Above we have the slider bar. When the pointer is at the far left the option is turned off. This is indicated on the right hand side by the 2 arrows being gray. The small vertical box just to the left of the arrows is the "speed indicator". This shows how hard Keep Connected is trying to keep your line active. A higher value means the modem has more data in and out of it. A lower value means less data is being sent in and out of the modem.

Now to enable it we place the pointer in the middle. This is default and is normally used for 56K modem users. Moving the pointer to the left will make the program work less hard to keep your line busy. As you move the pointer the number indicates the "trip" value which you wish to set. Normally modems trip at around 300ms at best. Setting a lower value for a normal modem will not work simply because the modem can't operate at that speed. The pointer in the middle is 500ms which should be more than enough to keep most lines active.

Moving the bar to the right will increase the line activity. Our 33K6 modem time-out at around 1500ms so setting a value near this is of no benefit. This might become more useful for faster Internet connection but not recommended for modem users. Most modem users should keep the value between 300 to 800 with 500 being default.

The arrows are a indication of what the program has detected. For example, if the top green arrow is on the the program is increasing the data rate to gain the trip value of 500ms. If the red arrow is on then the program is slowing down the data rate. In normal use ( in a ideal situation ) the red and green arrow will alternate about once a second from green to red then back to green...and so on. Now if you start to download a file then this will slow down the connection and the red arrow will be on. It will detect the trip speed has gone up ( since your downloading a file ) and then it will lessen the data rate. The vertical indicator will go down as the data rate drops.

The data rate will keep going down until a happy medium has been found. Should the minimum value be reached the the option will be disabled for a few seconds since it is not needed. A disable is shown by both red and green arrows been on at the same time. Keep Connected will wait a few seconds then try the modem again to see what the data rate is like. If it finds a quick trip time then it will turn on again and adjust itself accordingly. Data is sent IN and OUT of the modem so it will keep both send and receive bytes active.

You can set the IP address which Keep Connected uses in the Advanced options menu. It is best to use your own website IP address since some ISP's can class constant data packets as port attacks. Your own website address is recommended since it will be on the same network to which you are connected to. You can of course use any website if you trace its IP address with the DOS ping command or similar.

Keep Connected will ensure maximum speed to your downloads and will keep your line busy when your download finishes. Use this function to stop ISP time-outs while chatting on IRC or any Messenger service such as Yahoo! There's nothing worse than your ISP booting you off because it things your not doing anything while your chatting!

NOTE: This function is not avaliable in unregistered versions.