We were quite literally up and running with other devices connected in five minutes. In fact, this post is being published right now on a Connectify.me-powered connection. Windows 7 users have got to try this app. You never know when you'll get to save the day by letting other users share your Internet connection.

Installation is simple. Go to the website, click the big, shiny button, run the .exe file, follow the prompt. You'll then see a Connectify logo in the notification tray. It's party time! Choose a name, set up a password, and click the big, shiny button. Congratulations. You're now a software-based wireless router. It took about five very obvious clicks and was truly so easy a caveman could do it.

This is almost as much fun as that MiFi we played with a while ago. The main difference is that the MiFi creates an Internet connection for 3-5 users using cellular networks, and Connectify allows multiple users to piggyback off a single connection. Oh, and the MiFi and similar devices cost a bit - or a lot - to buy and maintain, but Connectify is free to install and run.

Connectify runs on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 r2. Why no other Windows OSes, you ask? "Connectify depends on improvements made in Windows 7 to operate," reads the site's FAQ. "Frankly, Windows 7 is such a big improvement that we suggest you're better off upgrading than waiting for us to get all this working on an older version of Windows."

Three cheers for Windows for getting their act together on the OS front, and many thanks to Connectify for bringing us all n-for-the-price-of-1 WiFi!

It's a MiFi, Sprint's new wireless broadband device, and it's geek gadget magic that'll realistically fit in your wallet. Disclosure! Sprint gave us a MiFi device to test. We tested it for a couple weeks and sent it back. We were sad to see it go.

Sweetly simple and functional, the device easily accommodated the three users' surfing around. Multimedia uploads were as zippy as on a normal connection during the time we were test-driving the device.

Another test involved a crowded WiFi situation at a local coffee shop. Two laptops were connected to the device with the same lightning-fast results.

We even had time to literally road-test the MiFi; there's still something man-on-the-moon-ish about accessing the Internet from a moving car. We built a website during the course of a two-hour mini-road trip.

The battery held a charge for a good couple hours between charging, and the connection worked at ranges of 10-20 feet. We did notice a bit of trouble when using the device for long periods of time with just one device; every now and then, the card seemed to overheat and would drop the connection. A rest and reboot period solved the problem, but it would've been painful/disastrous had we not had access to a backup WiFi network in the meantime.

Still, the device is pretty amazing. We highly recommend seeing it in action:

Slight correction: The Sprint website states the device can support up to five devices.

Now, as previously disclosed, we received the free-as-in-beer, no-strings-attached version of the MiFi. We were not required to go through the new account/line activation process, any rebate loopholes, contract renegotiations, or other factors that make mobile services companies so uniquely pleasant (and by "pleasant," we mean "exquisitely tortuous in the BDSM sense"). The MiFi is advertised now at $99.99 per device, based on several conditions that seemed to require scientific calculators and gave us headaches. We recommend calling Sprint if you're interested in the device and finding out exactly how much the price would be for you. We're also aware of a similar Verizon device but have not yet been exposed to it, ourselves.

Holland-based CoffeeCompany is starting to market their menu items via their Wi-Fi networks. If you head to any of their coffee shops don't be surprised to see networks with names such as 'OrderAnotherCoffeeAlready' or 'TodaysSpecialExpresso1.60Euro'. With the help of THEY, CoffeeCompany is promoting their specials of the day and more, while humorously guilt tripping patrons accessing their Wi-Fi networks to grab another cup of coffee. Did anyone suggest this to Starbucks yet?

Will it Increase Business?

There haven't been any reports of an increase in business, but we think the idea is great! Would it tempt us to buy another cup of joe? Once we could control our laughter at the creative network names we'd be more than happy to. While it won't stop most from free-loading, we think CoffeeCompany might be on to something with this marketing technique. What creative network names would you use to market your products or services via a Wi-Fi network?

Image courtesy of Adrants

On Wednesday I received a text message from AT&T. This isn't unusual if you're an iPhone owner and still on the AT&T network. However the following text message probably made just about every iPhone owner run to the nearest coffee shop with an AT&T hotspot:

"AT&T Free Msg: Your Apple iPhone now has free AT&T Wi-Fi access at thousands of hotspots nationwide, including Starbucks*. "

AT&T hotspots can be found at thousands of locations. A huge emphasis is being placed on hotspots at Starbucks due to their new partnership that converted thousands of T-Mobile hotspots into AT&T hotspots. We all know that a Starbucks can be found on just about every corner and if not, there's always Barnes and Nobles.

