Maybe you use Dropbox or a similar service. Or, chances are you stick one end of a USB cable into your phone and the other into your computer.  Come on, we’re not talking about an iWhatever here. We’re talking about Android, and there’s a way to ditch the USB cable. All it takes is a wi-fi connection and an app called WebSharing.

WebSharing turns your phone into a web server, which you can access using a browser on your computer. Let’s take a closer look at how it works.

Getting Going

The first thing you’ll need to do is install the WebSharing app. You can find it in the App Market or by scanning one of the QR codes on this page. There are two versions of WebSharing: lite and full. The lite version lets you do basic file management. The full version, which costs $2.99, adds features like multiple file upload, WebDav access, and viewing multimedia files. Give the Lite version a try first — it might be enough for your needs.

Turn on your phone’s wi-fi, then start the WebSharing app. Before you do that, though, add a password.  While WebSharing generates a password for you (and displays it on the app’s home screen), it’s only four characters long and changes each time you start the app.

To add a password, tap the Menu button and then tap Settings to open the Owner Access screen. From there, tap Owner account password. Type a password, then tap OK.

Go back to the main screen and tap Start. WebSharing will display a URL. Just type that in your desktop web browser and, when you’re prompted, enter your password. Then you’re ready to go.

Working with WebSharing

It’s pretty much like working with any desktop file manager. Right click anywhere to create a new folder on your phone, to delete files, or move files and folders around. Probably the most useful feature in WebSharing, and the one you’ll use the most, is uploading and downloading files.

To download a file, right click on it and select Download Selected. If you want to download multiple files, CTRL-click them. Then, from the File menu on the left side of the screen select Download Selected.

Uploading works in pretty much the same way. Just right click anywhere and select Upload Files. In the popup window, search for the files that you want to upload and then click OK. Depending on the size of the files, the upload can take a few seconds to a few minutes.

On top of that, you can view or listen to any photo, video, or audio file by double clicking on it. WebSharing also gives you at-a-glance access to your photos, music, and videos. Just click one of the tabs at the top of the window in your browser.

You don’t get mere thumbnails, but decent-sized previews. And when you click the Music tab, you can stream the songs on your device to your computer. Yes, it is great at parties!

WebSharing is a simple and useful app. It lets you escape the tyranny of the USB cable and efficiently move files between your Android-powered phone and your computer.

Photo credit: giggs from Morguefile.com

The post Move Files Between Your Android Phone and Your Computer Without Wires first appeared on Techerator.

Email has made sharing and moving files a bit easier. Slightly. Some people block messages with attachments, others use email systems that limit the size of attachments. Those attachments get stripped from a message or the message gets bounced, something you don’t want to happen.  That’s where web-based file sharing apps are a boon. Ones like Dropbox and Box.net are great, but they can be a bit more cumbersome.

Enter Ge.tt.

Ge.tt bills itself as an instant, real-time file publishing and sharing service. If you need to share one file or a bunch of them, Ge.tt makes doing the sharing files simple and easy.

Getting going

Head on over to the Ge.tt website and start uploading. While you can upload files right from Ge.tt’s main page, it might be worthwhile signing up for an account. The account is free, and lets you remove files at will. On top of that, with an account you can track who has accessed your files. In case you’re wondering, the service automatically deletes files that haven’t been touched for three months.

Regardless of what route you take, get started by clicking the Create share button. From there, search your hard drive for the file that you want to upload. That can be any kind of file — a document, a video, or a photo.

A couple of things happen. Ge.tt uploads your file (and uploads it pretty quickly, too) and creates a shortened URL for it. That comes in handy with the next step of the process.

Sharing your files

Your file is on Ge.tt’s server. Now what? Time to spread the word. Remember that shortened URL? You can post it to Facebook, Twitter, or send it by email. All you have to do is click an icon on the page that lists your shared files.

With Facebook and Twitter, clicking the icon takes you to the login page for whichever service you choose. After you login, you can post the URL to your friends and followers.

Click the email icon to open an email form. From there, type the recipient’s email address, enter an optional message, and click Send. Unfortunately, you can only share your files with one person at a time. If you want to share the file by email with more than one person, just copy the URL and paste it into a message in your favorite email program or service.

Yea or nay?

If you’re looking for long-term storage for your files, or to synchronize them between your computers and devices, Ge.tt probably isn’t what you’re looking for. But if you need a quick and easy way to share, say, a video that you took with your Flip cam, then Ge.tt is definitely worth a closer look.

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It’s no big chore to share your pictures via email, but it’s not the most sophisticated way to distribute them either.  So, you may ask, what are the tech-savvy using to share their family photos this holiday season?  A new web service called Min.us.

