Posted by rhaldar on February 28, 2012 under Weekly Web Tips | 
Connectify now lets users transfer files to computers and other devices. This can take place within a Connectify Hotspot, or between your PC and any other Peer connected via any network. The Connectify file transfer feature makes it very easy to send files between PCs, using the built-in Wi-Fi connection you already have, no need for USB sticks or other “sneakernet” methods. And no need to let people mess around in your PC; they only get the files you send them.
Peer to Peer File Transfer
To send a file to another PC that shows up in your Peers List, it’s as easy as drag and drop. Let’s say I have a file called “Einstein-2012-Feb-17-004.mp4″, which in fact I actually do. This is a 7MB MPEG-4 AVC video file, and I’d like to send this over to the PC called “Old Acer”. This PC is on my Hotspot, but since it’s running Connectify, it can do the same peer to peer transfer as any of the Peers. I simply left-click on the file, drag it over to the Connectify user interface, and drop it on “Old Acer”. Here’s what happens:
Now, let’s look over on “Old Acer”. When a file transfer request comes from one Peer on a network to another, that other Peer has a chance to accept or reject the file. Connectify will pop up a message such as this:
Here, there are quick buttons to either decline the transfer or save directly to the Windows desktop. The center option brings up a file dialog that allows you to save the file wherever you like. Now, I press “Save to Desktop” on the “Old Acer” PC, and see this:
The file transfer in this case went too fast to catch a screen shot in the middle. But now my 7MB video file is happily on the Old Acer PC, awaiting my viewing pleasure.
What About Mobile Devices?
File transfers aren’t always PC to PC, of course. But your devices aren’t running Connectify, and some (in particular, iOS devices) don’t even treat files the way PCs do — there’s no file browser, for example. Not to worry, this is also handled in Connectify. Let’s say, rather than dragging my video file to “Old Acer”, I instead drag it to “Dave’s Galaxy Nexus”, my handy Android 4.0 Smartphone. You see this message from Connectify:
What this says is pretty simple: if you’re on any device not running Connectify, just go to the given web address (type it exactly as shown in the Connectify dialog box). Here’s what I see on my phone:
As you can see, Connectify is delivering a web page to my device, along with a link to the file(s) being sent. I click on the link, the file downloads to my phone, and shows up immediately in my personal video collection. Each device will treat this link a little differently, but every modern connected device knows what to do with web downloads.
There’s also a link to click to learn more about Connectify. If the connected device had been a Windows PC rather than an Android phone, there would also be a link displayed to let the client immediately download Connectify. And if I had viewed this web page on a connected PC, I would not have found the file link. Connectify file transfers only go to the intended Client or Peer.
More Information
Transferring files to PCs and mobile devices has never been easier. With Connectify PRO, users can drag-and-drop an unlimited number of files of any size, right onto almost any device on their Hotspot, and even to another Connectify user on the same network.
- Pro users have unlimited send/receive limits. Lite users can send one transfer per day.
- No limitation on file size. Transfer huge files wirelessly, without a USB flash drive, even without access to the Internet
- Install Connectify PRO on all of your computers to send and receive files directly onto your desktop
Posted by jshaab on February 1, 2012 under Weekly Web Tips |
Did you know with Connectify you can extend the range of your Wi-Fi network? With Connectify, your PC acts as a repeater to extend your network coverage area. This feature works well for someone looking to surf the web in their backyard or basement, far away from their network router.
First, you must download Connectify. Once you have Connectify running, you should see STEP #1. To begin using your Hotspot as a Repeater for another Wi-Fi network, see STEP #2. You go to the Connectify Menu, select “Easy Setup” and then “Clone Wi-Fi Settings.”
Once you click “Clone Wi-Fi settings,” STEP #3 will pop up on your screen and ask you which Wi-Fi network you’d like to clone. Say I want to use my home network, “Connectify-Kibbles” in my backyard. I would select “Connectify Kibbles” in the drop down menu and click “OK.”
NOTE: Only networks you’ve previously joined will show up on this list.
Once you click “OK,” the “Connectify Pro: Wi-FI Cloning” pop-up will disappear, and you will see STEP #4. Connectify automatically added “Connectify-Kibbles” to my Hotspot Name, as well as my password. As you can see, the Hotspot also automatically restarted, and began repeating my home network so I can access Connectify in my backyard, far away from my office where my router is located.
After STEP #4, you’ll be good to go! It’s really that easy!
