Point to point file transfer?

[ffutures]

Is there any simple way to send someone a fairly large zip file - about 350mb - other than uploading it to web space I don't actually have and letting him download it? I could email it in segments but I think my program would chop it into several hundred bits, gmail falls over as soon as I try to attach the file, and sending it via NTL falls over about 15 minutes in.

Comments

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

The only thing I can think of is to turn it into a torrent, though how that happens I have no idea.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I was wondering about that, but I have no idea how a point-to-point torrent can be made to work.

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

Frankly, for really big files, (if I don't use MegaUpload or somesuch site), I just burn them on CD or DVD and drop them in the mail. The old ways are sometimes the best.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

My preference too, but it's slow and expensive (for the customer) and since it's a disk that I made that's failed I'm trying to offer alternatives before charging him for a replacement.

Old ways are the best

[nojay.livejournal.com]

Find some FTP server software (your Apple might well have FTP server capability built-in to OS/X) and make the zipped-up file available that way. Your recipient would use an FTP client to connect to your server and download it that way.

There are also free file-sharing services like 4shared and such around, although they tend to have chunk size limits -- 50Mb in the case of 4shared but it has a maximum limit of 1Gb in total. If you can batch-zip your files into chunks less than 50Mb to start with then you can load them up into 4shared folders for your recipient to download at his liesure. If you want anyone else to get them too at a later date then they're already in place.

There are also free file backup services around -- I just got an email from PCWorld offering me 1Gb of backup space on a remote server. That would also work.

Re: Old ways are the best

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Those sound like pretty good ideas - any idea if the PCWorld offer is open to all, or do you have to be invited?

PCWorld offer

[nojay.livejournal.com]

I don't know what the deal is but here's the link they emailed me:

http://emails.pcworld.co.uk/a/hBG9My2AWCsSwBatchVBOBbcg-Y/register1

They do say the system doesn't work with Apple OS/X so there might be a dedicated upload/backup client you have to run on your machine.

The Megaupload free service might well do the job for you. You do need to register and about the only hiccup is that the downloader usually has to wait for about 30 seconds or so before the download starts (with adverts).

http://www.megaupload.com/

From the www.megaupload.com FAQ:

"What is the maximum file size I can upload?

If you'd like your file to be downloadable by everyone, make sure not to exceed the limit of 500 MB. Larger files can only be downloaded by premium users."

Re: PCWorld offer

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The thing is that I DON'T want the file to be downloaded by all - I want one person to have it, that's all.

Fortunately it looks like he's going to pay for me to send another CD, which solves the problem.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

Burn it on a CD and mail it to him?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That would be my preference, but it's one of my CDs that has failed (after a couple of years) and the customer would prefer to try downloading before I charge him for another disk and postage.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

You could just give him a new one for free.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I could, but considering that every disk I send goes out with a reminder to make backups, that I sold it more than two years ago, and that it will cost me a couple of pounds and take most of my lunch hour to get to the post office and send it, I really don't feel inclined to do so.

[parakkum.livejournal.com]

You're awfully nice. I would have gone directly to "Pay me for the media and postage and I'll send another one," I think.

[trinfaneb.livejournal.com]

You might want to try compressing the file with WinRaR. Its free for 40 days and does make the over-rall file size smaller than the original file but the best thing about it is that you can choose how big you want each file part to be. So for example you could break it up into 15 or 16 20mb files. Figure out how big of a file you can send with Gmail and you should be good to go. And winzip might be able to read and unzip Winrar files. You can download it at:
http://www.win-rar.com/globalpartners.html

Another option I can think of is an instant messenger such as Yahoo, MSN or ICQ. I haven't tried to transfer a big file in several years, but I have copied and sent 300 or 400mb files on ICQ before. The thing about this is that you both have to be online at the same time and both have relatively fast connections for it to go quickly.

You could also post it to a dormant Usenet binaries group. But you would still need Winrar or something to break the file down into at least 30mb chunks and most people don't have a good Usenet service so its hard to post and download big files.

Finally you could do it the old fashioned way and burn it to a CD and snail mail it :)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

See above!

[whl.livejournal.com]

Traditionally, this is what ftp is for. But I've had files transferred via ftp that didn't checksum the same, without any warnings from ftp.

A friend of mine says to just use an instant messaging system, like iChat (and under windows, AIM.)

I use scp, which is file transfer through ssh. Your Mac already has this capability; all one of you needs to do is turn on "Remote Login" under Sharing in System Preferences, if you want the file transferred to you.

If the client you need to get this to is running Windows, they will need something like WinSCP to receive it. If they can ssh, they can scp.

You can either issue commands to transfer the file from either end of the connection.

If you don't use CyberDuck on the mac, you can send the file from the command line:
scp filename.zip account@address:destination

I frequently do things like
scp ms.mp3 wh@shawn.watervalley.net:
which transfers a file named ms.mp3 from the directory I'm in to the home directory of the user wh on the machine shawn.watervalley.net.

The ending colon is, in this case, important.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It looks like he's going to go for me sending another CD, which I think is probably the best bet all round. Thanks for the suggestions anyway.

[cobrabay.livejournal.com]

You could send it using http://www.yousendit.com/, I used to use Whalemail, but they went paid-only.
The free yousendit.com account will allow you to send files up to 100Mb up a max of 1Gb total storage, so if you can slice your 350Mb into pieces smaller than 100Mb you can send it in 4 parts. There are ads on the free service, but easily ignorable as I recall, though that may just be learned behavior.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I've used yousendit, though I never did anything as large as 350 meg. For files up to about 75 meg, I've used chat services like AIM or Skype.

I see you've already worked your problem out, but I just wanted to toss my two cents on the fire.