Send large files: 10 of the best services for sharing big files

The kinds of documents we generate have outpaced the means to cope for some technologies. Pop back in time to the 1990s and you might have sent the odd Word document or image to a colleague. Maybe a decade ago you'd have fired the occasional MP3 someone's way (of your own recorded material, naturally).

Today though, even fairly basic documents might include many embedded images, taking them into the dozens of megabytes. And then there are movies, layered Photoshop documents, audio work files, and more.

Although there's no set maximum assigned globally regarding email, you'll often find providers, services and corporate servers bounce anything that's too big as a matter of course. 10MB is a fairly typical limit, which once would have seemed a staggering amount of data, but today doesn't exactly seem huge.

On that basis, you'll often find yourself needing to send something to a friend or colleague, and realising email just won't cut it.

For very specific types of files, you might resort to joining an appropriate service and sharing your work, at least if you often want to send it on to others, such as YouTube or Soundcloud.

Often, though, you just want to send a massive file on an ad-hoc basis. Fortunately, dozens of options exist, from cloud storage providers to one-to-one upload services. Here are some of the best…

1. Dropbox

Dropbox is so popular that we're wondering if people might soon refer to 'Dropboxing' for file-sharing/online storage in the same generic manner as 'Photoshopping' for image editing. You get 2GB for free and can share folders or links to specific files, such as archives. You can buy extra space, from $9.99 monthly for 100GB. Dropbox's widespread support (in terms of first-party and third-party apps) adds to its appeal.

2. Box

Box echoes Dropbox in terms of sharing functionality, although its free option provides a whopping 10GB of storage. The caveat is 250MB file-size limits, which can be eradicated by paying. Paid plans also provide collaboration options (including email notification regarding downloads and commenting on files), but the free option's great for secure ad-hoc sharing.

3. SugarSync

SugarSync is in some ways similar to Dropbox, although it enables you to back-up any folder to the cloud. From a sharing standpoint there are no size limitations beyond your account's size (60GB for the cheapest $7.49 per month option), and there are tools available for group collaboration and businesses.

4. MediaFire

One of the more mature entries in terms of collaboration, MediaFire gives you 10GB of space for free, limiting transfers to 200MB. Paying $2.49 per month adds long-term storage, makes sharing ad-free, and gives you a FileDrop uploader for people to send content to your account. Document editing is also available.

5. WeTransfer

We like WeTransfer a lot. The free version is ad-supported and gives you registration-free 2GB transfers as often as you like. Each upload stays live for seven days. But buy Plus (€120 annually) and you get 5GB optionally password-protected transfers, and 50GB of long-term storage. The company's breezy copywriting doesn't hurt either.

6. Hightail

Originally YouSendIt, Hightail was one of the first companies that latched on to the 'fire huge files across the internet' thing, and it's grown rapidly since being founded in 2004. The free 'lite' plan - 50MB transfers, 2GB storage - looks a touch limited these days, but the company's longevity is reassuring, and its enterprise options will appeal to corporates.

7. Adobe SendNow

If you're in the design industry, large files are a big part of life. Massive high-res images, audio, video, magazine PDFs, the works. Adobe offersSendNow for £14.65/$19.95 annually, and beyond straightforward sending, you also get file-tracking and a handy 'convert to PDF' option for your money.

8. Egnyte

Most services for sending large documents are aimed at the widest possible market, but Egnyte has concentrated on the enterprise. Security, back-up, granular permissions and speed are central to the service, which starts at $8 per employee per month for between five and 24 employees. This plan includes 1TB of storage and comes with a 2.5GB maximum file size.

9. MailBigFile

If we're honest, it was the name that first attracted us to this British company. That said, the usability of MailBigFile is also great, with a bold drop-well and handy time/upload indicators. Up to five files totalling 2GB can be sent for free, while pro accounts (£2.99 per month) up the limit to 4GB, speed up transfers, add storage and offer tracking.

