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Mac OS X  |  IT & Network Administration  |  Utility  |  Dejal Simon

Dejal Simon

Dejal Simon - 2.5

Monitor web sites & servers for changes or failures.

All Time: (4.2)
Version 2.5: Not rated (0.0)
Selected Version: 2.5
Release Date: 2009-02-15
License: Shareware
Downloads (version 2.5): 145
Downloads (all versions): 23,101

Information Related to Version:

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Product Description:

Dejal Simon is the essential site monitoring tool for Mac OS X. It checks web pages, FTP and DNS servers, local or remote ports, and other services for changes or failures, and notifies you via e-mail, sound, speech, Twitter, HTML reports, and other means.


Add tests to Simon to track updated sites, to alert you when an important server goes down or recovers, check on Samba SMB, take periodic screenshots of the system, track posts and new comments on your or friends' blogs, check for web mail, make sure a key application is running, get notifications of updates to favorite news and entertainment websites, keep an eye on auctions, and many other uses.


Services include Web (HTTP) to check web pages (including secure ones, and supporting POST and cookies), FTP files and directory listings, DNS, Ping servers, see Twitter updates, watch a local Application, capture periodic Screenshots, watch for System Log Errors, and more. Plus, you can easily add your own services via custom port connections, AppleScripts, shell scripts, or Perl, PHP, Python, etc.


Receive notification of changes, failures, and/or recoveries via various Actions, auto-generated E-mail messages (including to your pager or cellphone), Growl notifications, Twitter updates or direct messages, iCal or Google Calendar events, an audible Sound, or customizable Speech.


HTML reports allow remote viewing of a summary and/or details of Simon monitoring. Reports can be saved to a local web server, or uploaded remotely. Customizable templates (with several examples provided) allow embedding in a web page, using a compact format suitable for viewing on PDAs and cellphones, creating a RSS feed, and more.


Trial License (up to 30 days): free
Basic License (up to 7 tests): $29.95
Standard License (up to 20 tests): $59.95
Enterprise License (unlimited tests): $195.00
Upgrade from version 1: $19.95
Update for licensed version 2 users: free

What's new in this version:

Services and Notifiers:

  • Added a SMS notifier plug-in to send Simon notifications as text messages to your phone. It has two modes of operation: via the Clickatell SMS gateway service, or via email to your phone provider. For both methods, this plug-in enables you to easily add multiple phone numbers to send messages to, and you can pick them from your Address Book if desired. Clickatell is a paid service; you need to sign up for an account with them, and they charge for each message. The email mode is free, other than any charges you may incur for receiving text messages. This plug-in was kindly written by Daniel Ellis.
  • Renamed the Basic plug-in as Web, and extended it to also act as a notifier. So you can now use it to get or post to a web page when a change, failure or recovery occurs, e.g. to run a PHP script to log a failure or perform some other action.
  • Added a S.M.A.R.T. Status service. This script checks the S.M.A.R.T. status of all mounted disk volumes, ignoring volumes that don't support reporting S.M.A.R.T. status. Results in a failure if a problem is detected.
  • Added a Drive Status service. A script service to check drive capacity threshold, S.M.A.R.T. status, and RAID health. A more comprehensive check than the S.M.A.R.T. Status service. Results in a failure if a problem is detected. Kindly written by Scott Haneda.
  • Added a Pulse service. This script simply causes every check to result in a change. This can be useful, for example, to have Simon email you (via a change notifier) at a desired frequency, to reassure you that Simon is on the job.
  • Added a Post to Simon Wall notifier. This is a demo of the Web plug-in operating as a notifier. It does a Post to the Dejal website, adding a line to the Simon Wall page. You are welcome to use this notifier if you wish, or can duplicate and modify it to post elsewhere.
  • The E-mail notifier now alerts you if the To or From fields aren't filled in, since that is a common cause of issues.
  • Changed the E-mail notifier plug-in when using the Automatic method to connect to the sender's SMTP server instead of the recipient's, since that is more correct.
  • Added Automatically add www. and .com if omitted checkbox to the Web plug-in's Service options. It is on by default, but you can turn it off to disable this automatic formatting if you need to enter a URL without a top-level domain, e.g. for WebDav.
  • Fixed a bug in the Web plug-in's handling of the parameters and cookies tables, where an exception could prevent adding new ones when editing existing tests.
  • Fixed a bug with loading new default services and notifiers, where they could vanish after relaunching if no changes were made manually after updating. If you deleted any of these, they may re-appear with this update; just delete them again, and they won't re-appear.

