Articles about File Sharing

Cloud-based file-sharing services benefit all types of businesses by providing easy, convenient access to information anytime, anywhere. With technology increasingly blurring the lines between work and personal lives -- often with the same platform being used in both worlds -- it can be easy to forget that work-related information often needs to be handled with greater care and a higher level of security.

If employees use personal accounts and free services designed for consumer use, in order to manage clients' documents, they could be putting your business at high risk for a security breach. This will become ever more important as the regulations around management of sensitive and private information get stronger and enforced more strictly. However, there are several simple steps companies can take to tackle these issues and keep business information protected.

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Kim Dotcom's extradition hearing has been delayed again as the Megaupload founder continues to fight a series of criminal charges and civil lawsuits.

It is claimed that Megaupload was used to store and share films and other content illegally, but Dotcom has denied all charges.

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Cloud storage service Mega arrived with a bang early this year, after its controversial founder Kim Dotcom revealed that users will get a whopping 50 GB of storage at no cost. The man's involvement with the defunct Megaupload certainly piqued people's interest, with more than three million users trying or relying on the service within the first month.

More than nine months after its launch, Mega has announced, via its official blog, the end of the beta stage. The cloud storage service now touts "significant improvements and optimizations" as well as a refreshed look for the site. Let's take a look at what's new.

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Today, TeamViewer announces a new beta version of its popular remote control software for Windows, Mac and Linux PCs. The latest release, named TeamViewer 9 Beta, introduces new features aimed at businesses, developers and end-users as well as security improvements.

The most noteworthy security addition in TeamViewer 9 Beta is two-factor authentication. It allows users to add an extra layer of protection to their accounts by using security codes, that can be sent to their mobile devices and, alternatively, generated by dedicated mobile apps. On Macs, TeamViewer 9 also adds the option to increase the password strength in QuickSupport.

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Windows users are spoiled for choice when it comes to photo editing tools. The offerings range from very powerful and expensive suites like Adobe Photoshop, to basic yet free applications like Microsoft Paint. CyberLink, a company best known for its video software, entered this market a couple of years ago with PhotoDirector, an excellent but affordable tool which can be used to manage, enhance and share photos.

PhotoDirector is very easy to use, mostly due to its neatly-organized interface. It groups the available functionality into five tabs -- Library, Adjustment, Edit, Slideshow and Print -- which allows users to import and organize photos, tweak various elements (color, lighting and contrast among others), "beautify" people (make teeth whiter, remove wrinkles, etc.), create slideshows and even share them on YouTube afterwards.

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My oldest email address, circa 1996, is with Yahoo -- just three letters. I joined Flickr in October 2005 and Tumblr in May 2008. Three years ago, I stopped paying for Yahoo Mail, mostly abandoned the photo-sharing site and essentially stopped blogging at the social network. But I'm psyched now. Maybe former Googler Marissa Mayer can save the grandpa dot-com after all.

Today colleague Wayne Williams asks: "What will it take for people to care about Yahoo again?" "May 20th" is my answer. On the same day that Yahoo bought Tumblr for a cool $1.1 billion cash, the rickety dot-com gave Flickr the biggest makeover ever. Subscribers get 1TB of storage, on a site suddenly beautifully modern and supported by a hot, Android app. Google CEO Larry Page, Mayer just thumbed her nose at you.

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There are many ways to share files between the computers on your network -- simple folder sharing, or cloud-based file syncing are just two ideas that come to mind. But when Apple introduced AirDrop in OS X Lion, it added another way – an elegant, simple means of simply dragging and dropping files to quickly distribute them to other Macs on your network.

The only problem with AirDrop is that you require other Macs, running OS X Lion or later no less, for it to work. Thankfully, third parties have finally come around to developing cross-platform alternatives to AirDrop, and another promising example has just poked its head above the parapet in the form of Filedrop.