10. Mega

Founded by Kim Dotcom of Megaupload fame, Mega reportedly amassed 100,000 users within its first hour live. Despite initial issues with reliability and speed, the service remained popular, in part due to content encryption happening client-side. 50GB of storage is yours for free, while pro accounts start at €9.99 per month for 500GB of storage and 1TB of bandwidth.

-TechRadar

Facebook Lets You Edit Posts After Sharing On Android And Web Now, iOS Soon

Typo ruin your social media masterpiece? Facebook is starting to let you edit a post’s text after you publish it. The feature comes to the web and Android in an update today, and toiOS soon. Previously you had to delete your post, lose all your Likes and comments, and repost to edit something. Android users also get emotion and activity sharing, events at a glance, and photo album creation today.

Soon you’ll be able to edit all posts and comments from the web, Android, or iOS. To edit posts, you’ll be able to click the down arrow in the top right of one of your posts and select ‘Edit Post’ to change the text, then click “Done Editing” as shown in this screenshot from Spencer Chen. Your revisions and original post will still be viewable if friends check your post’s edit history, though. For comments, hovering over or tapping a post will reveal a pencil icon on the right you can click to start editing.

The long-requested Facebook feature was likely held back because the company was scared users would bait and switch each other. Imagine if a friend posted “Like this post if you hate Justin Bieber,” and you liked it, but then they edited it to say “Like if you LOVE Justin Bieber.” That could defame your music tastes.

But Facebook apparently found that the edit history section was enough to deter people from such trickery. It started allowing users to edit comments in June 2012, and Page owners have also had the ability to edit text on photo posts for a while. Facebook seems to have encountered few problems so now everyone is getting the option.

Google+ has had post editing for a while, facilitating its more long-winded, in-depth discussion style. Don’t expect editing to come to Twitter anytime soon, though, as it wouldn’t jive with the service’s real-time permanent record style.

The feature could be a big help on mobile where touchscreen keypads make it easy to screw up. It’s always a shame to have to wash away the comments you got immediately just to make an “its” an “it’s”. Facebook may have been losing posts to deletions because of typos, so the change could also add just a tiny more content flowing to the News Feed that brings in eyeballs for its ads.

-TechCrunch

Hands On With The New And Improved Screenhero

If you think screen sharing has already been mastered by the likes of WebEx and GoToMeeting, you probably haven’t tried Screenhero yet. ScreenHero, which launched earlier this year out of Y Combinator, is an app that turns any Mac or PC into a completely collaborative environment — a place where two people can not just share a screen, but also work together on it with their own mouse cursors in real-time.

It’s a great concept, especially for software engineers and designers — indeed, ScreenHero co-founder and CEO J Sherwani says that they have been the earliest adopters of the app in its beta form. But ScreenHero has debuted new updated version of its app for Mac (a new Windows version is on the way) that could help push its popularity further into the mainstream.

Sherwani stopped by TechCrunch HQ this week to give us a firsthand look at the updated Screenhero, and you can see that in the video embedded above.

The biggest overall difference in the new Screenhero is that it’s much more responsive — that’s because its been rebuilt to use H264 rather than its original VP8. The app also now includes voice chat, which was a highly-requested feature (it helps to be able to talk to someone that you’re sharing a mouse with, and now people won’t have to set up a separate call to do so.) The UI has gotten a facelift, as well.

Right now, Screenhero is still free since it’s in beta mode. Eventually, Sherwani says it will offer professional pricing plans for a yet-to-be determined cost.

In general, Screenhero is an app that seems to fit more with the modern way of working than legacy screen sharing apps. By default, Screenhero lets both people take control of the display — it’s built to facilitate a real conversation between equals, not a lecture from on high. It’s a solid philosophy that should appeal to how people want to do business today. It will be exciting to see how Screenhero grows from here.

-TechCrunch

'Faces of Facebook' Aggregates All 1.2 Billion Profile Pics

Got some time on your hands? You can spend 36 years scrolling through Faces of Facebook.

The site, created by freelance technologist Natalia Rojas, aggregates all 1.2 billion or so Facebook profile photos and claims to arrange them chronologically, starting with Mark Zuckerberg.

