Sharing Large Files:
Last night I got a call from a client who couldn't get his email. His accountant had attached a 4+ megabyte Quickbooks file which was larger than his ISP allowed. DO NOT attach large files to Emails! Do not send unprotected personal or possibly sensitive information (like payroll and accounting) via email. Email is like shouting in a crowded restaurant. It is not private.
So, what to do?
- Try Zipping the file or files so they take less room.
- Encrypt the files you need to share. I recommend File2File from Cryptomathic. www.cryptomathic.com⁄file2file⁄. This is a free encryption program which is very good. Use it to encrypt the file before uploading it. Then call your client and give them the password over the phone. You can encrypt it as an executable so they do not need to have File2file to open it, but they will need the password.
- Upload the file to a website that the client can access and then email the client to let him⁄her know it is available. If you are uploading to your own website include the link in your email, otherwise include a link to the special filesharing site.
A number of filesharing sites exist for just this purpose. One that works well is znail. www.znail.com⁄. Znail costs $10⁄year and lets you share 50 megabytes of files. You and your client will share an account so the files can come back to you the same way using the same account. Also files you may want to work with on other computers can be shared this way. Znail provides special tools for importing bookmarks so they can be transferred to another computer. I like znail because it is easy to use and does not load any software onto your system.
Please read the next article on password basics for selecting the passwords for File2file and also for the znail account.