I usually have a Terminal window open, so I ping one of our production servers, which is hardcoded with a short name in my /etc/hosts file. This ensures that ba

I usually have a Terminal window open, so I ping one of our production servers, which is hardcoded with a short name in my /etc/hosts file. This ensures that basic networking is working. I then try to reload a random open browser tab. If that fails, I know a DNS issue is likely to blame.