Nettylite

Nettylite is a program that turns one of three light bulbs on via a CM11A X10 controller using heuy depending on network status. It is very useful is you dont feel like carrying a pager at all times... or as a backup.

Here is what you do: first, get yourself a surplus traffic light. Many municipalities are replacing their old lights with all new LED lights. The old ones wind up at auctions soon to become collector's items. Next, restore/replace the wiring inside so that you can control the three different lights via X10. Finally, tweak the nettylite script to insert your own servers or IP addresses.

Voilla! A hip network status display for your lobby, entry hall, or office. At night, it doubles as a moody night light. The rest of the time, it will give you positive network status. I placed mine at home so that I can see it from the TV couch out of the corner of my eye.

• GREEN: all is well. Your web site at the colo is up and running.
• YELLOW: you cannot tell whether your web site is up and running because your own cable modem / DLS modem / PPP link is down.
• RED: your own internet connection is working, but your web site at the colo is not responding (thats probably bad).

Nettylite comes in two flavors: a tcl daemon script that is meant to run in the background and a tk gui script for your desktop. One has a GUI, the other does not. Other than that, they are pretty much identical.

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