You can also log in to see where you fit into the picture. (The author of this story, who joined Facebook in 2008, was No. 249,759,340, but an unscientific analysis by Mashable employees suggests the numerical rankings may not be accurate.)

On her site, Rojas offers the following explanation:

Because there we are, all mixed up: large families, women wearing burkas, many Leo Messis, people supporting same-sex marriages or r4bia, chihuahuas, Indian gods, tourists pushing the Leaning Tower of Pisa, selfies, newborns, Ferraris, studio black and white portraits, lots of weddings but zero divorces, ID photos, faces framed in hearts, best friends, manga characters, political logos, deep looks, love messages, eyes memes, smiles, sweet grandparents and some not-yet-censured pictures.

Which number are you?

-Mashable

Charge Your Smartphone With Fire! FlameStower Turns Your Campfire Into A USB Phone-Charger

Charge your gadgets with fire! FlameStower, a startup that came out of Stanford’s StartX Summer 2013 class, has launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to get its alternative charger to market.

The gizmo lets you harness the heat from a campfire/gas stove/naked flame heat source to add some juice to a phone or other USB-charged device. It has a max power output of 3W and an average output of 2W, which its makers say can yield between 2 to 4 minutes of phone talk-time per minute of charge

The team behind FlameStower are targeting outdoorsy types, first and foremost, but also reckon their device could be a reliable back-up option to keep in store for use in power outages and storm scenarios.

In keeping with camping kit, the FlameStower folds down to a fairly flat profile so you can chuck it in your backpack.

And unlike the other outdoorsy/back-up option of solar-powered chargers, this bit of kit can work at any time of day — provided you have access to FIRE!

How does FlameStower work exactly? It creates and harnesses a temperature differential to generate electricity using its Thermoelectric Generator. The user exposes its metal blade to a flame to heat it up, while the other side is cooled by a small water reservoir that they fill with water. So really you need both fire and water for this to work. Oh and air, to fuel the fire. It’s elemental.

The hotter the fire, the more charge will be outputted. Albeit, the amount of energy generated is never going to match what you get from a wall outlet. FlameStower’s makers liken its output to charging via a laptop USB port. Which is to say slow and steady, giving you time to appreciate the great outdoors scenery.

The East Palo Alto team behind the device are hoping to raise $15,000 on Kickstarter to get the charger to market — and are around half way there, with 28 days left to run on their campaign.

They are offering the FlameStower to early backers for $70 ($10 off its expected retail price) and are aiming to ship in December.

-TechCrunch

Gmail For Android Updated With Card-Style Layout

Google’s Gmail application for Android is being updated with a new design which will bring Google’s now preferred “card style” user interface to the Conversation View within the app. This layout, which Google popularized through its Google Now search application, has become the new go-to design paradigm at Google, arriving across other Google products and services, includingGoogle Drive, the new Google Wallet apps, Maps, Google+ and elsewhere.

It mimics the idea of using index cards, and fits somewhere between minimalism and skeuomorphism, as Fast Company’s recent deep dive into Google’s design process explained.

In Gmail, cards will be used to better highlight multi-person, threaded messages in the app’s “Conversation view,” allowing for a “new, cleaner design,” states the company in a post on Google+ this afternoon.

In addition, the app will include other design tweaks, like checkmarks for multiple message selection which makes it easier to see which emails you’re about to move, delete or archive en masse. And the app will alert you in your inbox if account sync is turned off for some reason, to help keep you from missing messages.

Though some users are already seeing an app update in Google Play, not everyone is seeing the updated design just yet. The rollout is a staged one, so your mileage may vary, as they say.

News of the updated Gmail app comes on the heels of some serious issues which affected Gmail’s delivery times for an entire day on Monday. Even now, it seems the damage to the Gmail brand continues – many people have called me today, for example, saying, “oh, I thought I’d dial you since I just don’t trust Gmail right now.” That may be why now is a time for a little good news from Gmail… well, good news if you actually like the card-style layout, that is.

-TechCrunch