Binary Canary

3 Things You MUST Monitor

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 02:07:00 PM

We think of the internet as being “always on” but unfortunately, downtime is a fact of life on the web. BinaryCanary.com actively monitors 1,000 world-wide websites across multiple industries. The average uptime is only 99.41% - meaning that each site may be down for as much as 52 hours per year. That’s an hour a week. At random. A minute here and there – affecting an uncountable number of potential customers and eroding your professional reputation. Read this post in the time it takes BinaryCanary.com to monitor your website - one minute! Here are the three things that every business needs to monitor – and to be alerted as soon as possible should they go offline: 1. Your Website. If your site goes down in the middle of a customer’s ecommerce experience, you’ve not only lost the sale, you’ve lost credibility. Not an ecommerce site? Then all you've lost is their attention and the opportunity for them to respond to your call to action. 2. Your Email. Just because you press “send” doesn’t ensure that the email will go through, if your email service experiences downtime at that crucial moment. We’ve all had the experience of sending an important email that was never received, or waiting for the email that never comes. 3. Your Domain Name. This is the core of your online identity – and you spend thousands of hours and dollars putting that information in front of your customers. It’s on your marketing collateral, in your advertising, and how people remember you. If that expires, you could lose it – as expired domains are available for resale – and your competitors could wind up owning it – and that means they own all the good will you’ve built as well. BinaryCanary.com makes it both easy and affordable to monitor these three crucial areas. One-Minute-Monitoring starts for as little as $5/month to give you peace of mind that your website is working, your domain name is secure and your email is getting through – enabling you to take action to prevent the erosion of your reputation, reduce lost sales, and keep you competitive. Sign up today for One-Minute-Monitoring with BinaryCanary.com – We Alert You First. Enjoy the Day, Susan

Escalation profiles by server released

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 09:55:12 AM

Last week, we released a much anticipated update - escalation profiles by server. An escalation profile is the set of notification steps which should be followed in the case of a monitor failure. Some of our clients who are monitoring multiple targets on a single server needed a way to prevent each individual monitor from alerting in the case of a server wide failure. With this new update, you will be able to set up a single escalation profile for a server, and then associate the monitors with that server. When a failure occurs, the server's escalation profile will be executed, and the failure email messages will indicate which actual targets are down. In order to activate the feature, please follow these steps: 1. Create an escalation profile 2. Create/Update a server, and associate the escalation profile to the server 3. Update your monitor under “Alert Notifications” and set it to “Server’s Escalation Profile” 4. Click Save. The escalation profile will now start once any monitor goes down. Any monitor that is using the server’s escalation profile will not alert individually. Instead, for email notifications, you will see a status of all the monitors using the server’s escalation profile. For other notifications, only the first monitor’s information will be stated. You can also acknowledge the entire server with one click! Just go into the “List Servers” page and click the blinking contact icon to stop the server’s escalation profile. Many more great features to come. Dan Belhassen

API v2 (beta) is now released

Wed, 12 May 2010 06:36:00 PM

We are pleased to announce that our API Beta v2 has now been released, with 40 great new functions and more to come! You can find full details here: https://binarycanary.com/api-doc/ Enjoy!

Alert 'white labelling' now available

Thu, 06 May 2010 05:07:00 PM

Many of our clients have asked for the ability to fully customize alerts. This functionality has now been released. To customize your alerts is simple: 1) From the “Accounts Overview” page, select an account, and click edit. 2) Select “Enable alert whitelabelling” 3) Customize the email and SMS alerts Enjoy!

