File Sharing

When the US military is over seas there are no laws regarding the illegal downloading and sharing of media.  I guess they figure that they will allow anything to go in this area in order to keep the troops entertained and out of trouble.  I returned from Japan with an external hard drive of over 400 movies all legally obtained.  When people hear the words "File Sharing" their minds immediately land on Napster and illegally copying music but that is only the most media frenzied type of file sharing.

The reality is that the transfer of information from one user to another is a challenge that has plagued us since early home computing.  Now we have a number of tools that make sharing information fast and easy.

Social Media.

This is a great way to share something small very quickly.  Twitter and Facebook allows the user to post a short statements, photos or links to anyone who cares to look at it.  We don't have to send emails or texts to share this information nor do we need to care if someone sees it.  This has made it very convenient to share small amounts of data.

Documents.

The next greatest challenge to file sharing has been documents.  Does everyone remember fax machines?  Well I for one am glad that tools like Google Docs exist.  Not only can I post a document for other to see, I am able to set some rules on how the files are viewed or edited.  The user can share it for viewing only, allow editing, or even allow collaboration so that multiple users can edit a document at once.  Once Google Docs started to bridge a gap we have had to deal with since computers made into homes, Apple and Microsoft have built there versions of cloud documentation.


Large files.

The previous two tools are very nice and cover most of the file transferring necessary for the general user but what about those small amount of large file transfer?  There have been a number of great tools to help transfer large images but the two that have made this convenient and easy are Dropbox and Google Drive.  With an easy to install tool the user can setup a folder on their computer and anything that goes in that folder is automatically sent to the cloud.  Once the file is on the cloud the user can do what they want with it after that.  Other users can connect and download the needed files.

Code.

My Favorite type of file to share is code and I love to do it on GitHub.  GitHub allows users to post code, copy code and collaborate on projects to easily build projects.  GitHub cuts out the confusion brought on by trying to email or transfer code and makes it easy to build powerful projects with people you may have never met.

Although much of file sharing is illegal transfer of music, the majority of it is the legal and productive form.  These many tools make our projects, work and home life much easier when connecting to other people.