FIle Sharing Lesson

Many of you may or may not be familiar with File Sharing over the Internet. This little segment should help those not so familiar with file sharing techniques. The first file sharing technique everyone should know is attachments with-in an e-mail message. As you may have discovered this has it’s limitations. E-mail servers usually limit messages to 4mb or under. Many people believe if the attachment file size is over the limit (set by your provider), then you’re just out of luck. Well this isn’t true, you have many options. First is File Transfer Protocol (FTP) but you’ll have to learn and understanding FTP technology. Too much for the normal everyday non-geek user, (I agree.) FTP requires special software and knowledge to send/receive files, it’s not too difficult, perhaps more study time required than you care to undertake. If you want learn more about FTP then I’d recommend starting with “FTP” and the vast available search engines.

I’m heading this tactical informational lesson to a slightly easier method, available free and right from your web browser.

Dropload to the rescue! If you have a larger file than what e-mail allows you to send you can utilize this handy free utility to send and retrieve files.

Perhaps I should explain a bit more… Dropload is a place for you to drop your files off and have them picked up by someone else at a later time. Recipients you specify are sent an email with instructions on how to download the file. Files are removed from the system after 7 days, regardless if they have been picked up or not. You can upload any type of file, mp3, movies, docs, pdfs, up to 100MB each! Recipients can be anyone with an email address. However… of course confidentiality is at risk unless you securely encrypted or password protect your files. You can usually add minimum password security to zipped, and/or pdf files prior to using such free public utilities if this is a concern.

Ok, so now there are no excuses for not sharing your files, photos, etc… But remember as ALWAYS scan any and all files for virus’s prior to opening with the most current virus software and definitions. I hope you learned from this little lesson and share it with others.