Customized Subject Lines Now Available

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:03:00 PM

We take user requests seriously. Last week, we were asked to add the ability to customize the subject line of failure emails, and we posted the update today. Along with this update, we've also posted many other updates recently including: - a "quick setup" tool for easy monitoring of simple web pages - ability to customize "from" addresses for email alerts - ability to add "instruction memos" to email alerts - advanced monitoring filters - search monitoring field with "lookahead" - ability to filter failures according to whether the failure happened during a maintenance period We are constantly working on new features based on user requests. More features announcements coming shortly! Dan Belhassen

Phone Alerts Now Available

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:28:00 AM

We are pleased to announce the launch of our phone notification system. Phone notifications, which are available for our Hyper plan clients, are supported for nearly every country world wide. In order to ensure that the phone alert was received by an authorized person, a PIN code is used to confirm receipt. Phone notifications only use one standard SMS notification credit. More great features to come! Dan Belhassen

Paypal Now Available!

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:57:00 AM

We're pleased to have updated our signup process to support Paypal accounts. This much anticipated feature will allow more people to take advantage of one of our low priced plans, which support many advanced features. Enjoy! Dan Belhassen

Beta API Now Available

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 07:33:00 AM

We are pleased to have our beta API now available. This version will allow you to access a list of your monitors (and statuses) through SOAP. If you are interested in participating in this beta, please let me know and I will send you the URL and WSDL to get started. Enjoy! Dan Belhassen

Client Base Doubles in July 2009!

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:40:00 PM

Thank you to all of our new clients who have joined in July 2009. Thanks to you, we actually doubled our client base in one month! Many new people, whether they are hosting companies, designers or website owners are discovering the great features and amazing prices which binarycanary.com offers for website and device monitoring. Glad to have you all on board, and don't forget to let us know of any special feature requests you have! Dan Belhassen

South Korean Website Attacks

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 02:33:00 PM

Dan Belhassen, founder of BinaryCanary.com understands the implications of recent attacks on US and South Korean websites. Last week's website attacks in the US and South Korea underscore the need for businesses to pay closer attention to the ongoing health and functionality of their websites. Among the US websites targeted in the recent attacks were The White House, the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq Stock Market and the Washington Post. South Korean targets included the Defense Ministry the President's residence and the National Assembly. BBC News reports that the attacks began on July 4th, American Independence Day. "These attacks underscore the need for organizations to protect their online presence," says Belhassen. "Those attacks in the US and South Korea appear to have been politically motivated, but whether the problem is a virus or a system error, people need to know that their websites are operational." Belhassen says that even if a website is up and running 99.9% of the time, that still leaves eight hours of downtime each year. "An organization's website is its global face and it dramatically affects your credibility and profitability if your website is down, not functional or hacked. Binary Canary alerts you when a problem is sensed - giving your staff immediate notification that they need to address the issue - hopefully before the public notices." The attacks are reported to have slowed down and in some cases shut government websites down for several hours. Links to news stories related to the attacks: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8139821.stm http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/nation/south/nat_ap_dc_federal_web_sites_knocked_out_by_cyber_attack_20090708653_2617479

Uptime badges now available

Sat, 16 May 2009 12:41:00 PM

Proud of your uptime? Show it off with our uptime badge, which automatically links to your performance report. Dan

System Upgrade - May 15/09

Fri, 15 May 2009 02:26:00 PM

We will be performing a system upgrade on May 15, 2009 starting at 10pm CDT. The upgrade will last approx. 2 hours, during which time the user interface may not be available. Please note that our monitoring system will remain active and functional during this maintenance period.

Public Stats Available

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:37:00 AM

We're constantly adding new features and services based on our feedback. We're pleased to have released last week an update which contained, among other things, the ability to link to a public stats page for any of your monitors. To use, simply click on the "public stats" link on the monitor set up page. Please keep sending us your suggestions for new features! - Dan

Binary Canary launched to the public

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:58:00 PM

Uptime is critical - your website speaks volumes about your credibility, and that's why "high frequency" website monitoring is not only important, but critical. We're pleased to be now providing a public version of ourBinaryCanary.com website monitoring tool with groundbreaking features and unheard of pricing. Why? Because you shouldn't have to worry about how your website (or other service) is functioning. We'll track it for you. We alert you first.