Posted by Alex on January 22, 2010 under Uncategorized | 
Connectify is great for reverse-tethering your iPhone: connect your iPhone to your Connectify Wi-Fi hotspot, and whenever your laptop is on the Internet, then your data connections (web browsing, Skype, Youtube… pretty much everything but the phone calls and SMS messages) will go through Connectify.
But I’ve been using a couple of other iPhone apps, which really benefit from Connectify, as a Wi-Fi personal area network, whether or not you have an Internet connection:
- iTunes Remote – This free application from Apple allows you to control iTunes on your PC, as long as you’re on the same Wi-Fi network. It makes navigating and controlling your computer’s iTunes collection look and feel nearly identical to doing the same on the iPhone’s music collection. With Connectify, it just works: once you tell your iPhone to use your Connectify Hotspot, any time you start the Remote app on your iPhone, you’re instantly controlling your music collection!
- Snatch – This iPhone app turns your iPhone into a wireless trackpad and keyboard for your computer. There’s a free version, SnatchTest, which lets you use it just as a trackpad. It’s especially great for presentations, it lets you take a big step back and still have complete control of your computer.
I’m using both of these on a regular basis. But the App Store is a big place… are there other apps out there that also work better with Connectify? How are you using Connectify with your phone (Apple or otherwise)?
Posted by Alex on January 20, 2010 under Uncategorized |
We are happy to announce that Connectify 1.1 was released into the wild today.
There are a number of evolutionary improvements that we added in this version for your wireless enjoyment:
- Intel driver work around: We worked around the bug in the lucky version 13 Intel drivers for the 5100 and 5300 (and probably all the 6000 series cards as well). This will bring Connectify back to those users who have the latest drivers.
- Wireless Cloning: On the menu (right click the icon either on the Notification tray, or on the Connectify screen itself) there is a new “Clone WiFi Settings” option. We created this based on how useful people found my “You can take it with you” blog post. Now you can select this to copy the settings from any WPA Personal, or WPA2 Personal network to which you have connected to your Connectify Hotspot. Devices which normally connect to the other network will now be able to connect your computer’s hotspot without reconfiguration. You can instantly use this to become a repeater, or take the devices with you.
- WPS Save to USB: Also on the menu is a WPS -> Save to USB Flash Drive option. Select this to write the information (including SSID and password) for your network to a USB flash drive. Then just insert the flash drive into other computers to have Windows automatically ask you if you wish to join the network. It even works in Vista and XP. No more passwords, and if you have a lot of computers to set up this is a fast and easy way to set them all up quickly.
- Improved Eye-Fi support: We make sure that the port needed by the Eye-Fi wireless card is opened in the Windows Firewall.
- Bug fixes: Support for usernames with ampersands in them, and support for computers whose clocks are more than 4 months behind the real time (but seriously, you might want to look at that).
We hope you enjoy it. From Connectify, you can click on the menu and select “Check for Updates,” or you can go straight to our homepage.
Posted by Alex on January 18, 2010 under Uncategorized |
We created a Connectify page on Facebook. Meet us there to chat with the developers about how you use Connectify and what you’d like to see in the future. We’ll being making announcements and be available to discuss the product and our plans.
Join us on Facebook
If you’re having problems with Connectify then you’re best off shooting an email to support@connectify.me with your problem. That’s the fastest way for us to help you.
Posted by Alex on January 4, 2010 under Uncategorized |
I recently had a “chocolate and peanut butter” moment about the power of Connectify and the Wi-Fi Personal Area Network.
If you’re not familiar with the
Eye-Fi card, it’s a SD memory card with a built in Wi-Fi radio. As you take pictures with your camera, it automatically connects to your WiFi network and uploads the pictures to either your PC or an online photo-sharing site. Your camera does not need to be aware of the Eye-Fi or network at all: it’s just saving pictures to an SD card, the same as always.
A truly neat device for anyone who is into photography… except that it needs to be bound to your WiFi network. Since it’s just an SD card with no user interface, to change networks when you go from place to place it needs to be connected to your PC to change settings. Also, because it doesn’t have a browser, it can’t navigate through the splash screens and captive portals of a hotel or coffee shop Wi-Fi network. And of course it can’t use a wireless Internet card from carriers like Verizon, so it’s really only useful in your home.
Connectify fixes that however. Setup a Connectify network on your laptop, and bind the Eye-Fi to that network. Now, wherever you go, if the Eye-Fi can reach your laptop, it can transfer the pictures:
You connect straight to your PC, it can drop pictures right into your Pictures directory with no Internet sharing at all. Right now I’m snapping shots from my
Canon SD1200, and they are simply appearing in my Picasa Photo Collection, seconds later. No cables, no import, no syncing - I just snap photos and seconds later there it is in my collection. It’s more than just easy, it’s actually fun. It’s likely that at my next party, there will be a projector to show photos as they are taken in real-time by a camera passed around the room (which, depending on the party, could be pretty scandalous).
If you’re trying to get them onto the Internet (say
Flickr or
MobileMe) it can use your laptop’s Internet connection, even if it’s isn’t one that an Eye-Fi normally knows how to use. At a coffee shop, just navigate through their splash screen on your laptop’s browser, and then it’s done, the Eye-Fi will be on the Internet. You can even transfer them via a tethered cellphone or a wireless Internet card.
To the Eye-Fi, nothing changed: it’s just getting on the same Wi-Fi hotspot that it was originally bound to, and it doesn’t notice if it moves, or if your connection to the Internet changes, its connection didn’t change at all.
