Probably the easiest way to check that the site is really down is to connect to both http://www.facebook.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/, preferably from a second web browser if installed on the computer system. If not try clearing the cache first before you load the Facebook website.

If both tries result in an error message (connection temporarily unavailable or something like that) you may want to dig deeper into the issue. Users with little time may want to try connecting to Facebook at a later time, everyone else can try the following options:

1. Use a proxy to test the connection

A proxy server basically sits between your computer and the destination on the Internet. Routing problems, bans and other technical issues can be circumvented with proxy servers. We generally do not recommend using a proxy server to log in, but it can be reassuring to see that Facebook is up and not down.

2. Ping and Tracert

It gets a bit technical now. Windows users need to press Windows-R, type cmd and hit enter. A command line window shows up. Enter the following commands and hit return after each. Wait for each command to complete before you run a new one.

ping www.facebook.com

A ping basically sends a “hello” to a server or IP address on the Internet. If the server is configured to respond, and available, it will reply and those information are displayed in the command line. If you get timeouts or other errors read on.

tracert www.facebook.com

A tracert analyses the “way” the date uses to reach Facebook from your computer.

It displays a series of servers from your local IP address to one of the Facebook servers. If you see a timeout on a server that does not belong to Facebook you are probably experiencing routing problems. Those can be fixed with proxy servers and virtual private networks. If they are close to your own IP you may want to contact your provider to see if they are aware of connection issues.

3. Reboot your computer, reconnect to the Internet

Have you tried turning it off and on again is a famous quote that is used a lot in the TV series The IT crowd. Try rebooting your computer and reconnecting to the Internet. You may need to do this in the router’s admin interface or by powering down the router for a minute.

4. Check if the website is down for everyone

Down For Everyone or Just Me is one of the sites that offer insight whether a website is down for the user initiating the request or everyone on the Internet. How are they doing it? They simply try to connect to the server, in our case facebook.com to see if they can connect. If they can they let you know that it is a issue that only you, or people in your network / using the same ISP are experiencing.

5. Check Twitter

If Facebook is down for everyone, you can bet that there are dozens, hundreds or even thousands of users on Twitter that report about this. Go to Twitter and search for Is Facebook down or a variation of it, or follow this link to see results right away.

If you see lots of tweets by users that are reporting that Facebook is down you need to consider that the website is indeed experiencing technical difficulties. Try to connect to the site at a later time.

6. Connect with your smartphone, from another computer

If you have a smartphone and a reasonable Internet plan you may want to test the connection using the cell phone. The cell phone usually uses a different provider and it may be that the connection can be established this way.

And that’s basically all you can do. Sometimes you just have to wait until Facebook becomes available again on your end.

Have another tip on how to find out if Facebook is down? Let us know in the comments.

The software program for the Windows operating system will display Facebook status updates right on the Windows desktop. It uses a semi-transparent window to display the unread messages, pokes, friend requests and invites.

The main application window contains additional options. It is from here for instance possible to update the Facebook status, look at personal information or see a summary of Facebook status notifications (which distinguishes between event and group invites which the transparent window does not).

The Facebook status notifier uses roughly 1.5 Megabytes with the transparent window open and the main application window minimized in the system tray. The software program requires the Microsoft .net Framework (not mentioned which version). It can be downloaded from the Google Code project website. (via To The PC).

According to the developers of Generatus their product is ideal for the imaginatively challenged. Generatus is a social network status generator which turns the overly repeated and boring statuses like “Martin is working”, “Drinking Coffee” or “Jim is visiting his grandparents” into something witty and original.

Simplicity was probably the main design idea behind Generatus. Males can simply hit the Generate button while females will have to click on the female to generate female statuses (not sure if there is really that much difference to justify that, it is probably used to make use of the right grammatical person in the sentences). It is also possible to use tags to get a status that relates to the selected tags.

The program generates statuses like “Fred missed winning the lottery by only SIX numbers”, “Fred was schizophrenic once, but we’re better now!” or “Susi is pushing up daises”.

Judging from those “witty” statuses it is probably fair to assume that Generatus aims at the school – college kid fraction of the population.