Min.us is making some noise and may even upset the current king of photo sharing simplicity – imgur.  Min.us boasts a two word motto: “Share simply”, and it allows you to do just that.  The site cleverly uses drag and drop, right onto the web page, which is a first for any image sharing service I know of.  It also automatically creates a “gallery” of the images you have dropped into your browser, making it easy to rename, delete, rearrange and share your pics.

After sharing the gallery link, your recipient can choose what pics they want from the group and then download just those pics into a zipped file.  Neato!

Additionally, min.us allows for all the same things as other popular sharers, like linking to a single image, and has support for JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, and APNG file types.  Near the picture’s direct link you’ll see the dimensions and file size – it’s like everything you need to know, right there on one page!

Probably the most notable feature of all is the way min.us uses an effective navigation system which is controlled either by click, or by using the directional keys for skimming through the gallery pictures quickly.  The only restriction is that images are limited to 7MB, so the biggest challenge of sharing your photos might be explaining to grandma how to compress those holiday memories from her new 12 megapixel camera, ha!

Update: Since writing, there have been more updates like the option to file browse OR to just drag and drop.  Follow site and blog updates here.

The post Easily Share Photos this Holiday Season with Min.us first appeared on Techerator.

Why use ShareTool?

Let’s say you have a Mac at home and a Mac at work, or maybe you travel a lot and can’t take all your files (like your music) with you. ShareTool provides the perfect solution for these problems: it allows a person to access his/her home computer from any place with an internet connection.

For example, I keep my relatively large music library on a Mac Mini at home. I work on an iMac at work. I can’t transfer all my music to my work computer and then worry about it being synced, kept up-to-date, etc. – so I turn on ShareTool at home, turn on ShareTool at work, and my iTunes library pops up under ‘Shared’.

The real beauty of ShareTool is how invisible it is. Once you’re connected, everything shows up on your Mac exactly like you are connected directly to that remote network.

Not just music

While ShareTool is great for iTunes sharing, that’s not the only thing it’s good at. Any Bonjour services that are enabled on your home computer are accessible to ShareTool (via System Preferences>Sharing).

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve needed a file on my home computer while I’m at work or away on vacation. ShareTool makes file sharing as simple as mounting an external drive since it adds the home computer right into the sidebar of Finder.

Screen sharing is also available through ShareTool and it’s a joy to use. One click and you’re controlling your home computer. This feature is also very useful for a quick preview of larger files.

While ShareTool may not transfer files as intelligently as software like Dropbox, it’s great to be able to browse my entire desktop at any time.

Negatives

While I don’t have much to complain about with ShareTool, there are a few downsides. My biggest gripe is that the host computer needs to remain on for it to be useful. This is a rather obvious point but it does mean more electricity usage. There are some options for remote waking of computers, but I haven’t had a chance to fool around with those.  Luckily for me the Mac Mini is so power efficient I haven’t noticed an increase in my electric bill.

The only other thing I have a slight issue with is the need for ShareTool to be installed on each computer that’s being used. It’s not just a process that runs on the home computer; a ShareTool license must be purchased for each unique Mac. For their part, Yazsoft does a pretty good job of offering bundles for ShareTool and their other Mac apps (SpeedDownload for faster downloads, and Playback to enable media sharing with PS3, Xbox 360, or other UPnP devices).

Conclusion

If easy sharing between Macs is what you need, ShareTool is the way to go. It’s cheap, easy, and works really well. At $20 for one license or $30 for a bundle of 2, this program is a bargain.

What other Mac apps do you use for screen sharing? Let us know in the comments.

The post ShareTool Offers Super Easy File Sharing on a Mac first appeared on Techerator.

Dropbox offers the next generation of file transfer and sharing with a multi-platform software that is available in both free and paid versions.  The different pricing options are show below.

Dropbox is available for many different platforms including:

• Windows
• OS X
• Linux
• iPhone
• Web interface

Multiple platforms can be added to a single Dropbox account.

How it Works

When files are added to any of the Dropbox folders, they are automatically transferred any other device that is joined to the Dropbox account.  Users are then able to open their Dropbox folder on another computer and see the same files.  Dropbox also keeps previous versions of files.  To restore a previous version of a file, simply right-click a file and select Previous Versions from the Dropbox menu.

Public Folder

Automatically included with your Dropbox is a Public folder.  Anything place within the public folder has the ability to be shared with anyone across the internet.  To share a file in the Public folder, right-click the file and select Copy Public Link from the Dropbox menu.  Paste the link into an email, instant message, or website and your file will be publicly available.

