Photo: Contributed

E-mail is good for lots of things, but it’s not well-suited to sending large files. Even if your Internet provider lets you send gigantic files, the people you’re sending them to might not be able to receive them. The common way around this problem is to upload the files somewhere and e-mail a link to that location rather than e-mailing the big file.

Sharing & sending photos

If your large files are always pictures, sites like Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/) and Picasa Web Albums (http://picasaweb.google.com/) are good choices. You can make the pictures public, or you can share them with certain people --- or not at all. But if you have other kinds of large files that you need to share, those sites won’t help you. I’ve found a couple of interesting alternatives.

Sharing & sending just about everything else…and photos, too

Drop.io was a great place to store and share large files. I wrote about it several times. Then, just over a year ago the company was acquired by Facebook, and the Drop.io site shut down in December 2010. Unfortunately, Facebook hasn’t done anything clever about file sharing, as far as I can tell. Since Drop.io’s demise, I’ve been looking for something to replace it.

YouSendIt (https://www.yousendit.com/) lets you upload your files and e-mail a link to your friends, family or coworkers in a couple of clicks. Storage of up to 2GB (which is plenty for the casual user) is free. The maximum size of a file you can upload is 50MB. If you need more storage or to upload larger files, you can upgrade to the paid service. Details of the plans are here: http://www.yousendit.com/compare-plans.

I also really like a site called Minus (http://minus.com). It’s completely free. If you register for an account (FREE!) you’ll receive 10GB storage space and can upload files up to 2GB in size. (Sign up from my Minus link and we’ll both get a free extra GB: http://min.us/rC52rDQ) You can publish and share files or keep them private. It is dead simple to use this site, as demonstrated in the brief video here: http://minus.com/pages/help.

I recently came across a site called Ge.tt (http://ge.tt). Like YouSendIt, you upload just about any type of file, and send a link to it via e-mail. And like Minus, you can easily publish to Facebook or Twitter, or keep the file private. I am finding the site a little less intuitive to navigate than Minus, but the upload time is much faster. You get 2GB of storage free, and can upgrade to a paid plan if you need more space or more features. If you want to see what Ge.tt can do, here is a link to a folder I created: http://ge.tt/86Kwvx9?c. I could not get a video file to download properly from ge.tt, and had no trouble downloading the same file from Minus. Neither site would play the file without downloading.

Important things to know about sharing & sending files

Two very important caveats:

• Don’t ever put your only copy of something important “in the cloud.” These sites come and go and you might not get your files back

• Don’t ever upload anything of a confidential or sensitive nature to one of these places unless you encrypt it first. Or maybe not even then. Read the terms of service and understand your legal rights and obligations.

Don’t forget…

If you have a group of people who need to collaborate on files, or if you need to share files often, there’s always Dropbox (http://dropbox.com/), one of my “can’t live without it” programs. More about Dropbox next time.

Happy Thanksgiving to our American friends and family!

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Cate Eales runs Computer Care Kelowna (http://computercarekelowna.com/) a mobile service helping home users and businesses get along with their computers. To arrange an appointment phone her at 250-764-7043. Cate also welcomes your comments and suggestions. Send email to help@computercarekelowna.com.

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