Windows 8 – How to manually connect to a wireless network

There are times where Windows 8 has not connected properly to a wireless network.  Generally, if there is a Radius server asking for a username/password and I have a WEP or WPA key, Windows will not allow a connection.

With a little digging, I found how to manually add the connection.

1.  Go to the Network and Sharing Center either by right-clicking on your network icon in the taskbar or go to Control panel, then Network and Sharing Center.

2.  Once in there, click on “Setup a new connection or network”

3.  Choose “Manually connect to a wireless network” then press next

Here, you can set the connection properties manually.  Press Next and you should be able to connect!

Note:  so far, this also works in Windows 8.1

 

 

Unable to connect to Remote Desktop/Remote Web Workplace with Internet Explorer 11

I have struggled many times with changes in software versions moving or hiding options that are quite valuable.  This has been especially true for Internet Explorer, which used to show a status bar that indicated the trust zone a site is listed as, etc.  This went away in IE 10, but can be found in a menu option.

Well, IE 10 had a handy compatibility mode button which allowed several sites, most notably Remote Web Workplace, to function correctly.  After upgrading my computer to the beta of Windows 8.1, this button went away, along with the menu option to connect to a workplace computer.

I found the solution is quite simple once you know where to look:

The menu option is under Page, then Compatibility view settings.  This brings up a window that looks much like the list for adding sites to trusted zones, etc.  Add your site there, reload, and your site should work correctly.

Hope this helps save someone some time digging around!

Steve

Chatteremail and Googlemaps problem

I had a problem this week with Googlemaps – it wouldn’t update on my Verizon Centro no matter what I did.  I went so far as to do a hard reset of my phone and start putting apps back on one-by-one.

As it turns out, once I added ChatterEmail back, Googlemaps stopped working.  Choosing “Shut down and disconnect” would allow Googlemaps to run, but this was rather frustrating.

Solution:  I have several IMAP folders running in “online” mode, which means they basically are taking up an active socket on the broadband connection.  On my phone, I can have a maximum of five online folders before Googlemaps can’t get a connection.  So, make sure you have the fewest online folders necessary to ensure other programs can access the internet.  This didn’t seem to affect the web or my Facebook app, but I imagine a whole host of other programs could have this same competition/conflict.