Can I Use it on my Laptop Too?

In my personal tests at my local Barnes and Nobles I was able to connect my iPhone without a hitch. All it took was selecting the correct Wi-Fi network and my phone number to get things going. From there, a text message was sent to my iPhone with a secure link to access the hotspot. According to AT&T the link is only valid for 24 hours. Also, if you relocate to another hotspot you'll have to request a new link. Unfortunately, copying the link into the address bar of my laptop did not allow me to access the Wi-Fi from my laptop instead of my iPhone. Will we see a work around for this in the future?

Congratulations Aziz, you've won a $30 Amazon voucher - courtesy of our competition sponsors AdaptiveBlue and their Netflix Queue Widget.

"I think that WiFi is in no danger of going away, but the ubiquitous web access is already on our doorstep and it's called WiMax (everyone, chant with me: Xohm. Xohm. Xohm.) The future of web access will be 802.11n in the home and office (assuming it ever gets out of draft!) and WiMax everywhere else.

That said, Xohm is being designed explicitly for the embedded market, so it is possible that our toasters, TVs, and car keys will ultimately be WiMaxed instead of Wified. It really depends on the pricing model, and thats something we just cant predict how will play out yet. WiFi will probably always have an advantage in cost.

I tend to think of wifi and wimax as complementary technologies, however, in much the same way that commuter rail is complementary to a subway system. One is a heavy mover, with high capacity over long distances. The other is a short distance, low capacity transport. The analogy holds pretty well when you look at WiFi and WiMax as well."

There's also a problem of congestion. In densely populated areas, as more and more people set up home networks, throughput is dropping as the airwaves get cluttered. David Heinemeier Hansson posted today about noise on his urban wifi connection, and judging from the comments his post received, it's a common problem. The solution? Perhaps mobile broadband.

Moconews pointed to Ericsson’s marketing chief Johan Bergendahl, who said mobile broadband will supplant wifi hotspots as the preferred method of on-the-go web access. "Hotspots at places like Starbucks are becoming the telephone boxes of the broadband era," he said. Moconews also pointed to a report that mobile broadband uptake is on the rise, and another report that city-wide wifi deployments are also growing -- perhaps indicating that wifi isn't ready to go away yet.

But let's just suppose that mobile broadband does become the dominant method of connecting to the Internet. Let's pretend that high cost, limited service territories, and speed barriers are overcome. What would the result be?

Perhaps the most interesting result would be that cellular voice networks would be forced to give way to VoIP, and services like Skype or JAJAH might be well positioned for a mobile broadband dominated world. With fast, reliable, and ubiquitous mobile broadband access, cellular voice plans would be irrelevant given cheaper VoIP options. We've already seen some voice-over-IP services target mobile users, such as JAJAH's iPhone optimized version.

That would be mean less costs for consumers -- no more free public wifi (presumably), but a slimmer cell phone bill and a single broadband connection that could cover mobile phone, web access, and landline telephone. Throw in a VoIP television service like Joost (which is starting to test live streaming this month) or Livestation, and the future might be one connection that covers all of your media and communication needs.

That simple future is a ways off, though. Mobile broadband isn't cheap, it isn't as fast as wired broadband, and it doesn't have the coverage necessary to be a truly reliable alternative to wifi hotspots (let alone voice networks). But is that future coming? Probably. HSPA+, which may arrive late this year, will offer speeds of up to 42 Mbps down and 11 Mbps up, which is significantly faster than my 20/2 Mbps cable line, and astronomically faster than the iPhone's current EDGE network (which is around 240 kbps down).

There are a lot of barriers to overcome -- not least of which, how to handle billing consumers when roaming on other networks and how to make the various competing standards play nice (or get networks to conform to a single standard). But once those issues are solved, fast, cheap, ubiquitous mobile broadband may be on the horizon.

When do you think mobile broadband will be fast enough, cheap enough, and ubiquitous enough to supplant wifi? Will that ever happen? If it does, what other side effects will we see? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.