics. Because the site says it’s a limited Beta, you have to register and then wait for an invitation to join the program. It typically takes a few days to hear back from them, but when you receive your invitation you can follow their simple instructions to create a profile and add the script to your site.

The thing is, their instructions don’t address what to do on a SharePoint site. So that’s where we come in. I’ve seen a few blog posts and videos out there about how to add other analytics scripts to a SharePoint blog, but they all seem either light on detail or leave out a key piece of information, so I shot my own video, Add Microsoft adCenter analytics to your SharePoint blog home page.

As the title suggests, I show only how to add the script to your home page. This will capture lots of great numbers about home page usage, but does not capture information about individual posts.

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The Linux command line can be very powerful once you know how to use it. You can parse data, monitor processes, and do a lot of other useful and cool things using it. There often comes a need to generate a report and mail it out. It could be as simple a requirement as a notification that the day’s backup went through fine, or did not. I’ll help you get started with sending mails from the Linux command line and in shell scripts. We will also cover sending attachments from the command line. We will begin with the “mail” command.

MAIL

First run a quick test to make sure the “sendmail” application is installed and working correctly. Execute the following command, replacing “you@youremailid.com” with your e-mail address.

# mail -s “Hello world” you@youremailid.com

Hit the return key and you will come to a new line. Enter the text “This is a test from my server”. Follow up the text by hitting the return key again. Then hit the key combination of Control+D to continue. The command prompt will ask you if you want to mark a copy of the mail to any other address, hit Control+D again. Check your mailbox. This command will send out a mail to the email id mentioned with the subject, “Hello world”.

To add content to the body of the mail while running the command you can use the following options. If you want to add text on your own:

# echo “This will go into the body of the mail.” | mail -s “Hello world” you@youremailid.com

And if you want mail to read the content from a file:

# mail -s “Hello world” you@youremailid.com < /home/calvin/application.log

Some other useful options in the mail command are:

-s subject (The subject of the mail)
-c email-address (Mark a copy to this “email-address”, or CC)
-b email-address (Mark a blind carbon copy to this “email-address”, or BCC)

Here’s how you might use these options:

# echo “Welcome to the world of Calvin n Hobbes” | mail -s “Hello world” calvin@cnh.com -c hobbes@cnh.com -b susie.derkins@cnh.com

MUTT

One of major drawbacks of using the mail command is that it does not support the sending of attachments. mutt, on the other hand, does support it. I’ve found this feature particularly useful for scripts that generate non-textual reports or backups which are relatively small in size which I’d like to backup elsewhere. Of course, mutt allows you to do a lot more than just send attachments. It is a much more complete command line mail client than the “mail” command. Right now we’ll just explore the basic stuff we might need often. Here’s how you would attach a file to a mail:

# echo “Sending an attachment.” | mutt -a backup.zip -s “attachment” calvin@cnh.com

This command will send a mail to calvin@cnh.com with the subject (-s) “attachment”, the body text “Sending an attachment.”, containing the attachment (-a) backup.zip. Like with the mail command you can use the “-c” option to mark a copy to another mail id.

SENDING MAIL FROM A SHELL SCRIPT

Now, with the basics covered you can send mails from your shell scripts. Here’s a simple shell script that gives you a reading of the usage of space on your partitions and mails the data to you.

#!/bin/bash
df -h | mail -s “disk space report” calvin@cnh.com

Save these lines in a file on your Linux server and run it. You should receive a mail containing the results of the command. If, however, you need to send more data than just this you will need to write the data to a text file and enter it into the mail body while composing the mail. Here’s and example of a shell script that gets the disk usage as well as the memory usage, writes the data into a temporary file, and then enters it all into the body of the mail being sent out:

#!/bin/bash
df -h > /tmp/mail_report.log
free -m >> /tmp/mail_report.log
mail -s “disk and RAM report” calvin@cnh.com < /tmp/mail_report.log

Now here’s a more complicated problem. You have to take a backup of a few files and mail then out. First the directory to be mailed out is archived. Then it is sent as an email attachment using mutt. Here’s a script to do just that:

#!/bin/bash
tar -zcf /tmp/backup.tar.gz /home/calvin/files
echo | mutt -a -s /tmp/backup.tar.gz “daily backup of data” calvin@cnh.com

The echo at the start of the last line adds a blank into the body of the mail being set out.

This should get you started with sending mails form the Linux command line and from shell scripts. Read up the “man page” for both mail and mutt for more options.

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Related Articles at Simple Help:

• How to set up Evolution for email
• Simple Help Contest - Win $25, twice!
• Why you get so many “Returned mail: User unknown” emails
• How to reset a lost MySQL root password
• How to set up Thunderbird 2.0 for email

How to send email from the Linux command line - Simple Help

Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 includes the Kaspersky Antivirus components but extends the protection of the computer system beyond that. At the core stands it antivirus and anti-malware engine that is protecting the system from those threats. The Internet Security 2009 suite adds to that a two-way personal firewall, content filtering and data & identity theft protection.

