Our company is sending more and more data now via email and it is slowing the system down and causing chaos, i looked on the web and found this company where you send your files to a sevrer and your client gets notification and they can donwload the files taking email out of the equation completely (drawings in our case, lots of them)..
[url= http://www.sharefile.com/industries/Engineering ]SHAREFILE[/url]
anyone use such a system? any pointers?
cheers
For non-confidential stuff Dropbox works fine, although anyone who uses a cloud service for confidential information needs their head examining IMO.
Bear in mind what you'll do when the CEO phones after discovering that he has no internet access and can't get to his massively important Excel file that he desperately needs...
I use dropbox. It creates an automatic on-line version of everything in a particular folder which is great for making sure stuff is backed up. One folder in there is shared so I can send links. I even have a specific folder that a share with a particular client that whenever one of us puts a file in there it appears on the other person's hard drive. No need for manual upload/download at all.
That's why I like dropbox. It's great to have an actual copy the hard drive as well as in the cloudBear in mind what you'll do when the CEO phones after discovering that he has no internet access and can't get to his massively important Excel file that he desperately needs...
i use box.net i ftp images anything from 60meg to 1 gb, the files are there until i delete them.
you can password protect the folder, i don't really use the other features but i like the fact it emails you when somebody downloads a file, especially when its an urgent Monday morning job that doesn't get downloaded until Wednesday.
Mrs S company used to use dropbox fairly successfully.
The confidentiality problems of Dropbox's policy were never really an issue.
Dropbox for anything non important (ish) secure mail for anything remotely sensitive.
cheers all.. i'll take a gander
its not sensitive, we will use it 99% of the time to upload customer draiwng for approval.
at the moment our contracts guy sends them via outlook, it takes fekin ages, sometimes bombs out, then the customer replies with the drawings attached approving them, so he has two copies in outlook, sent items and inbox.
ive tried to get a good outlook house keeping policy in order but as the saying goes "you can't educate pork"
hence why i need something simple
You could just set up your own FTP server. If your company has a website then you may have one already. Or just put the drawings on your web server -- you can always .htaccess a folder for a tiny whiff of "security".
just a quick one...
it looks like i can set different folders up in dropbox, so could I SETUP..
Company A
Company B
Both have specific draiwngs for different projects, can I set permissions to the folders so Co A cannot open Co B's folder?
(hope that makes sens!)
🙂
Yup, create folders al you like.
Teeny word of warning mind.. Make sure you only select the files you want to upload via dropbox..
Only pointing out that as MrsBouy loaded all her photos via a sync and took flippin ages to get them all deleted.. Oh the fun I had.. hahaha
They are constantly evolving dropbox so it might have changed a bit but I think you have two options. Option 1 is to put stuff in a public folder which is public but you can't browse files, you have to share each file individually with a direct link. Option 2 is to create a linked folder that you and the other company have access to. This sounds closer to what you want but I think the other company will need a dropbox account for this (a free one will do). There is a dedicated dropbox forum on their website which is good for the more technical aspects.
aaahh just signed up, i shared a folder tot he web, am i correc tin saying they customer cannot see out local drives/network 'just the shre' on the web?
ok, had a dabble with that, think its a bit too intrusive for our customers, in that they have to create a dropbox account and download /install software to see the files. (faffing)
we need a totally seamless way, whereby our client just get an email with a link, click the link get taken to a page and just right click download the files...
hmmmmm...
[i]that they have to create a dropbox account and download /install software to see the files[/i]
nope, they can do it all via the web on dropbox. You can send them a link either to a folder or to individual files and they can download them via a browser. No account/software install needed to view/download files only to upload.
And if it is confidential then encrypt the data with PGP or similar. Given a 2048-bit key then Dropbox can't do owt with the data.
But the other side will need to know how to decrypt.
And if it is confidential then encrypt the data with PGP or similar. Given a 2048-bit key then Dropbox can't do owt with the data.
But the other side will need to know how to decrypt.
If installing Dropbox is "a bit too intrusive", I'd love to see how they get on with PGP 🙂
Still, Dropbox sounds fine for what the OP's needs - you upload your images, send them a link, and they download it. Set up a shared folder (only you and the client will be able to read it) and you can upload your images, the client can upload his comments, etc...
cheers all for the kind help, i'll give it a better test this afternoon.
thanks again!