Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector Tool: An Excellent Utility for Network Administrators-Review
March 1, 2011
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There’s a lot of tools that can help you monitor your Wi-Fi
status .Wi-Fi Monitoring Software will tell
you how good is your Wi-Fi in terms of signal strength, range capabilities ,internet speed and so on.
And if you will ask me what I am using, I will recommend Xirrus
Wifi Inspector Tool, a free tool for Wi-Fi
created by Xirrus.com, a Wi-Fi
certified company that exist long ago. They offers a lot of Wi-Fi kit, Arrays, accessories (hardware) and freebies (softwares) to cater your needs.
Back to Xirrus Wifi Inspector Tool, is free and powerful utility
that works on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 as well as on Mac OS 10.5 or
higher.XWI tool allows network administrator to manage,troubleshoot
and test Wi-Fi network instantly.
In the main menu, you will see the Radar figure that shows
all the reachable Wi-Fi spot around your position with corresponding dBm.
According to About.com, db is a standard unit for measuring
the strength of Wi-Fi wireless radio signals. Decibels are also used as a
measure for audio equipment and some other radio electronics including cell
phones.While the “m” in dBm represent miliwatts of electrical unit.So,
Wi-Fi equipment with a relatively larger dBm value is capable of sending or
receiving wireless network traffic across greater distances. However, larger
dBm values also indicate the WiFi device requires more power to operate, which
translates to decreased battery life on mobile systems.
With Xirrus WiFi Inspector you can track the signal(express
in dBm),network mode(802.11 b/g/n),Encryption, Authentication, Channel,
Frequency and the Network type as well as the connection history of the Wi-Fi.
Another benefits of using Xirrus WiFi Inspector is the integrated test menu like speed test, quality test, and
connection test.
•Speed Test- automatically open the speedtest.net and execute speed test of your Wi-Fi
•Quality Test- Determine your real-time internet performance.
•Connection Test- Just doing your common task of pinging
Google but this time it will display
some significant info.
XWI tool you can also view some of the important addresses
of the network like MAC , IP, DNS and gateway .
If you wish to connect or disconnect to a certain Wi-Fi then you can use XWI as an alternative.I
recommend this tool to be installed in your laptop, it works best.
Applications
The Wi-Fi Monitor gadget can be used for a number of
practical applications, including:
• Searching for Wi-Fi networks
• Displaying laptop wireless settings
• Verifying Wi-Fi coverage (site survey)
• Locating Wi-Fi devices
• Detecting rogue APs
• Verifying AP settings
• Aiming Wi-Fi antennas
• Wi-Fi Education
Features
• At-a-glance radar view of available Wi-Fi networks and
their relative distance
• Current Wi-Fi connection signal strength with 5 minute
history
• Display of Wi-Fi adapter IP and MAC addresses
• Details on available Wi-Fi networks – SSID, channel,
security, type, etc.
• Support for multiple adapters
• Summary view when on sidebar, expanded view when operating
on desktop
• 9 different color skins
Pros: Free ,User Friendly, Cool and Professional Interface
Cons: No Network Map , Requires .Net Framework 2.0 on some
machines, Requires Wireless adapter for
desktop.
Want to know more, watch this video courtesy of youtube.com
Try Xirrus
Wi-Fi Inspector Tool and share to others!
For installation guide,please read the manual.