Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you needed to get or transfer big files all of a sudden, and all you have access to is someone's else's computer? If you have, you know that you need to get yourself an online file server.
MAC users with Apples dotMac accounts have access to a 250 MB personal online file server, but its part of the service available to those who pony up for the $99 account. There is a way to get around it though, and even if it has a limitations (like 10MB max file size and a file limit of 40 characters), the niggles are negligible because the hack is free.
The key is a piece of software called Gmail Drive, which creates a virtual system based on Gmail account, and acts like a mounted drive where you can drag and drop files while online as if it were a real hard disk. It sends the files you drag into it as incoming email with file attachments, to which you have access to. It works on Windows only, though
Here's how:
Get yourself a Gmail account
Download the Gmail Drive Shell Extension at www.vidsoe.dk/code/gmail.htm
Install it by running Setup
If all works well, you now have a 2GB online personal file server for free! Take note that the hack depends entirely on gmail, if google decides to modify their system, the hack could stop working. Remember also that this is just a convenience hack. If you don't want to bother with this root, just email the files to yourself on gmail, and then retrieve them the usual way, from any browser anywhere. There you go.
No comments:
Post a Comment