Is site down script (See related posts)

import socket
import urllib2

def timeout(site, timeout):
  save = socket.getdefaulttimeout() 
  try:
    response = urllib2.urlopen(site)
    socket.setdefaulttimeout(save)
  except urllib2.URLError, err:
    socket.setdefaulttimeout(save)
    if err.__class__.__name__ == "URLError":
      if isinstance(err[0], socket.timeout):
        return True
  return False


if timeout("http://www.dummy-site.com/test_timeout.html", 10):
  print "Timeout detected"