If you are unable to click “Clone Wi-Fi Settings,” you are running Connectify LITE. Using Connectify as a repeater is an exclusive Connectify PRO feature.
To download Connectify PRO, click HERE.
Happy Repeating!
-The Connectify Team
Posted by jshaab on January 18, 2012 under Weekly Web Tips |
There are a number of problems that can lead to devices dropping off a Connectify hotspot. This may mean that the hotspot itself is having some kind of trouble, but it can just as easily mean that your devices are just not able to “hear’ the hotspot. That’s particularly likely if, all of a sudden, you start to have problems where you never did before.
Radio Fading and Interference
Wi-Fi is by its nature a two-way radio, and just as with an FM radio or a cellular phone call, signals can fade or be drowned out by something else. Imagine you and a friend travel to Citizen’s Bank Park, and get to hang out on the ball-field for while. You stand at home plate, your buddy starts walking toward the outfield. You have to shout louder as your buddy moves away, he’s got to shout louder back at you. Eventually, you can’t hear each other. Wi-Fi devices have the same problem. Your PC makes a decent Wi-Fi router; most can transmit at 100mW or so, which was a pretty standard power level for a dedicated router, at least a few years back. But the PC’s antennas may not be as good as a dedicated router’s, or it may have fewer. So if you’re dropping signals a few rooms away from your PC, that’s just normal. Your device can’t yell loud enough for your PC to hear it.
There are no natural sources of radio noise in the Wi-Fi band, but there’s lots of man-made stuff. If you have a microwave oven in the house, it’s using the same 2400MHz band as your Wi-Fi, and might cause interference. Some kind of cordless phones, game consoles (particularly the X-Box 360), some television video senders, etc. all use this band, because unlike most radio bands, it doesn’t require a license. And the most likely of all: other Wi-Fi devices can interfere with your Connectify Hotspot.
The Wi-Fi Channel Conundrum
This is a graph drawn by the Wifi Analyzer app for Android, this is the picture here at my desk at the Connectify offices; my hotspot is “TheDude!” While there are 14 channels shown (channel 14 isn’t used in the USA), each Wi-Fi device actually consumes five channels. You see hotspots clustered around channels 1, 6, and 11, because these are the three totally clear channels in the band.
With that said, the Wi-Fi protocols are very clever, and immune to some interference. My phone here has absolutely no problem connecting to “TheDude!” at my desk, even with all those other hotspots also on channel 11. However, if I decided I wanted to connect to the “Connectify” hotspot instead, I might have trouble. And forget about connecting to the rug shop’s hotspot.
You might be using your PC as a hotspot for months, then all of a sudden you have a powerful hotspot from next door drowning out the signal between your PC and your other devices. Some more modern dedicated routers can put out 250-500mW of power, which can mean that they seem much louder to some of your devices than your PC might, depending on conditions. That can lead to devices that start connected, but drop off and might not reconnect very easily.
Changing Channels
We don’t currently have a way to change the Wi-Fi channel from within Connectify. Some of this is the history of Connectify and Windows. Until Windows 7, Windows always considered Wi-Fi as something you connect to… it never had much to consider about the channel to use, except in the rare case of Ad-Hoc networks. Windows always starts with the last Wi-Fi channel used, and that’s no different when creating a Connectify hotspot… Connectify is going to use the Windows default channel, which you can’t directly set.
A very useful tool to have when trying to avoid WiFi interference is a scanning tool, like the Wifi Analyzer shown above. It visualizes which channels are being used and how loud/powerful they are in your location. You want to select a channel which has the least users/devices and lowest power level/volume. The next time you start up Connectify, it’ll use that new default channel.
And finally, there’s the human engineering solution. If that neighbor just put in a big, loud hotspot that’s drowning out your Connectify hotspot, see if you can get them to change their channel. Maybe bring beers or a bottle of wine over.
Power Management 1, Hotspot 0
The next cause of odd device disconnects is power management. If you’re running an older version of Connectify, get the very latest available. Connectify has some ways of at least suggesting to a Wi-Fi device that it doesn’t power off when it thinks it’s not needed. But some don’t necessarily listen that well. If you see a pretty regular time, like 15 minutes or a half-hour of great Connectify functionality, then things just stop working, that could be your tablet or phone going to sleep, but it could also be your PC’s Wi-Fi card.
Along with the latest release of Connectify, you can adjust power management on your PC. Many Wi-Fi drivers have their own setting, which you get to via the Device Manager, just as before. This is usually a check mark: if your driver has an “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” option, make sure it’s not checked.