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Piracy has long been a frustrating problem for software makers, musicians and movie and TV studios. The introduction of BitTorrent, while not designed to facilitate this theft, brought the problem to the forefront. Now one tiny game studio takes matters into its own hands with hilarious results.

Greenheart released Game Dev Tycoon simulation game, but the company also did something unique -- seeding a cracked version of that game on a Torrent site. The object of the play is to design games and build up your own successful studio.

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Cloud-based storage provider SpiderOak has released SpiderOak 5.0.1, a brand new version of its desktop client for Windows, Mac and Linux. The chief highlight of version 5 is a new feature called SpiderOak Hive, a new centralized folder for quick and easy sync between devices.

Version 5.0.1 also implements integration in Windows Explorer, support for passwords in ShareRooms and remote diagnostic tools to help SpiderOak’s support teams resolve issues with end users.

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One of the big advantages of cloud storage is that most services make it easy to use themselves as a tool for effortless syncing of data between computers. Update a file on one device, and it quickly becomes available to everyone else.

The problem with syncing via the cloud is that you usually have to pay for any meaningful amount of storage space, and that’s before you consider the potential implications of having a copy of your sensitive data stored in the cloud. However tight your cloud provider’s security is, there is always the nagging doubt that your files could be accessed by someone else.

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Back in January, I was fortunate enough to get an invitation to test the alpha version of the new BitTorrent Sync app -- an opportunity that excited me, given that I had recently learned my beloved Live Mesh would go away, thanks to Microsoft's own version of "Spring Cleaning". This left me in the market for a replacement.

Now BitTorrent announces that private testing is done and, while the app is still alpha, the company is ready to unleash it on the public. "We’re really excited about opening up this Alpha. The feedback has been universally positive. Those in the closed Alpha have already synced more than 200TB since we started the program on January 24", says BiTorrent's Christian Averill.

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The glory days of Torch, a Chrome-based web browser known for its built-in Torrent capabilities, may be short-lived because similar functionality is headed your way right in the web browser you are probably using right now. Surf, the plugin announced back in January, rolls into full beta release today.

The company announces that "BitTorrent Surf started out as a little Chrome experiment: a way to make BitTorrent simpler. Basically, Surf transforms your browser into a BitTorrent client; with discovery and downloading built in". The experiment apparently went well because the browser plugin hits beta mode for not only Chrome, but also Firefox as well.

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There is a lot going on right now down in Austin, Texas. This week the city plays host to the popular SXSW Interactive show -- an idea that began as a music festival and then added technology to the mix. Today BitTorrent chose the location to remove the private tag from its Live streaming service and let the public play with it for the first time.

The service is a Peer-to-Peer live streaming platform that the company says is "for anyone with mobile video or webcams, for anyone in the moment, on the ground, or on the front lines; for everyone with the need to break news or break it down in real time".

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Editor's Note: Muted in the noise from Mobile World Congress is an interesting drama between developer Presselite Studio and Facebook. Apparently, the social network, which bought Instagram in April 2012, is blocking Vintage Camera. The scuffle raises questions about Facebook clamping down on competing products, which, if true, should chill every developer. Apple favoring its stuff over partners' products is old news. Is this really where Mark Zuckerberg and company want to go? Perhaps it's all a misunderstanding. We asked Antoine Morcos, Presselite cofounder, to make his case. If screenshots can tell a story...

Facebook has decided to disable and block "Photo Sharing on Facebook" feature in Vintage Camera application available for iPhone and iPad. The reason for the app being denied of uploading photos, according to Facebook, is that it was receiving a "high amount of negative user feedback", which is not true...

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When you need to share files with others, setting up a web server probably won’t be the first idea that comes to mind. It just seems like too bulky a solution, too complex, and so you’d probably opt for something more conventional: setting up a network, using a file sharing service, whatever it might be.

With the right software, though, setting up a web server can be much more straightforward than you think. And the open source HFS (Http File Server) is a particularly good example of this, because even if you’re a networking novice, it could have you sharing your files locally within minutes.

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