XLAB Tech

So you want to send that funny video of your aunt falling down the stairs to all your relatives (who wouldn’t), but the file is over 10, or 20 MegaBytes. Or perhaps you are sending something to people who have a telephone Internet connection that might or might not want to wait 10 minutes to download your one single mail. Or you send a lot of embedded media to your friends who already complain that their Outlook folders are eating their disks (they shouldn’t be using Outlook anyway).

In any case, it is usually a bad idea to send mails with more than, say 5 or 10 megabytes. Instead, web links to the content is usually preferred. In such way, each one can choose whether to download the file or not, it won’t block other more important mails on slow lines, and it will not take a lot of disk space (if they choose not to save them).

But where do you put a silly video you don’t want published on YouTube (or FAIL Blog for what is worth)? Were do you place some illegal stuff that sites often take down?

DropBox is a multi-platform tool that keeps your files in synchronized between your (possibly several) computers and devices. It runs on Windows, Linux and Mac, has a web interface, and even an iPhone application. It provides free accounts with a 2Gb limit (though you can take it up to 5Gb by inviting some more people), as well as paid accounts. It was desktop integration, and works really great.

What does DropBox has to do with my mail? Well, DropBox has a “public” folder that permits anyone to access those files (provided you give them the appropriate link). So, you can place your aunt’s video at the DropBox public folder (say, MyDocuments\DropBox\Public\Funny\AuntRollingDown.mpeg), and from your file browser or DropBox’s web interface get the direct link to that file.
You can now simply send that link to everyone you wish to share it with, and that’s it!

When your aunt gets back from the hospital, and threatens you into removing the file, you simply delete it from the public folder, and it won’t be available anymore. (At least not from that link)

Of course, this can be used with other on-line storage providers that let you link to your files without login nor stupid delays.

So, no more excuses, no more silly PowerPoint or any other huge attachments in your mails!
Safe and smart emailing!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 13:42 and is filed under internet, misc, tips & tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.