Several new features have been integrated into the 2009 edition of the software. This includes the ability to restore previous system settings after cleaning malware, security ratings for unknown applications, a virtual keyboard to protect against phishing and keyloggers and the automatic access restriction (user data folders) for unknown applications.

Installation of the software suite should not be problematic although it requires the uninstallation of other applications of its kind before the installation can be completed (Multiple firewalls or antivirus programs can interfere with each other). Inexperienced users can and should keep the automatic settings while experienced users can configure the layers of protection manually. It does not make much sense for example to enable the Anti-Dialer module if the user is connecting to the Internet over a network.

The interface of Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 has been redesigned. It is divided into the four blocks Protection, Scan, Update and License.

• Protection: Various protection layers can be analyzed and configured in this entry. It is also providing access to various tools like the creation of a Rescue Disk, a Security Analyzer or Network Monitor.
• Scan: Perform a quick or full scan of the computer system.
• Update: Will check and download updates
• License: License information. Will list the validity period of the application

Inexperienced users will love the automatism of the software program. The initial scan of the system will add automatic rules for most applications that are installed on the system. Kaspersky Internet Security did add applications like Firefox, Thunderbird or Teamspeak to the list of trusted applications which in turn meant that no “Do you want to permit” windows where launched when the application was started.

Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 is compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP and Windows Vista. A trial version is available that can be used for 30 days without restrictions.

The Giveaway:

Kaspersky gave us five program suites and we will give all five to you. Just post a comment before December 2 12:00 CET and you are taking part in the Giveaway. Make sure to include an email address so that we can contact you with the details in case that you have won.

Ghacks Christmas Giveaway: Kaspersky Internet Security 2009

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(1) CrappyGraphs -Quick graph sketching tool that provides you with an easy way to draw graphs online and then share them with others. You can either create simple line graphs or 2/3 circle Venn diagrams. Read more: CrappyGraphs - Draw Quick Graphs Online.

(2) Doitdoitdone - Dead simple to-do list app. In just two clicks you can start creating your to-do list for the day. A URL is created for your to-do list and you could bookmark it and then keep modifying your to-do list as and when possible. Read more: Doitdoitdone - A Quick And Easy To-do List.

(3) GigFreaks - Enter your favorite artist or band and get a list of upcoming live concerts you might like. Read more: GigFreaks - Find Live Concerts in Your Area.

(4) GoingToRain - Tells you if it is going to rain or not. You do not have to type in your whereabouts or do anything else, just go to the website and it will auto-detect your location and tell you if is going to rain today. Read more: GoingToRain - Tells You If It Is Going To Rain Today.

(5) imfdb - This handy user-maintained wiki site gives you a comprehensive info on what guns were used in pretty much any action movie. Read more: imfdb - Check What Guns Were Used In Any Movie.

(6) Newsified - Get a birds-eye view of popular social news sites and see featured items from all sites on one page. Read more: Newsified - Popular Social News Organized On One Page.

(7) NotifyMeWhenItsUp - Monitor any temporarily down page and get an email alert when it goes back online. Read more: NotifyMeWhenItsUp - Get Notified When Error Pages are Back Up.

(8) PicClick - If you are an eBay or Amazon user then you would certainly love this tool. PicClick provides a better way to search through the thousands of eBay and Amazon items. Read more: PicClick - Visual Search Engine For eBay And Amazon.

(9) Textme2Day - Send sms to mobile right from your computer. There is no sign up or registration needed. Read more: TextMe2Day - Send Free SMS To Any Mobile From Computer.

(10) WebInMail - Access your favorite websites via email. Send an email to browse@webinmail.com with the name of the website in subject line (e.g. www.makeuseof.com ) and shortly after get the webpage as an email. Read more: WebInMail - Access Blocked Websites via Email.

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last 3-4 days. If you want us to send you daily round-up of all cool websites we come across leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

(By) Aibek, the guy behind MakeUseOf.com

Enjoyed the article? Please leave a comment and tell us what you think about it

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Not too long ago, Twitter was constantly lambasted for its lack of reliability. Now, at least one developer is confident enough in the microblogging tool to launch a simple service that notifies users of website uptime/downtime via Twitter replies.

Ding It’s Up is about as simple a notification service as you can find. First, specify how you’d like to be notified (email, SMS, or Twitter). Then, enter your respective account information. From there, the site will send you a message when the site you want to monitor goes offline (or comes back online as the case may be). Conveniently, Ding It’s Up doesn’t require any separate account registration.

Typically, services like Ding It’s Up are used by webmasters who want to monitor their own sites, but increasingly, “uptime notification” is a useful feature for those that depend on services like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

Last year, a similar service called Monitwitter launched, but it (also, somewhat ironically) seems to have disappeared due to an expired domain registration. In any event, if one of your responsibilities includes keeping a website online, it’s probably best to subscribe to multiple notification services as a fail safe. For that, check out our list of 13 Free and Cheap Website Monitoring Services.

