One task we find ourselves doing frequently is sending digital files to and from clients and vendors. I would venture to say, there almost isn’t a day that goes by where we haven’t needed to download or upload a file. It’s routine stuff for all of us here at Intrigue.
In the old days (pre-Internet), it was more difficult and time consuming to get software patches and updates. Usually, it meant phoning or writing a company and then sitting back and waiting for them to mail you a small floppy disc or two. Amazingly, most applications were small enough that you could fit the installers on just a few floppies. It was quite a tedious chore to sit there listening to the drive chirping away during installation until the computer asked you to change the disk. Perish the thought if one of those floppies was missing or damaged! It sure wasn’t fun when that happened.
As technology evolved, we saw the advent of software on CD’s – and later on – on DVD’s. That was a great advance for anyone who needed to frequently install software. Programs were just too huge and CD/DVD installation made it less laborious.
Lo and behold, with the popularity and ubiquity of broad-band internet, even the CD/DVD is heading for the technology dustbin. It’s not unheard of to purchase software and then immediately download it – all taking place online.
Almost too easy!
Even better, whenever there is an update, usually it’s a straightforward matter to find the update on a company’s downloads page and getting exactly what you need. When it’s done well, it’s a smooth procedure. Because companies no longer need to mail out discs for updaters, they can spend more time and money on improving their software – which is great for all of us end users.
But what happens when you just need to send files to a friend or a client, or “other”? Most people just prep an email – they click “attach”, grab a file or two, and then hit “send”. If all you need to send are small text files, this method works quite well. Even for a couple of JPEGs from the latest family vacation. However, for the less technically inclined, photos are usually larger files than are text files. It’s not unusual for these attachments to be several megabytes. Which becomes a problem when the recipient is unable to receive attachments that large.
The first thing I tell people to do before sending us files via email is to compress them – usually as ZIP archives. This accomplishes two things – it makes the files smaller for sending purposes and it also limits the chance of files becoming corrupt during transmission. I’ll never understand why a file would become corrupt in an email, but I’ve seen it happen too many times. Other than PDF files (which do NOT need to be zipped), most attachments compress nicely and make it easy to send via email.
And what if you need to send really HUGE files – I mean massive Photoshop files, for example? We’re talking files that are hundreds of megs in size. It goes without saying that emailing them is out of the question. For such tasks, most companies rely on FTP sites. FTP stands for “File Transfer Protocol”. These sites are designed for sending large (or small) files in a controlled fashion. The site’s owners can assign special access for users. Logging in and uploading/downloading from an FTP site is a great solution for large file transmissions. At least for most of the time.
To interact with an FTP site, you will need to have a program that is made for just that. We use “Transmit” by Panic Inc. It’s relatively inexpensive and files upload and download with ease. It’s a program we use quite often and is very reliable – usually more so than the FTP sites themselves!
There are instances where an FTP is more hassle than it’s worth. That can happen if the person who needs files cannot log-in to the FTP for whatever reason. And there are many reasons – ie: log-in info doesn’t work or is too confusing, the files are locked, the files don’t show up, etc. Then there are people who just don’t want to be bothered with the process and want to just get their work done.
For those people, there is an alternative. There are companies that allow you to send massive files without requiring an FTP site. They have it set up so that you provide their service’s software with an email address for a recipient and then point to a file to be uploaded. The rest is taken care of automatically. The file gets uploaded and the recipient gets an email with a link to download the file. Painless. Mostly. Sure, there are things that can go wrong, but this is about the easiest way to get big files from computer A to computer B.
A couple of years ago, I tried out a couple of these services, and there are a handful of good ones out there. The one I stuck with is called YouSendIt. The interface is very straightforward and the service works well. Our company has been relying on it more and more. So much more that in a crunch, we tend to use YouSendIt rather than having someone try to get into our FTP.
In the end, it’s been quite a progression to where we have reached today. Twenty years ago, nobody could have imagined the files we would work with on a typical day today. It’s just great that oversized files need not prevent you from getting your files to their destination as there is usually a solution ready and available to make it happen.