We just don’t do things the way we used to, right? Especially how we get things done. Thank goodness for the internet and how it’s so ubiquitous, right?
Many of us no longer spend our entire workweek in the office. We may work from home, we may work from the local coffee shop, or we may even work remotely from another state. Of course, with this comes the need for file sharing.
In many cases, email is sufficient. Attach and file and shoot it across the wire. But for the more-than-tech-savvy-user, it’s just not going to be enough.
Unfortunately, many of us have large media files that don’t always play nicely with our mail servers and we’re left with finding creative ways to share said files with our colleagues.
This can still be somewhat cumbersome especially if you’re left with using protocols such as FTP get your stuff out there.
Here are three services that help mitigate the issue of limited attachments and help ease the pain of distributing your work.
Senduit
Senduit is about as simple as it gets. Simply upload your file, specify the length of time that you want the file to remain available, and then upload it.
You’ll be given a link that you can send via instant message or email to your peers with which they can download said file.
Senduit works well when you need to publish a sizable file to a team for a relatively limited period of time. This could be a video, some large images, or an archive of sound files for example.
Note that Senduit is one-way. This means that once you’ve published your files, they are only available for retrieval from the specified link.
A file can be made available for anywhere between 30 minutes and one week; however, file sizes are limited to 100 megabytes.
Drop.io
Similar to Senduit, Drop.io will allow you to upload a file and then present you with a link that makes the file available for others.
The power of Drop.io lies with its realtime collaboration feature such that numerous people can work on whatever file is being shared.
Three of the most popular and creative ways that others have leveraged Drop.io include:
- Recording podcasts from anywhere. By leveraging the voicemail feature of Drop.io, users can record conversations with others and send them to their Drop.io account.
- Backing up files. Many users have leverage Drop.io’s service to upload their files to the service in order to backup their data. Some people have used their for personal files, others have used it to backup their entire website.
- Twitter sharing. Drop.io features Twitter integration (and what modern web application is complete without leveraging Twitter?). By dropping a file into your account, you can configure the service to tweet the link to your new file so that your followers have access to it.
Other features include the support of sharing information via voicemail, chat, and presentation mode. The free service supports 100MB, but you can upgrade your plan to 25GB for $10/year.
Dropbox
We talk a lot about Dropbox on the The 8BIT Network, but it still remains a viable solution for sharing files.
One option would be to simply install Dropbox onto all of the collaborators machines such that shared files are all immediately available to everyone; however, if you’d prefer to go the slightly more personal route, you can simply drop files in your public folder, retrieve the link and share the link with your colleagues.
Dropbox lends itself to a variety of creative uses:
- Access your documents on your phone. Dropbox features a slick web interface that works well on mobile phones. Dropping files in your shared folder and then accessing them while on the go on your phone helps to make getting access to your shared files easier regardless of where you are.
- Backups. Dropbox uses Amazon S3 as its backbone for storing files. Even if your machine goes down, all of the data contained in your Dropbox is stored online and accessible from the web.
- Syncing configuration files. Many applications use files to store their settings. If you have multiple machines with the same application configuration, keeping the configuration files in your Dropbox alleviates the need to continually keep your machines in-sync. Dropbox will do it for you.
The free version of Dropbox features 2GB of storage whereas the paid versions support 50GB or $99/year and 100GB for $200/year.
Working remotely has its advantages, but file-sharing isn’t perfect. Services like these can help to mitigate the problems many of us experience.
If you’ve used any of these services, what have you found works best?
Bobby Shirley says
I have used Senduit and Dropbox. I prefer DB but Senduit is nice for a time-limited file share. Great article!
Tom says
I used Senduit a good bit before Dropbox came out, but Dropbox has become such a part of my workflow that I primarily rely on it.
Unless, of course, I’ve got a file greater than 2GBs..
NickShoe says
YouSendIt is one that I’ve used in the past. They offer a free trial that gives you a substantial file sharing space/capabilities for about two weeks. Beyond the trial period, your account stays active, but you are limited to 100mb and 100 downloads per file. Other options include $9.99/mo for a single user, with a 2GB file size limit, 2GB of storage for save files and 500 downloads per file. They have multi-user options, and corporate options as well. Check em out: http://www.yousendit.com
Great post on what is out there!
Tom says
This is good stuff, thanks for suggesting it. Exactly the kind of stuff I was hoping you guys would share..
Kevin Rossen says
You could aslo add Google Docs to this list now that they’ve enabled uploading of any filetype. The file size limit is 250 MB and you can store up to 1GB for free. I haven’t used it to share a file yet, but I just double-checked and you can publicly share links to files.
This was Google’s official blog post about it: http://bit.ly/a6P3BX
John Saddington says
that’s good point. but,… so ugly. i hate goodocs.
Tom says
Still, this goes well with the discussion on ChurchCrunch a few days ago.
Kevin Rossen says
You’re right. Google’s not know for their aesthetics, but a plus for them is their ubiquitousness (spelled that right the very first time!!!). I’m thinking that people who are less technically inclined would be more prone to clicking a link with “google” in the URL vs “senduit” or another obscure name.
Downside would be eating up storage space in your docs account.
brett barner says
Dropbox is such an awesome tool. I’ve never used Senduit. I like the auto-delete feature of it though. My dropbox has a tendency to get cluttered with files that I only needed for a little bit.
Even network files have issues (like not being able to have more than one person editing at a time) It’s still possible that Wave could be found useful in this area. (yeah I’m still pulling for it)
Tom says
I’ve got multiple machines and I’ve been using a Dropbox installation on each machine to share configuration files of my common applications. That way, I just have to install ’em and then it’ll pull the same settings I’ve got on my other computers. If I update a project on my desktop and then open my laptop later, I’ll have the most recent copy of my projects, too.
All that to say that there are some cool things you can do with it beyond simply treating it like a place to store files, you know?
Josh Wagner says
I’ve only used DropBox, but I love it. I love the idea of grabbing files from anywhere (and having a little backup). I’ve also seen this used for freelance stuff. Customer needs a file, both have DropBox, you put it up and they have it pretty much instantly.
Tom says
The mobile interface is pretty sweet, too. There have a been a few times where I’ve needed to access something on the go on and the only device I had on me at the time was my phone.
anablepomedia says
Been a huge Dropbox fan but I am going to be checking out these other two options in the next week to see how they work for me.
John Saddington says
sweet!
dannyjbixby says
Dropbox.
But drop.io does look interesting.
And there’s something about the auto-expiration of files in senduit that’s appealing as well.
Tom says
Yeah. That way whenever you share that stuff you didn’t mean to share in the first place, it’ll expire and people that you didn’t mean to send it to to will no longer have access.
..right?
Mason says
I’ve used DropBox, but one service I like is Droplr. It’s free (w/ad support), has a 1GB storage and a really simple interface. I think it’s Mac only though.
Tom says
Cool stuff – simple interface ftw