That Old Rusty Driver
Another possible cause of your devices falling off the Connectify network is simply the Connectify hotspot coming down. If it’s a Connectify internal problem or something else that Connectify can detect, this is going to show up as a pop-up notification of some kind on your PC. So if a bunch of devices all drop off at the same time, first thing to do is check the PC for any sign that Connectify itself knows about a problem.
We recommend anyone having mysterious connection losses to follow the other suggestions here, but also to update their drivers. We have an article on here: Updating Your Wireless Drivers. We also have a list of known-good and known-problem devices, including links to some of the driver updates in the article Is My Wi-Fi Card Supported?
Hope we helped!
- The Connectify Team
Posted by jshaab on January 11, 2012 under Weekly Web Tips |
Updating your wireless drivers is the very best thing you can do to improve your Connectify experience.
Updates can fix a plethora of complications and it ends up being one of the most common resolutions to our customers most difficult and frustrating issues! Many people unknowingly operate their computers with drivers predating Windows 7. These drivers were released with Windows 7 as a first effort and contain a whole host of bugs which can prevent your Hotspot from working properly.
A common mistake is assuming the Windows Update will provide the latest device drivers for you. Quite often Windows Update will report no updates for your device when there are in fact new and improved drivers with critical fixes available.
So now you’re wondering “Where can I get them?” There are a few ways to get the latest wireless drivers for your device. The first recommended method is to consult your laptop manufacturer’s support website for the latest downloads, for example Sony, Dell, or HP.
Another popular method is to use a third party tool to update your drivers. We often recommend the free download SlimDrivers available here: http://www.driverupdate.net/download.php.
Finally, you can consult your wireless device’s manufacturer such as Intel, Broadcom, or Realtek. You’ll need to look up the device’s name and identifier, which you can determine by going to the Windows Control Panel -> Network Connections, right clicking on the device you want to update, and selecting properties.
Happy Driver Updating!
- The Connectify Team
p.s. If you have any ideas for next week’s tip, leave us a comment on our Facebook!
Posted by jshaab on January 4, 2012 under Weekly Web Tips |
Connectify’s support team works during normal business hours (9 AM – 5 PM Eastern Standard Time) to deliver the best possible support to our users. Technical Support is also very valuable to Connectify itself, as it can show us places the Connectify program needs improvement, or even things that users find confusing, which may be resolved with software or Knowledge Base changes.
In conjunction with the Knowledge Base is the Connectify Troubleshooter. We work with the development team to help Connectify itself identify and lead users to solutions to known problems. As with the Knowledge Base itself, this is continually improving.
When a user has a problem they haven’t solved, they can issue a specific question to the Support Team by submitting a ticket. This is done via the Connectify Support Center, which is found on the Help menu in the Connectify application. Submitting a Ticket this way ensure that we see the results of a Troubleshooter run, we get information about the user’s system, and other details that may help us find a solution.
Equally important is the user’s explanation of what problem they’re seeing. The user has the human explanation of what’s not working, and believe it or not, the Support Team too is only human. Typing nonsense or simply “it doesn’t work” is a sure way to get a request from the Support Team for more information. The image below is a perfect example of an incomplete explanation.
So, what happens when a Support Ticket is submitted? This Ticket gets a unique number, and gets routed to our Support System. If you’re a PRO user, you paid for support with the purchase of a PRO license. So your ticket gets automatically routed to a priority queue, which is the first place the Support Team will go in a given day.
Connectify LITE Tickets are always reviewed by the Support Team, but we don’t always have the resources to answer each one individually. Connectify LITE feedback is very important, even when we don’t answer directly. This is used to help identify and improve the Knowledge Base, and to improve Connectify itself. And in fact, we do process both requests for better Knowledge Base articles and requests for enhancements in Connectify — we want to make this program every bit as good as our users would like it to be.
Unfortunately, some of this time is simply spent on incomplete Tickets. A Ticket without an explanation will always result in a request for more information. A Ticket from an older version of Connectify will always end with a request that the user upgrade; we don’t offer support for older versions.
Overall, for the best chance at a superb Support experience, a LITE user should run the very latest Connectify, submit a Ticket via the Support Center, and include as complete an explanation of the problem as possible.
Posted by jshaab on December 28, 2011 under Weekly Web Tips |
A ‘No AP Mode Supported’ warning means that your wireless card does not support running in Access Point mode.