Shared Folders

One of the most useful features of Dropbox is the ability to have Shared folders with other Dropbox users.  Shared folders works just like the rest of Dropbox.  Any files placed within the shared folder are updated on all of your Dropbox connected devices along with all of the Shared folder users’ connected devices.

Dropbox Tips

So now that you know about the file sharing capabilities of Dropbox, you may be interested in some of the other creative ways people are using their Dropbox:

• Host an HTML website
• Sync your passwords with KeyPass
• Sync your Firefox profile
• Sync your Pidgin Profile

Above are just a few of the ways that you can use Dropbox.  Checkout the Dropbox Wiki for a list of tips and tricks.

How has Dropbox helped you?  Do you use Dropbox in any creative ways?  Let us know by commenting below.

The post Dropbox: Take Your Files Everywhere first appeared on Techerator.

Once you’ve installed a virtual operating system, you might want to access files that are stored on the host operating system.  VirtualBox offers a feature called ‘Shared Folders’ which will allow you to share files between the host and guest operating systems.

Linux Host with Windows Guest

Steps performed in host (Linux)

1. Verify that the guest virtual machine has been shut down.
2. Open the terminal from Applications > System Tools > Terminal
3. Enter the following, substituting the virtual machine name, shared folder name, and the path to files on the host.

VBoxManage sharedfolder add “virtual machine name here” -name “shared folder name” -hostpath “/path/to/files/here“

4. Start the guest operating system.

Steps performed in guest (Windows)

1. Start the guest operating system from the host.
2. Install Guest Additions from Devices > Install Guest Additions.  Note: You will need to restart.
3. Open the command prompt from Start > Run… > cmd.
4. Enter the following into the command prompt, substituting the shared folder name entered in step 3 above.

net use p: \\vboxsvr\shared folder name /PERSISTENT:YES

5. Adding the /PERSISTENT:YES to the command will mount the share at every boot.
6. You can also change the drive letter from p: to any other you wish.

Windows Host with Linux Guest

Steps performed in guest (Linux)

1. Start the guest operating system from the host.
2. Before Guest Additions can be installed, some dependencies need to be installed using the command below.

sudo yum install kernel-headers kernel-devel gcc

3. After the dependencies have been installed, you can install Guest Additions from Devices > Install Guest Additions.
4. Open the terminal and enter the following line

sudo cd /media/VBOXADDITIONS_(VirtualBox Version Number)

Once the guest additions have been installed, you will need to restart the guest OS.

5. When the guest has restarted, open Shared Folders from Devices > Shared Folders… from the guest window.
6. Click the Add New Shared Folder icon on the right of the window, or press the Insert button on your keyboard.
7. At the Add Share window, select Other… from the Folder Path drop down and select the path of the folder on the host that you wish to share with the virtual guest.
8. In the Folder Name enter a name of the shared folder, such as MyShare.
9. Click the Make Permanent checkbox if you wish to keep the changes and click Ok to close the dialog.
10. Open the terminal and enter the following command to mount the shared folder.

sudo mount -t vboxsf sharename mountpoint
Eg. sudo mount -t vboxsf MyShare /home/dustin/Desktop/Shared

11. The above command will not keep the shared folder mounted after restarting the system.  To mount when starting the system, you will need to edit your fstab as shown below.

sudo nano /etc/fstab
sharedname mountpoint vboxsf defaults 0 0
eg. MyShare /home/dustin/Desktop/Shared vboxsf defaults 0 0

12. Your shared folder will now be mounted at boot.

Once the above steps are completed, you will now be able to access files on your host operating system from your VirtualBox guest operating system.

The post How to Setup Folder Sharing with VirutalBox Guests first appeared on Techerator.

The initial screen in Airsharing displays a list of files and folders on the device, as well as the IP address of your device which can be used to view and upload files through your web browser.  Airsharing is capable of viewing many different types of files, including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, PDFs, and images which is extremely useful for viewing files on the go.

To protect your data, Airsharing comes equipped with security options such as password protection as well as sleeping after a period of inactivity.  Airsharing also offers the option of keeping your device password-free, which is convenient if you’re using it exclusively on a secure private network.

Connecting to your device via a web browser is as easy as entering the provided IP address into your location bar, but for a more permanent connection method you can use the included instructions (accessible via the ? button) to mount the device as a network drive.  I found this very to be very practical when transferring multiple files because the browser-based uploader only allows one file transfer at a time.

Do you have any suggestions for expanding the storage uses of your iPhone/iPod Touch?  Share them in the comments!

The post How To: Use Your iPhone/iPod Touch as a Wireless Flash Drive first appeared on Techerator.