Re: TECH: info on ftp

FWIW, some services:

http://yousendit.com will store your <100MB attachment for sending in emails
for about a week
http://megaupload.com and its ilk will store yet larger files, but is more a
pain to use

ServU and FileZilla are quite nice and easily configured FTP servers for
Windows, which I've used before. ("Before" here meaning "back in 2000 when I
actually used Windows on a regular basis"...)

I'm not familiar with good Mac software for this, and for *nix the only
thing I've ever used is ssh/scp rather than ftp.

One thing to mind is that FTP, unless you're doing something advanced, sends
passwords and content in the clear over the internet. This means that anyone
between the two computers involved can read any of that data, including the
username/password. So don't use it for anything sensitive, and never ever
use the same password for FTP as you use for anything else... 'cause the
first thing someone malicious would try would be to reuse that same
user/pass on other sites (e.g. web mail services).

All three are capable of doing Samba shares (on Windows it's just called
"[windows] file&folder sharing", on *nix it's the smb:// protocol, and on
Mac it is too though they mostly try to hide it). This is a relatively
convenient method to share things when you can get the two computers
connected. This means though that either you have to allow access from the
outside and have a publicly accessible IP (or forwarded port on the router),
hopefully password protected, or have the computers involved on the same LAN
(e.g. a cable directly connecting them). Samba is at least moderately
encrypted, though it is fairly easy to crack for someone with a modicum of
skill.

In any case, it's a viable alternate method.


FWIW what I personally use: YouSendIt (for <100MB to normal people), one of
the various servers I have access to (scp up, simple HTTP download down), or
direct-cable Samba (for largish transfers between computers that are within
sight of each other). YMMV and all that.

- Sai

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