Posted by jenny on January 26, 2012 under News & Announcements | 
Office Hours on Facebook are now CLOSED! Thanks to all who participated and made sure our Engineers were on their toes this early in the morning! Visit our Facebook next Thursday from 10:30-11:30 AM Eastern Standard Time for our next open Office Hours. Until then, feel free to submit a support ticket in the meantime by going to the Connectify Menu -> Help -> Support Center (Get Help, Solve Problems)!
Simply visit our Facebook page between 10:30 AM and 11:30 AM Eastern Standard Time and leave your question in the comments of the designated wall post. (Make sure you “LIKE” us first to make sure you can see our Wall!)
Our support team is online and ready to answer all of your questions. If, for any reason, your question cannot be immediately answered, one of our team members will instruct you through the Connectify Support Center in order to submit a Support Ticket. This will allow our software engineers to properly diagnose your problem and fix it as soon as possible!
As always, no question is a stupid question!
- The Connectify Team
Posted by jenny on January 25, 2012 under News & Announcements |
WANT TO WIN A FREE CONNECTIFY PRO LICENSE? All you have to do is share the picture that says “ASK ME ABOUT MY HOTSPOT” to your friends on Facebook and you could win! SIMPLY LIKE US ON FACEBOOK:
THEN “SHARE” our “ASK ME ABOUT MY HOTSPOT” picture by clicking the “SHARE” button!
When the SHARE screen comes up, say “MY CONNECTIFY HOTSPOT DOES ______, What can YOUR Hotspot do?” Fill in the blank with whatever you want! For example:
Make sure you also change your privacy settings to PUBLIC, so we can see your post too! Click “Share Link” and voila! You’re in the running! ONE winner will be selected at random on Friday January 27, 2012 at 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time.
Good Luck!
-The Connectify Team
Posted by jenny on January 23, 2012 under News & Announcements |
Wishing all of you who celebrate a very happy New Year! May the year of the Dragon bring you happiness and peace!
- The Connectify Team
Posted by jenny on January 19, 2012 under News & Announcements |
Office Hours on Facebook are now CLOSED! Thanks to all who participated and made sure our Engineers were on their toes this early in the morning! Visit our Facebook next Thursday from 10:30-11:30 AM Eastern Standard Time for our next open Office Hours. Until then, feel free to submit a support ticket in the meantime by going to the Connectify Menu -> Help -> Support Center (Get Help, Solve Problems)!
Simply visit our Facebook page between 10:30 AM and 11:30 AM Eastern Standard Time and leave your question in the comments of the designated wall post. (Make sure you “LIKE” us first to make sure you can see our Wall!)
Our support team is online and ready to answer all of your questions. If, for any reason, your question cannot be immediately answered, one of our team members will instruct you through the Connectify Support Center in order to submit a Support Ticket. This will allow our software engineers to properly diagnose your problem and fix it as soon as possible!
As always, no question is a stupid question!
- The Connectify Team
Posted by jenny on January 18, 2012 under News & Announcements, 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 jenny on January 12, 2012 under News & Announcements |
Office Hours on Facebook are now CLOSED! Thanks to all who participated and made sure our Engineers were on their toes this early in the morning! Visit our Facebook next Thursday from 10:30-11:30 AM Eastern Standard Time for our next open Office Hours. Until then, feel free to submit a support ticket in the meantime by going to the Connectify Menu -> Help -> Support Center (Get Help, Solve Problems)!
Simply visit our Facebook page between 10:30 AM and 11:30 AM Eastern Standard Time and leave your question in the comments of the designated wall post. (Make sure you “LIKE” us first to make sure you can see our Wall!)
Our support team is online and ready to answer all of your questions. If, for any reason, your question cannot be immediately answered, one of our team members will instruct you through the Connectify Support Center in order to submit a Support Ticket. This will allow our software engineers to properly diagnose your problem and fix it as soon as possible!
As always, no question is a stupid question!
- The Connectify Team
Posted by jenny 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 jenny on January 10, 2012 under News & Announcements |
Did you know Connectify Support is available outside of the Support Center? You’re always welcome to search the Knowledge Base, and both LITE and PRO users can fill out a Support Ticket for further assistance. Luckily, it doesn’t stop there.
Every Wednesday we post a Web Tip covering various topics our Support Team has encountered. The Web Tip may be able to solve a problem you’re experiencing, or could help you use Connectify in ways you didn’t know were possible.
On Thursdays, from 10:30-11:30 AM Eastern Standard Time, we hold Office Hours on our Facebook! It’s a LIVE forum between our Facebook friends and our Support Team. For one hour, the floor is yours. Ask anything you want to our Support staff, and they answer you… immediately! It’s the perfect forum to troubleshoot, suggest new features, and just say ‘hi’ to the people who make Connectify great!
Whether you’ve been with us from the start, or just joining the family — welcome! We look forward to providing you the best possible support every day of the week!
Best Wishes,
- The Connectify Team
Posted by Raj on January 6, 2012 under News & Announcements |
Whether you’re brand new to Connectify, or one of the more than ten thousand college students that enrolled in last year’s FREE one-semester Connectify PRO upgrade, you’ll be happy to know that we’re extending the offer through the end of the school year! All you have to do is LIKE the Connectify Facebook fanpage, enter a valid .EDU email address, and voila, the Connectify TAs in our Wi-Fi lab will extend your Connectify Pro college license until June 30, 2012! (offer available for a limited-time only)
…and, as always, don’t forget to tell your classmates to LIKE us on Facebook, so they can stay connected with Connectify too!
Posted by jenny on January 5, 2012 under News & Announcements |
Office Hours on Facebook are now CLOSED! Thanks to all who participated and made sure our Engineers were on their toes this early in the morning! Visit our Facebook next Thursday from 10:30-11:30 AM Eastern Standard Time for our next open Office Hours. Until then, feel free to submit a support ticket in the meantime by going to the Connectify Menu -> Help -> Support Center (Get Help, Solve Problems)!
Simply visit our Facebook page between 10:30 AM and 11:30 AM Eastern Standard Time and leave your question in the comments of the designated wall post. (Make sure you “LIKE” us first to make sure you can see our Wall!)
Our support team is online and ready to answer all of your questions. If, for any reason, your question cannot be immediately answered, one of our team members will instruct you through the Connectify Support Center in order to submit a Support Ticket. This will allow our software engineers to properly diagnose your problem and fix it as soon as possible!
As always, no question is a stupid question!
- The Connectify Team
