Archive for the ‘File sharing’ Category
eriksr on April 5th, 2007
Note: Today’s image comes from Flickr user Jeremy K. Please support your local Humane Society or the SPCA
Quick one today. I was on the verge of writing a lengthy, detailed entry on Flickr (really!) but Josh Lowensohn over at Webware did a perfectly good job not too long ago. If you want to find out everything there is to know about Flickr, click here.
There are plenty of reasons why you should consider using Flickr as part of an overall PR campaign, or just for your firm. Now, I could rattle off a list for you…or I could point you to a couple of Kevin Dugan’s entries on “Flickr Hacks” that sum things up beautifully:
- “10 Flickr Hacks”: Highlights include using Flickr as a means of getting high-resolution images to influencers — as opposed to using Email — and posting shots of life in the firm to serve as a recruitment tool. Hey HR people — take note!
- “10 More Flickr hacks”: Fewer ideas here strictly for the PR professional here, but an excellent and enlightening read nonetheless.
eriksr on March 19th, 2007
I recently wrote about how Insight24 can create new ROI for webinars/podcasts by giving businesses a chance to post their tired content in a YouTube-like atmosphere. Today’s 
post follows in the footsteps of that one.
Scribd
Scribd is a social document sharing site. Here, they do a great job of describing it:
Part of the idea behind Scribd is that everyone has a lot of documents sitting around on their computers that only they can read. With Scribd we hope to unlock this information by putting it on the web.
Make sense? Scribd gives you a place to share your documents. You can tag ‘em, there’s comments, you can even embed them on blogs/Web pages. It’s your usual Web 2.0 site.
So why am I sooooo excited? Well, it’s a great place to repurpose your tired, worthwhile content. Have you put together an interesting case study? Something with real educational value, as opposed to blatant marketing fluff? Put it on Scribd. Has your client written a book? Put it on Scribd.
Why bother?
On the one hand, Scribd puts your content in front of a new audience. Great, but probably not your target. Fair enough…but the real reason Scribd is great is because it makes your content embeddable on Web pages and blogs and easy to share. Because Scribd presents documents using Flash, pretty much anyone out there is able to see what you’ve got. No need to open a .PDF, no worries about compatibility across PC and Mac, and no messing around with HTML code. It’s genius!
eriksr on March 12th, 2007
If you or your company have ever produced any webcasts, you’ll know that those puppies don’t live very long. Typically you’ll see a spike in views 
during your event or promotion or announcement…but then the video fades into obscurity, appreciated only by search engines and the odd accidental tourist. What to do with your investment at that point? You can’t exactly post them on YouTube — wrong audience, especially if the video uses the word “leverage”.
Well, I’ve been alerted to an interesting new site — currently in beta — that will, in the spirit of YouTube, collect, host, and make searchable webcasts. It’s called Insight24.com and is aimed squarely at business professionals and tech decision makers. The site connects viewers to videos and podcasts on a huge range of topics such as CRM, accounting, marketing, SOA, VoIP, and many more. They already have a very beefy selection of videos available as I write this.
This site is an excellent resource for public relations practitioners thanks to how targeted it is. All you have to do is create an account (use this link) and boof, you can start uploading. I’ve been told that uploads are moderated before being posted, so that should keep the quality of the service high.
Apparently there are plans to implement comments and video ratings this week, too. Fabulous.
eriksr on February 12th, 2007
In the past I told you about a way you can send large files to someone without resorting to Email. Now I’m going to tell you a surefire method of accessing a computer remotely. This is ideal for PC users, although it will work for Mac OSX machines as well — with a limitation…see, OSX machines cannot act as hosts (see below), only as guests.
The Remote Access Boogie
Does your firm provide you with webmail? It works sufficiently well, I suppose. But what happens when you’re on vacation and get a desperate phone call for some file or other that is sitting in your computer? How about when you’re at home for a few days while recovering from pneumonia and (silly you) you insist on getting work done while unable to breathe?
Fire up your web browsers and visit LogMeIn.com. This free service allows you to connect to a remote computer using your web browser! Best of all, it seems able to bypass even the most stringent corporate firewall since it uses the HTTP protocol (port 80 to you geeks out there) to work its magic. You’ll be able to open and edit spreadsheets, documents, manage Email — you can even watch videos if your connection is fast enough!
What You Do
As usual, you might want to talk with your IT department before doing this. Odds are they’ll turn you down because they are fearful of change and hate the thought of employees actually using technology productively…’course, I never let a “No” stop me before. Proceed with caution, duh.
