IT Pro Tuesday #35

Downtime Monitoring, ‘Deep Work’ Book, Free Tools & More

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Hello IT Pro,

Each week we’re updating the full list on our website here. Enjoy.

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But on with this week’s tools…! Here are the most interesting items that have come across our desks, laptops, and phones this week. As always, EveryCloud has no known affiliation with any of these unless we explicitly state otherwise.

A Free Service

UptimeRobot is a service that alerts you whenever your monitored websites are down. Sites are checked every 5 minutes (or more depending on settings), and alerts can go out via e-mail, SMS, voice calls, Telegram, Slack, Microsoft Teams, push or web-hooks. It allows you to check HTTP(s), ping, port and keywords; view uptime, downtime and response times; verify downtime from multiple locations; and adjust settings to ignore minor downtimes or maintenance windows. Thanks go to orgitnized for suggesting this one!

A Free Tool

Snappy Driver Installer Origin makes it quick and easy to install and update Windows device drivers for XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. Snappy features a state-of-the-art driver matching algorithm, built-in application and driver pack updates, full portability to run from a USB flash drive, and it can be fully automated using the built-in scripting engine. Best of all, Snappy is free and open-source.

A Tip

Here are a few more of those ever-popular but lesser-known Windows keyboard shortcuts:

• Win + Pause to open the system settings
• Win + L to lock your computer
• Ctrl + Win + Shift + B to reset the graphics driver (may help avoid a restart for docking issues)

A Little IT Humor

Thanks to CoilDomain, figfigworkwork and wagodago for these clever jokes that most people will never understand:

I’d tell you a joke about UDP, but you probably wouldn’t get it.

A TCP packet walks into a bar and says, “I’d like a beer.”
The bartender replies, “You want a beer?”
The TCP packet replies, “Yes, I’d like a beer.”

An SQL statement walks into a bar and sees two tables.
It approaches and asks, “May I join you?”

A Book

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World teaches the reader to foster the ability to focus without distraction on cognitively demanding tasks. Author and professor Cal Newport celebrates the power of such focus by demonstrating how a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits in virtually any profession. He then shares a series of four rules to adapt your thinking and habits to foster the deep work state. Suggested by wheres_my_toast, who sees it as “a nice little exploration of the psychology behind distraction free work [that] outlines some nice methods for building “deep work” sessions into your routine.”

Have a fantastic week and as usual, let me know any comments.

Graham | CEO | EveryCloud

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