Mac-only due to the dependency on osascript.
Periodically confirm that the computer can make a successful Web request to the Internet.
Useful when running one's workstation on a network that has hard-to-detect connectivity mishaps, such as when riding on a train.
When you run internet-heartbeat-monitor the session looks like this,
as long as it looks like you are able to make a Web request successfully:
$ sudo bin/internet-heartbeat-monitor
Repeatedly pinging opendns.com
................
One dot will be printed each time the ability to make a Web request is confirmed.
If it looks like you lost connectivity, you will get an E instead of
a dot in the console but more usefully you will get an OS-level alert
like this one:
This script contains a nice example of how you can make a bare-bones test runner that prints "progess dots" just like a full xUnit test runner would!
Also note the osascript command (Mac-only) which can be used to deliver
system alert messages with custom payloads --- great for any local
monitoring solution!