XFL,Adobe InDesign CS4,Adobe Flash CS4 Professional

In a previous Adobe Education Technologies blog article we examined how to use Adobe InDesign CS4 to create a visually rich layout, add interactivity with hyperlinks, buttons, and page transitions, and then export to SWF. We were able to do all of this without using Adobe Flash Professional and Actionscript programming. The downside of this direct-to-SWF export is that there isn't an easy way to edit the SWF file should we want to further modify it.

Now, Adobe InDesign CS4 allows designers to create multi-page layouts and then export to the new XFL (XML for Flash) file format. The XFL file can be opened directly in Adobe Flash CS4 Professional preserving layout and typographic fidelity. Then developers can enhance the file with animation, interactivity, and video. Let's take a look at the workflow:

We start in Adobe InDesign CS4. In this example we have a 9 page document which is purposely built for viewing on screen with its landscape orientation. When you create a new document using Adobe InDesign, there are a list of document sizes which match up with standard monitor/browser displays - like 1024 x 768, 800 x 600, etc.

Once we are done with our design, we would choose File > Export and select XFL from the file format list. After defining a name and location, we click Save which would then open the Export to Adobe Flash CS4 Professional (XFL) dialog box.

From here we can choose to resize the the dimensions of our overall design as well as define which pages to export. By default, Rasterize Pages and Flatten Transparency checkboxes are deselected to ensure the XFL file's maximum editabilty. Finally, we can keep our text editable by selecting InDesign Text to Flash Text. Other options in the Text list include InDesign Text to Vector Paths (converting text to editable outlines) and InDesign Text to Raster Paths (converting the text into bitmaps).

When we click OK, the file is saved to our computer. We then launch Adobe Flash CS4 Professional and open the XFL file. Each Adobe InDesign page is converted to a movie clip symbol and represented sequentially on the timeline as keyframes (black dots). To work on a specific page, drag the CTI on the timeline to the appropriate keyframe and then double-click the page on the stage with the selection tool to enter into symbol editing mode.

At this point we will be able to select page elements to reposition, animate, delete, etc. Also, if we had chosen InDesign Text to Flash Text from our XFL export options, the text will be editable as demonstrated below:

There is a lot more that we can do to this file using the Adobe Flash interface or with Actionscript. To see examples of further Flash development, check out Paul Burnett's video tutorial on Adobe TV.

XMCP wrote a post this weekend which looks at how Google tracks each of us as we use the net. Last year James Thomas devised a plan to go without using any of Google's services and was able to turn off their tracking as well. XMCP's post doesn't include the mobile point I've noted above but does look at some of the elements of tracking. People talk about how worried they are about national ID cards - does Google know more about us than an ID card ever will? I like XMCP's notes about Google Chrome.

Just how much does Google know? Ok for Google to control these many bits of data on each user no matter if they use it or not? Here's my chart for easy reference:

• If you use Adwords, they know your marketing plan and they know your purchasing patterns.
• If you use Adsense, they know which of your sites makes money (though we know nothing sadly), they know how to target which ads to your site, they know how much to payout and how much to keep.
• If you use Alerts, they know what topics are important to you.
• If you use Analytics, they know which sites you control and/or monitor, how those sites are doing and every trend possible.
• If you use Blogger, they know what you write about. Every word, every phrase, every out and in link.
• If you use Calendar, they know where you have been, are, and plan to be.
• If you use Catalog search/Product Search, they know what items are of interest to you and which items you actually purchase.
• If you use Checkout, they know all of your personal information: name, address, phone, credit card, ccid.
• If you use Chrome, they know everything they didn't already know about your browsing.
• If you use Desktop, they know what you have on your PC.
• If you use Docs and Spreadsheets, they know that you are writing a paper on 13th century france, and your checking account is $30 overdrawn.
• If you use Earth, they know where on the planet you desire to research.
• If you use FeedBurner, they know all about your readers and your readership levels.
• If you use Finance, they know what stocks (and other instruments) you own, which you monitor, and which trends you follow.
• If you use Gmail, they know everything. Yep, everything.
• If you use Groups, they know you have a fetish for rare steaks and love art from Paris.
• If you use Image search, they know that you like Britney Spears and you have a craving for chocolate babaka and cat photos.
• If you use Local search, they know where you are now, and what you are interested in.
• If you use Maps, they know where you might be, where you might be going, where you have been. And as noted above, if you have GPS, they know where you are at this exact moment.
• If you use Reader, they know what you are interested in.
• If you use Search (any Google search), Google knows every search you have ever made.
• If you use Talk, they know who your buddies are.
• If you use Toolbar, they know every web site you visit.
• If you use Translate, they know that you are learning German.
• If you use Video, the same applies as for YouTube.
• If you use YouTube, they know every video you have watched, what genres you like, which naughty videos you have watched, which ones you commented/favorited on, and the videos you have uploaded.

Please add your own Google tracking bits and I will update the post. (added Reader per comments)