Sharing Large Files
The Need
I see two major needs, personal and professional. The personal need is to quickly and easily share family photos, and videos. The professional need is to share files or work collaboratively with others. The problem is that files attached to emails can have problems if they are too large, or if they are zipped or are executables.
- For professional needs, confidential files that are encrypted can be rejected when attached to emails. More and more ISPs and company firewalls are simply rejecting executables and even zipped files as just too dangerous.
- For personal needs, photos that are small enough to be attachments, aren't detailed enough to make good large prints. Sharing a large number of photos can be difficult.
The Solution
The solution is to use one of many file sharing sites. These sites allow you to upload files quickly and easily, then send a link to your parent, grandparent, client or accountant so they can easily download the file by simply clicking on the link. You can get a lot of great service for free.
The Search
I read many reviews and found 6 different sites which received good reviews, have been around awhile, and seemed reliable. Then I started sending files with them and testing them.
One was much too complicated. One seemed to cater to video only. Most worked just fine, but sent the link out for you. This might be ok for some purposes, but professionals would want to send the link to their client themselves, not expose the client's email address to a third party. Also, they wouldn't want their clients getting their tax return link sent to them from an unknown vendor. It just didn't feel right. What I wanted was one that would give me a link and let me send it along with an explanatory email to my client.
The Winner
My hands down winner is Drop.io. (http:⁄⁄drop.io) Drop.io works differently from what I had originally thought I wanted, but it offers so much more. They have a wonderful getting started tutorial.
With Drop.io you establish a "drop" for your files. It will be www.drop.io⁄something . You can make up the something yourself, so there is a good chance you can use your name or company. You get 100 megabytes of storage for free. You can add storage in 1 gigabyte chunks for $10⁄yr.
Drops are not searchable on the Internet. They are private stashes. You can create as many drops as you like and never need to register (unless you want more than the 100 megabytes). Drop.io is a front end onto Amazon's S3 Web Service. For more information, go to http:⁄⁄drop.io⁄about .
How to do it
When you go to the site, this is what you see. A simple 1,2,3 (maybe 4) menu:
- Make up a good name. This becomes the link for your drop. If you upload multiple files to the drop, you can either access the entire drop or individual files. It's your choice.
- Add your files by simply selecting them from your hard drive.
- If you want passwords or specific expiration times open this menu
- Click the "drop it" button to upload your files.
That's it. Now send the link to anyone you want to share the files with. You never need to register with them or setup an account. You just create the "drop".
What They Will See or Limiting what they see
- The normal way to share is to send a link. This can be to the whole area. For example, you'd use this to send your parents the link to all the pictures of their grandchildren. Or you could send a link to a single file. In this case only that file would appear, however, by looking at the URL, they'd be able to backspace back on examine the entire drop. The drop can be password protected.
- Another way to link is what they call the HIDDEN LINK. This is a direct link to a single file with no reference to the entire drop. This would be a way that an accountant or lawyer could send files from a single drop with many client files, without the clients being able to see any of the other files in the drop. This method doesn't allow any password protection, so anyone getting the link could download the file. However, properly encrypted files should reduce this danger.
As shown above, when you enter your "drop" and select a file you can view it, download it, comment on it or display the links. You control whether the guest is allowed to delete it. As shown above, if someone goes to http:⁄⁄drop.io⁄steveshank they will be able to visit my drop. The guest password is 'wow!neat' (without the single quotes). If you go to http:⁄⁄drop.io⁄steveshank⁄asset⁄findswitch and view this particular cartoon in my drop (you will need the guest password). The hidden link would go directly to a single file with no ability to see other files in the drop. It is: http:⁄⁄drop.io⁄hidden⁄wfvbdfgitvg6aq⁄asset⁄ZmluZHN3aXRjaA==
If you do check out my drop, you'll find a couple of cartoons (so you see how pictures are handled, and an earlier version of this article in pdf format.
Dated: December 2008