Step 1: While on the computer you intend to access remotely (the host), visit LogMeIn.com. See the green button “Get LogMeIn Free”? Click it. You’ll be asked for some details. Fill in whatever is required (make note of the username and password!) and continue. On this next screen, click the “Add Computer” link.
Step 2: Download and install the LogMeIn software. Depending on your web browser, you may have to end up shutting down and restarting it. And don’t freak out when your screen flickers or goes black — it’s all part of the process.
Step 3: You’re pretty much done by this point. Now you want to head over to the computer you’ll be using remotely – the guest. Go back to LogMeIn.com and log-in (username, password boxes are at the top-right). You should see your remote computer in the list. Click it, enter your username and password, and away you go.
Now you’ve got access to everything — it’s as though you are sitting at your desk, except that your desktop is now in your web browser. If things are too small, click the full-screen button at the top to expand your view.
Remember, in order to be accessible remotely, the host computer must be turned on!
One more thing — don’t try to connect to the guest computer WHILE ON the guest computer. It sets off this crazy infinite loop that is impossible to break out of without restarting your computer…though it is cool to see. 
eriksr on February 6th, 2007
If you haven’t checked out part one yet (how to securely erase your data), then go for it now. Today I’ll show you how to encrypt your existing files. And relax — it’s easy.
Why Windows won’t protect you
There’s a big misconception out there that goes something like this: “When I turn on my computer I have to enter a username and password to log into Windows, so my data is secure.”
Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Your data is so not secure. Anyone can pop the hard drive out of your laptop or desktop and examine it to their hearts content on another computer somewhere. What you need to do is encrypt your files. Now, there are many ways to do this, but I’m going to show you a quick and easy, yet quite powerful, one.
Go get TrueCrypt
Click on over to our good friends at PC World and download TrueCrypt. This is free software. Go ahead and install TrueCrypt, then run it once you’re done. The program has a great wizard interface that walks you through the process of encrypting your data, but be sure to pay attention so you know what’s going on.
Here’s how TrueCrypt works: It creates a sort of container, or basket, that you put your files into. This basket is an actual file that you can Email to someone, burn to CD, move to a USB drive — whatever. To get at the contents of the file you need to open TrueCrypt, select the container file you created with the wizard interface, and “Mount” the file (containers show up as disk drives when you go to “My Computer” in Windows), at which point you enter your password.
When you’ve finished working with your files, go back to TrueCrypt and tell it to “Dismount” the drive. Boof — your files are once again safe.
The box within a box
TrueCrypt has another really neat feature — it allows you to create a secret, hidden box within the original secure container. It is created during initial setup through the Wizard interface, and you need to have created a second password specifically for it. You access it by mounting your container, as usual, but typing in this SECOND password.
This is great for when someone is coercing or forcing you to open up your secure container. Just type in the password for the normal encrypted container — the people giving you grief will be none the wiser that there is a second, hidden set of files!
eriksr on February 1st, 2007
Regardless of the business or industry I happen to find myself, I always notice one thing in common about computers in offices: There’s no way for users to create a .PDF file. No, Adobe Acrobat Reader does not create .PDFs (see below).
Why is this? Is it because Adobe Acrobat is so damn expensive ($289.99)? Probably. Well, have no fear — the open source community has come to our rescue with PDFCreator. PDFCreator is totally free and works — the only difficult part about it is downloading it!
Instructions:
- Click here to go to the PDFCreator download page and click the green “Download PDFCreator” link
- On the next page, click the green “Download” button for the “PDFCreator 0.9.3″ line item
- Then click on the PDFCreator-0_9_3_GPLGhostscript.exe link
- The install program will run. Be sure to DE-select the Internet Explorer toolbar during installation, unless you really want it
- To create a .PDF, after installation, open any document you want and, on the “FILE | EDIT | VIEW | ETC.” menu go to FILE>PRINT, be sure to select the PDFCreator printer, and then print. You’ll be prompted to save a file somewhere. Boof, you’re done
What’s a PDF, and why should I make one?
Before you can understand .PDF, you need to understand the problems with sharing documents. Depending on the printer you are connected to, software such as Word or Excel, can alter the way a document is displayed. Generally this is done because different printers are capable of printing to different margin sizes on a page. Ultimately, this means that a document you create and carefully format may end up looking and printing differently on someone else’s computer!
The Portable Document Format (PDF) basically takes your document or spreadsheet or whatever and turn it into an image. Now, whenever someone looks at a .PDF file, regardless of the computer they are on or what operating system they use, they see the file exactly as you’d intended.
But I have Adobe Acrobat!
I hear this all the time. What you actually have is Adobe Acrobat Reader. The reader can only open .PDF files, not create them.
On a side note…
Took forever to find a decent image for this entry. Acrobats are scary people.