Reports:

  • Changed the URL display in the Save Locally report plug-in to be an editable URL, like in the Upload to Remote Server one. This enables you to edit the URL if you have a domain name for your local machine, or want to use a different variation of a file:// URL, perhaps to use localhost instead of the machine name. Clear the field to go back to an automatically determined URL.
  • Changed the Save Locally report plug-in to replace any periods in the machine name with a dash, to avoid an invalid URL.
  • Added LastChangeTextWithHTML and LastChangeTextWithoutHTML report variables for the Test block, so you can display the full text of the test output (between the Start and End Smart Change Detection blocks, if any).
  • When a report is deleted, it now immediately stops outputting and removes its timer to avoid reporting again, as you'd expect.

Other:

  • Added a Convert Domain/IP command to the Edit menu. If a field with a domain name or IP address is active, this command will change the domain name into the corresponding IP address, or vice versa. If there are multiple possible matches, a menu is displayed to enable you to choose the best one. Note that converting a domain to an IP then back to a domain may result in a different domain, if it is on a shared hosting server.
  • Changed the Add/Remove buttons below tables in the Preferences, Web (HTTP) and Script plug-ins to use small square buttons instead of round ones, to fit with the modern convention.
  • Fixed a rare issue where some plug-in settings could be unexpectedly modified when canceling an editor.
  • Fixed an issue with the Preferences window, where edits might not be saved when quitting with the window still open (specifically when an edit is still active).
  • Removed the old crash reporter, since it doesn't support Leopard crash logs.
  • Updated the built-in Kagi purchasing tool to the latest version, which fixes some issues with Leopard.
  • Updated the French and German localizations.

Operating System Requirements:

This product is designed to run on the following operating systems:

  • Mac OS X 10.5 Intel
  • Mac OS X 10.5 PPC
  • Mac OS X 10.4 Intel
  • Mac OS X 10.4 PPC

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Feedback Summary:

Version 2.5:
Overall Rating: Not rated (0.0) Features: Not rated (0.0) Support: Not rated (0.0)
Ease of Use: Not rated (0.0) Quality / Stability: Not rated (0.0) Price: Not rated (0.0)
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Dejal Simon CommentaryDoesn't work with facebook - Version: 2.5, 2/21/2009 01:38AM PST

(0 of 3 users found this comment useful)

Yannis1962
It looks like a nice piece of software.

I tried it with facebook and it reported a change everytime it connected. There is no doubt that if I analyze the structure of the facebook page and find exactly the places where a change is of interest to me, then I may be able to configure it. But it would be nice if Dejal Simon could do it automatically: what I'm interested in are the things you don't get notified by facebook:
• somebody writes on the wall of a group of your choice
• there are new members in a group of your choice
The developer told me there will be a plug-in for facebook, I hope it will do this.
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Dejal Simon ReviewExcellent replacement for Whistleblower - Version: 2.4.1, 6/23/2008 12:42PM PST

(1 of 1 users found this comment useful)

afterhours
I waited years for James Sentman to get around to updating Whistleblower for the newer APC equipment. Sadly, that hasn't happened (yet).

But on the bright side, it forced me to find a modern solution, and with Simon, I've got all the control over my alerts and AP7900 that I need. Server monitoring is back, and with Simon, I feel unleashed from the server room again. The developer has been open and responsive to questions about the product and feature enhancements. Once I outgrow my $60 license, it'll be a no-brainer to move up to Enterprise.
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Dejal Simon ReviewFantastic software - Version: 2.2.1, 2/19/2007 09:20PM PST

(3 of 3 users found this comment useful)

CNG2
I wasn't expecting too much when I started using Simon; I had used various open source monitoring packages and figured Simon was just going to be a nice GUI to do basically the same thing. I WAS WRONG. Simon is full of nice touches and is a very polished package. The flexibility in setting up a variety of tests and customising the different notifications is simply amazing. And it is so easy to configure. The developer is also very helpful and responsive. This is by far the best software I have purchased this year (& maybe will be all year).

But more to the point, it has already saved me money by giving me a notification about a misbehaving server before the problem became a serious issue.
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