Posted in
Pingdom on March 19th, 2008 by Pingdom
A month ago we released an Apple Store status banner that was powered by Pingdom’s uptime monitoring service. Anyone could put it on their website to show the US Apple Store status (up or down) in real time. The reason this is interesting is of course because Apple usually updates or releases new products in connection with taking down the Apple Store.
It became a success and we got a lot of really positive feedback. One thing that people kept asking for was a widget for their Mac OS X desktops, so they could have the status icon always available in the Dashboard.
So here it is, by popular demand: An Apple Store status widget for Mac OS X (10.4 and later):

Just add it to your Dashboard and it will work automatically (when the Dashboard is activated). No more manual checking!

Above: The different status icons for the widget. The “loading error” is only shown if your computer cannot connect and get the status from Pingdom.
How it works
Pingdom handles the actual monitoring of the US Apple Store website. The widget will connect to Pingdom and update its status once per minute. For details on how the monitoring is done on Pingdom’s end, check out the post about the Apple Store status banner.
This means that no matter how many people add this widget to their desktops, Apple will not get bombarded with tests since the only tests are those performed once per minute by Pingdom’s uptime monitoring service.
Let us know what you think
We hope you like this widget. It’s actually the first one we’ve made.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
Want to test your site every minute?
Posted in
Main on February 8th, 2012 by Pingdom
Want to see how your favorite US sports site is doing, if it has a perfect 100% uptime score or not? If you want to check the latest scores and it isn’t working, could it be a problem with your computer or connection, or the site? We’ve got the solution for you!
For some time now we’ve been monitoring 34 major US sports and news sites related to sports. Our recent articles on the Super Bowl are a result of that monitoring.
Now you can look at how these sites are doing yourself on the public reports page for this list of US sports websites.
Read more
Posted in
Main on February 8th, 2012 by Pingdom

Who has not used Google Maps? Raise your hand! Since the launch 7 years ago, Google Maps has become the de facto map service that users around the world go to for all their mapping needs.
As we say Happy Birthday to Google Maps, read on to find out some of the critical milestones in its history, and some amazing numbers and statistics.
Read more
Posted in
Main on February 7th, 2012 by Pingdom

In 2010, there were just over 1 million secure Internet websites worldwide. Almost half of those, or 446,992 to be exact, were located in the United States.
But in which country can we find the most secure websites in relation to population? The answer may surprise you.
Read more
Posted in
Main on February 6th, 2012 by Pingdom
The New England Patriots held what seemed to be a commanding lead (17-15) with five minutes left of Super Bowl XLVI last night. But the New York Giants came back and managed to win with 21-17.
As exciting as the game sounds, we missed the whole thing, instead spending our time watching the Superbowl.com website.
It turned out to be a rather dull thing to do because the site held up well and there was no downtime at all. The response time also didn’t give away anything significant in terms of online Super Bowl traffic.
Read more
Posted in
Main on February 3rd, 2012 by Pingdom
As Super Bowl 46 is approaching, fans will flock to the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana, and to TV sets around the world to follow the New York Giants battle it out with the New England Patriots.
Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30EST on Sunday, February 5, and we’re already monitoring Superbowl.com to see how the site will handle the event.
What team will win Super Bowl 46? How will the site cope? We can only wait to find out.
Read more
Stormy
March 19th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Excellent!
I will definitely try this out. It will make Tuesdays a little extra interesting.
Good God!
March 19th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Good God! Are people so obsessed that they have to know every minute what new products of Apples are up, what’s in stock, etc. etc.?
I’m not a Mac basher since I’ve only used Macs from 1989 onwards, and before that was an Apple ][e so it’s been Apple since day one for me. Still….seems a little more than obsessive!
JT
March 19th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Excellent, now I can ditch my weblcip version. The only improvement I can see is if I clicked on it that I could get a summary of down times. Other than that, I love it!
ryaninc
March 19th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I would love to see a web based version of this…to put on a blog or website or whatnot. Maybe even port it to an iGoogle gadget. That would rock.
OpenMind
March 19th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Ryaninc: Read the first sentence again and click the link.
They already have a banner: http://royal.pingdom.com/?p=251
Jerry Hendersib
April 1st, 2008 at 9:11 am
It would be great if an audible “ping” could somehow alert us. Great idea specially for Tuesdays now and then. Thanks
donovan
December 7th, 2009 at 2:34 am
Is there a OS X widget that allows you to monitor your pingdom sites?