Some people confuse Access Points with Ad Hoc networks. Ad Hoc networks use a connection between two or more devices without using a wireless access point. This way, the devices communicate directly when in range.
Windows 7 added some new functionality in their network driver model, which is how Connectify is able to create an infrastructure-mode, Access Point mode hotspot, same as a hardware router or AP. It does require both Windows 7 and a Windows 7 compliant network device driver.
If you’re a Windows 7 user and you see this warning, you are running network drivers from Vista or even XP. Some devices are updated regularly by their manufacturers; others are essentially “abandoned”. Connectify has no control over this, but we do maintain a list of devices that are reported working, and others not so well supported.
You may find updated drivers via Windows Update. Many times, however, Windows Update does not have the latest drivers and you may need to check with your laptop or wireless device manufacturer to find them. Connectify Support Engineers often suggest checking this website for downloading the latest drivers.
If you’re running Windows XP or Windows Vista, you have no options: you cannot run in infrastructure mode, because Windows doesn’t provide the interfaces to create that kind of hotspot. You may still find Connectify very useful. Pretty much all personal computers, and many devices, can connect over Ad-Hoc hotspots without any problems.
For more details, and a list of known supported devices, please consult the Supported Cards and Devices section.
Happy Connecting!
-The Connectify Team
p.s. If you have any ideas for next week’s tip, leave us a comment on our Facebook!
Posted by jshaab on December 21, 2011 under Weekly Web Tips |
Have you ever started a hotspot, but your device can’t see it? This probably means you’re running an Ad-Hoc mode hotspot, not an Access Point!
Ad-Hoc mode is an older means of PC-to-PC or PC-to-Device communications, defined near the beginning of the Wi-Fi era to enable communications without the need for a hotspot. It has some limitations, but it’s usually perfectly fine for the needs of Internet access, which is what most people are looking for. Only Windows 7 has the necessary low-level interfaces to allow infrastructure mode hotspots. This is not something Connectify has control over; it’s just part of the evolution of Windows.
As mentioned, Ad-Hoc mode is a perfectly usable way to connect. However, for reasons known only to their manufacturers, many device makers don’t automatically support Ad-Hoc mode, or they actually put in code to block it.
Unfortunately, most Android devices are programmed to reject Ad-Hoc connections. To connect via Connectify, you will need to upgrade your PC to Windows 7. Or, if you’re an advanced Android user, you can find out more about working on Ad-Hoc networks on sites like XDA Developers. People who actually are Android experts might be able to help you and will (hopefully) not lead you astray. But do realize, there’s a small risk of screwing up your device if you do attempt any modifications!
Blackberry devices also do not show Ad-Hoc networks when scanning for a Wi-Fi device. We do know that at least some Blackberries can be manually added to an Ad-Hoc network. Click “Manage Connections” from the BlackBerry homepage. Click “Manually Add Network.” Type the name of the network when prompted and click “Add.” “Select Pre-Shared Key” for security type and type the WPA-Personal password you entered when creating the network. Click “Connect” to initiate the connection.
Good Luck & Happy Connecting,
-The Connectify Team
p.s. If you have any ideas for next week’s tip, leave us a comment on our Facebook.
Posted by jshaab on December 14, 2011 under Weekly Web Tips |
Did you know Connectify PRO allows you to share your wireless Internet over your Ethernet port? This brand new feature makes Connectify PRO better than ever!
Let’s say that you want to share your Internet with an older console (XBOX 360, for example) that can only access the Internet by Ethernet cable. Unfortunately, the only connection you have available is Wi-Fi.
Connectify easily solves your problem by taking the wireless connection from your laptop or PC and makes it available for sharing via an Ethernet port. All you need is Connectify PRO and, of course, an Ethernet cable.
- Open Connectify and select your internet source: Automatic
- Under the Advanced section in the Settings Tab choose your Ethernet adapter from the Share Over dropdown
- Click Start Hotspot
You can get multiple Ethernet devices on at the same time by connecting an Ethernet hub (not a router, a hub), to your PC’s Ethernet port. Once you plug your Ethernet devices into that hub, they will all be on the new, wired network together.
Be aware that Connectify’s Ethernet sharing feature makes Connectify into a wired router (DHCP server). You should only run one such wired router on any given network, so don’t plug into someone else’s working Ethernet network, and share onto it.
To access Ethernet Sharing, download Connectify PRO!
Happy Connecting,
-The Connectify Team
p.s. If you have any ideas for next week’s tip, leave us a comment on our Facebook.
