What I'd like to suggest is creating a small Visual Basic 6 application that would not run as a service but in background without any window ( or just showing a small icon in the system tray near the clock). You can put the application in start up folder to make it run automatically or as a scheduled task, to run every time you start the computer.
It would try to access a web page from your IP (for example http://1.2.3.4/[login to view URL] ) and if there's some code or value in the page, it would a message on the screen. Repeat every 60 seconds or whatever value you configure.
If this is something you'd be interested in, I can do this for you in a day or two from the moment you select me.