The previous Soho Alpha version will stop working on the 30th of June 2010 – to continue testing you need to download the latest version.

If you haven’t downloaded WebSpy Soho Alpha before simply get the latest version and off you go. If you’re an Alpha tester you need to keep reading…

WINDOWS USERS:

Before installing the new build, Windows users must uninstall the previously installed version of Soho Alpha on every machine. Thanks to a bug in the previous version, you need to follow the two steps below to do this:

STEP 1 – UNINSTALL FROM START MENU

• Windows Vista/7 – Start | Control Panel | Programs and Features
• Windows XP – Start | Control Panel | Add/Remove Programs

STEP 2 – UNINSTALL MANUALLY

1. Open an administrative command line window
• Windows Vista/7: Go to Start | All Programs | Accessories, right-click on Command Prompt and select "Run as administrator".
• Windows XP: Go to Start | Run, type "cmd" and press OK
2. In the command line window that appears, type the following commands:
   • sc stop "WebSpy Soho Agent"
   • sc delete "WebSpy Soho Agent"
3. The service has now been removed from the system, and the new version may be installed without issue

MAC USERS

Simply launch the new install package and it will automatically overwrite the old one.

LATEST UPDATES:

• Now installs on Mac OS 10.5
• More stable – less crashing and freezing
• Plenty of work has been done based on your feedback. We’re hoping that the below issues are more or less fixed but would really appreciate if you could let us know if you’re still experiencing:
  • High CPU usage after sleep or hibernate
  • All computers disappearing from current activity chart except the local computer
  • Random traffic spikes

FEEDBACK

Thank you to everyone that has submitted feedback so far.

• Please let us know if your network card works or doesn’t work with Soho
• Have a feature suggestion or found a bug? Submit it and vote it up here
• Dedicated Soho Alpha Feedback thread in our forums

Thanks for being involved in our alpha testing phase. We hope you enjoy using the product and we look forward to your comments!

For those that don’t know what Soho is all about, check out this video:

Soho is a dashboard application that displays download and upload traffic statistics for each computer in your network. If you haven’t yet tried Soho, please give it a go and download it here.

It is our intention to keep our Alpha testers up to date with our ongoing development. Right now, I’d like to inform you about some issues experienced by a handful of testers and how to go about resolving them.

Learn to restart the Soho Agent

First of all, one of the handiest things we can tell you right now is how to restart the Soho Agent. This single step is resolves 99% of all Soho issues, at least temporarily. If these steps seem too complicated, rebooting your PC also has the same effect.

To restart the Soho Agent on Windows:

1. Launch the Services Console by going to Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services. Or if you like handy short cuts, try Start | Search (or Run), Type ‘services.msc’ (without the quotes) and press enter.
2. Right-click the “WebSpy Soho Agent” service and select Restart. If you get a ‘time out’ error message or warning, ignore it and right-click the service again and select Start.

To restart the Soho Agent on Mac OS:

1. Open the terminal from /Applications/Utilities/Terminal
2. Type sudo launchctl stop “WebSpy Soho Agent”
3. Enter your user password if requested.
4. Wait about 5 seconds.
5. Type sudo launchctl start “WebSpy Soho Agent”
6. Again, enter your user password if requested

OK, now you have the skills, here are the issues and work-arounds:

100% CPU usage after sleep or hibernate

Some users reported Soho’s impressive ability to consume 100% of their CPU when their computer wakes from sleep or hibernation. A few users experienced a slow and sluggish PC, and uninstalled Soho immediately.

If you’re looking for the Soho process in Windows Task Manager you will not see it until you click the Show processes from all users button (or checkbox in XP). This is because the Soho Agent runs under the System user account in order for it to run, no matter who is logged onto the PC.

From here you can end the WebSpy.Soho.Agent.exe process and everything should return to normal. You can then restart the “WebSpy Soho Agent” to get Soho working again (see steps above).

We believe we have fixed this and are in the middle of some final testing. All going well, we should have a new build ready for you very soon. In the mean time, you may like to disable sleep and hibernation in your PC’s power options.

Soho doesn’t install on Mac OS 10.5??

Our first Alpha release did not install on Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard). This was due to a silly checkbox in our packaging system not being checked. We’ve checked the checkbox and uploaded a new build to our web site. You can download it from here:
http://www.webspy.com.au/products/soho/download.aspx

Note: Soho will only install on Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) and 10.6 (Snow Leopard). Versions 10.4 (Tiger) and below are not supported.

All computers disappear from the Current Activity chart except the local computer

Sometimes all computers will disappear from the Current Activity chart leaving your local computer all by itself. This happens when the communication between Soho Agents becomes jammed. You can usually resolve the issue by restarting the Soho Agent on your local computer (see steps below). If this doesn’t work, restart the Agents on all other computers running Soho. We are currently working on a fix for this issue.

