HERNDON, Va. — One of the fascinating things I have learned about telecommunications in general over the past 20 years or so is that sending files from one place to another electronically is fun and very handy.
Today, most of you send files back and forth to each other willy-nilly using e-mail. Users just attach files such as pictures, music, voice messages, etc. to a small e-mail and send it to the intended party.
That’s great for many files, but depending on your Internet provider and that of the recipient, the file you want to send may just be too big to fit in the pipe. Also, many company IT departments are setting up mail servers not to pass through specific type files, such as .exe, .mp3, etc.
That means even if the file is accepted by a mail server, it is electronically changed into a file type that can not be used to transmit viruses or other bad things.
Primarily, the main reason it is impossible to send big files through e-mail is that ISPs are loath to devote storage space to gigabytes of these type messages. While the file size acceptable by ISPs has gradually increased over the years, REALLY big files will just be rejected.
I predict that with the increasing penetration of all types of broadband into homes and small business there will be a new era in file types that will exceed 10-20 million bytes, easily.
Today, many of you attach snapshots of children, etc. to send to friends. Broadband users can just as easily send whole clips of home movies to each other. It may take a few minutes to download at broadband speeds, but the recipient has a digitally identical copy if the movie.
As home entertainment appliances such as TiVO and RePlay, along with TV tuner card equipped computers proliferate, it’s going to be possible to send a copy of this week’s “Ally McBeal” to a friend or loved one who missed it. (Yes, I know these type shows are copyrighted, so I expect another battle down the road where video-Napster sites are a part of the scene.)
For the purposes of this column, let’s just assume John is sending a video copy of little Johnny’s birthday to the grandparents.
Back in the day before the Internet…heck, even before bulletin boards, computer users found ways to share files, data, etc. across the ether. During that era one computer user set his/her modem up to be a sender and the other to be a receiver and one dialed the other’s computer. They connected and then sent files back and forth to each other at 300 baud or so.
Now, the process is so much easier and cleaner with broadband and the Internet. Personally, I think the easiest way to send files back and forth to each other on a one-on-one basis is through instant messenger services. Since American Online’s AIM service seems to be the most pervasive worldwide, let’s use it as an exemplar as a way to send a file of any size in real-time from one user to another.
Depending on what kind of file you wish to send it’s always best to use a program such as WinZip to compress a file to make it smaller. However, if you send music files such as MP3 or some video files, they are already compressed and running the data through a zip file will not help much.
Plus, compressing video files will slightly degrade the image, so do some tests with smaller files first to see if compression will be for you.
OK, you notice your friend is online and you ant to send him a movie clip of the dog doing tricks. It’s a very simple process. Always tell the recipient you re sending a file.
Establish an AIM (or other like program connection) and then you, as sender, will click on the person’s screen name and then go to the “file” button on top of your AIM screen and select file. Just put on the path to the file you wish to send, or use the “browse” button to dig down to the file you wish to send.
The recipient will then have a message pop up on his or her screen asking if they want to accept the file. If they accept the file is zapped directly form one computer to another. No e-mail, no waiting involved.
Dear readers, this is where it is very important to know from whom the file comes and if they, ahem, practice safe swapping. In other words, does the person sending the file use virus protection, etc.? If you are not sure, or just to be sure yourself, ALWAYS make sure your virus detection is up-to-date.
That file is coming directly from their hard drive to yours.
Kids should love this because let’s say a new song comes out and one buys it. Within a few hours and AIM sessions between each other, that digitally pure cut can be all over a school. Again, I remind my younger readers that doing such a thing can bring down the ire of the copyright police on you.
Another, unattended, way to send large files and avoid the perils of funky smtp servers out there is to use a portion of your web space or hard drive as a “blind” ftp server. If you space to burn on your web page just upload the file to a blind area not seen by the public.
Let’s say you have a file called Davesbirthday.mov. This is a QuickTime video file. I could upload it to my Web site and if anyone wanted to download it the recipient would need to know the exact address, such as www.mcc1701.net/movies/davesbirthday.mov/ By typing in that address anyone could download the file at any time.
If your computer is online all the time through cable modem it has an IP address. By using what’s called an “ftp server program” it’s possible to set up a part, or all of, your hard drive(s) to be a file server. Such programs can be downloaded from CNET, ZDNet, Tucows, etc. Just look for “ftp server” software in search.
However, this can also allow hackers a doorway into your computer.
Other ways, such as both users using programs such as “PC Anywhere,” are possible, but involve more expense and hassle.