The Soho User Interface is completely blank

If there is no information in the Total, Current Activity or History chart, this is because the Soho Agent has stopped running. Reasons for this may vary, so please let us know if this is regularly occurring. Restarting your agent usually resolves the issue (see steps above).

Feedback

Thank you to everyone that has submitted feedback so far.

Just a reminder to please let us know if your network card works or doesn’t work with Soho on this page:
http://www.webspy.com.au/products/soho/supportednics.aspx

You may also like to review the current list of features and bugs and vote them up or down at:
http://webspysoho.uservoice.com/

There is also a dedicated Soho Alpha Feedback thread in our forums at:
http://www.webspy.com.au/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12

We will let you know when fixes are available to the above issues.

About WebSpy Soho

WebSpy Soho is our soon-to-be-launched dashboard application for anyone who wants to know the full story on their computer and network bandwidth usage and Internet connection speed. WebSpy Soho is perfect for small offices, home offices, families, shared student households and even a single computer home user.

No longer do you need to be a network administrator to monitor your computer or network, Soho makes it easy and user-friendly for everyone.

WebSpy Soho will help you answer some of these questions:

• How much is each computer on my network uploading and downloading?
• Which computer is slowing down my internet connection speed?
• Am I getting close to reach my ISP internet quota?
• Is Malware eating up large chunck of my bandwidth?
• Is someone freeloading on my wireless connection?

Jason Calacanis and Jack Andrys talking about Soho in TWiST ep #31

What makes WebSpy Soho so special?

There are already many of network and bandwidth monitor solutions out there, both free and paid versions. However, all of these seem to miss the mark when it comes to assisting the new generation of people who want to use them. Gone are the days when only Network Administrators wanted to monitor bandwidth usage and internet connection. Today every other household (and small office) has a network of computers. And guess what? Majority of these users are not Network Administrators or super technical. More often than not it is just your average person who wants to find out more about their network usage.

This is where WebSpy Soho comes in – WebSpy Soho has been specifically designed with these users in mind. Don’t get me wrong, a Network Administrator will be thrilled with WebSpy Soho’s functionalities as well. He/she just won’t have to use any technical skills to set up and use Soho.

WebSpy Soho is different from competing products because:

• WebSpy Soho lets you monitor 1- 15 computers on your network. Majority of free bandwidth monitoring solutions only lets you monitor your local computer.
• Compared to many paid network bandwidth monitoring software, WebSpy Soho is very easy to set up and start using.
• WebSpy Soho is interactive and customizable. You can view real time data as well as specify historical date ranges you want to investigate. WebSpy Soho also lets enter your ISP billing periods and quota allowance to easily keep track of your usage. Majority of other bandwidth monitoring software only gives you a static overview you cannot customize.
• WebSpy Soho distinguishes between internal and external network traffic. Soho will only display actual internet uploads and downloads to prevent skewing your result.
• WebSpy Soho provides you with alerts when your internet connection becomes overloaded, when you are approaching your ISP quota limit, and when an unknown machine is using your network.

Find out more and register your interest for the chance to win one year FREE subscription of WebSpy Soho at http://www.webspy.com/products/soho/default.aspx

We have now decided on the future look of our upcoming software and would like to thank all of you who took the time to vote. We were pleasantly surprised by the amount of votes coming in.

Soho Logo

When asking for our audience’s opinion we had narrowed the selection of logos down to three.

We thought all three logos did a pretty good job of representing WebSpy Soho’s key elements; innovativeness, ease of use and kick-all-other-home-and-small-office-internet-monitoring-applications-ass-out-of-the-ballpark. However, as any Highlander fan knows too well – There can be only one! After plenty deliberation and mock-up testing we had two internal favorites. Our audience, you guys, shared the same favorites but in the end logo #2 received the majority of your votes.

We asked for your opinion and, as you would expect, highly value it. We are more than happy to let our audience have the last say in the look of our new software. Thanks again to everyone who submitted their votes, here is your favorite logo – WebSpy Soho’s new logo:

About WebSpy Soho

WebSpy Soho is our soon-to-be-launched dashboard application for anyone who wants to know the full story on their computer and network bandwidth usage and Internet connection speed.

We have combined all our resources and expertise in developing innovative B2B solutions to develop WebSpy Soho – Finally making it easy for home users and small offices to achieve network transparency.

WebSpy Soho is perfect for small offices, home offices, families, shared student households and even a single computer home user. Soho will be FREE for those of you who want to monitor a single computer. If you want to monitor a small network (up to 15 computers), the full version of Soho will be available at a small charge.

Find out more about this amazing application and register your interest to receive exciting Soho updates as we are getting closer and closer to launch date at www.webspy.com/soho