PCTips3000 » online storage

A Free 64-bit FTP Client For Windows, Finally!

Codrut Nistor — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:02:59 +0000

Ever tried to find a FTP client fully compatible with your 64-bit Windows Vista or 7? Obviously, there’s not only one program to fit the description, but when talking about freebies that work properly on 64-bit operating systems, things are getting really interesting… and today I decided to tell you a few words about a free 64-bit FTP client for Windows, namely Null FTP.

The Null FTP client is available as both free and paid versions (this one’s called Null FTP Pro), and while the free edition has some limitations, most average users won’t feel the difference. Anyway, if you want to know what you’re missing, you should know that the free version does not allow Z compression, can only work with 3 concurrent transfers and the number of registered servers is also 3. At last, the free version has a TCP buffer size limited to 128KB.

These being said, I should also add multilanguage support, integrity checks, and the fact that you get no additional restrictions when using the free version, except those already mentioned above. Null FTP’s current version is 1.3, the setup package has 5.8 MB in size, and… I guess that’s all. Have a nice weekend, folks!

Online Code Editor With Snippets

Codrut Nistor — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:10:03 +0000

If you’re a programmer in a hurry, there’s no need to download a code editor or use Notepad as long as there are plenty of better solutions online. No, I am not talking about downloadable software, but online services. Today, the time has come for Gist.GitHub!

With support for plain text and a really long list of programming/markup languages (syntax highlighting, obviously), Gist.GitHub can be easily used without creating an account, but having one can’t hurt, especially since it’s free for open source, and you’ll also get some special features with it. Anyway, I won’t get to those features, since exploring Gist.GitHub is really fun, and it doesn’t take too long, either.

If you were wondering about the official mumbo-jumbo, here it is: “Gist is a simple way to share snippets and pastes with others. All gists are git repositories, so they are automatically versioned, forkable and usable as a git repository.”

At last, you may want to take a look at the pricing for those developing commercial applications. Just take a look at this page, and I guess that’s all for today, folks!

Move Gmail Attachments Column To Left

Codrut Nistor — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:55:03 +0000

I don’t know about you, but I love Gmail. It may not be perfect, but when it comes to making it as good as possible, you only need to go ahead and try to improve it. Google Labs gives you the tools in most cases, all you need to do is spare some time to find out how to get things done. Today, we’ll learn how to move those attachement icons from the far right to the close left – at least that’s how I usually see things – most important stuff should be to the left… right, Beyonce?

Since there are a few easy steps to go through, I will stop wasting your time and try to make this as short as possible, so here we go:

1. Open Gmail and click on Settings

2. In the Settings screen, click on Labs

3. Scroll down to Move Icon Column (for most popular resolutions, this option should be visible without having to scroll down).

4. Check Enable, and then press Save Changes

Now, you can enjoy your Gmail attachments icons (and others) right after the stars/superstars icons. Pretty cool, don’t you think?

Notepad + Your Google Account = Love!

Codrut Nistor — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:35:05 +0000

Another week is ending, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to write. In fact, there’s always something to write, and if I don’t have a computer around, sometimes even my phone is enough, no matter the model (for example, some time ago I was using a Nokia 1100 to do that – I simply saved as many reminders as needed to save my ideas for later use). These being said, you’re probably asking yourselves what’s wrong with Google Docs, right? Nothing wrong, only that, sometimes, I may need something really basic – and fast!

Take Notepad, add your Google account’s user and password, put them together, stir well, and the result will be SimpleText! This Web-based text editor can help you save revisions of your documents, and the best part of it all is that you can host it on your own server, and maybe even mess with the code, since it offers an open source, public API. Excellent!

To make things even more interesting, there are a bunch of applications already supporting SimpleText, and if you simply want to write down your thoughts from time to time in a fast loading, really easy to use text editor that allows you to easily move from a computer to another without interrupting your flow of ideas… SimpleText may be one of the best choices around. That’s all, folks, enjoy this little black beauty, but don’t write down your credit card/bank information or other kinds of sensitive info in it, all right?

Less Accounting, More Work!

Codrut Nistor — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:55:35 +0000

I hate accounting, and this has nothing to do with the fact that one of my best friends is an accountant (and severely underpaid, unfortunately). This has more to do with the fact that I hate statistics, and these two always come together. Anyway, I don’t need an accountant, but if I would, I’d surely go for LessAccounting or something similar!

As you probably figured out already, LessAccounting is all about helping you keep an eye on your money, and it’s enough to say that, at least according to the official page, this service tracks over $500,000,000 daily, without including EUR! While you can even take advantage of the iPhone app to track your expenses and enjoy integration with PayPal, Basecamp, PostalMethods and a few others, there’s something you really should know…

… LessAccounting is not free, but you can try it for free for 30 days, so things aren’t that bad, after all. Features go as far as multiple types of Sales Tax, Mileage logs, or even Bank reconciliation, while pricing looks decent, so if you want to fire your accountant, now’s the perfect time to get him replaced with LessAccounting!

Rapidshare Alternative Of the Week – FileFactory

Codrut Nistor — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:19:14 +0000

Starting a new week with another RapidShare alternative can’t be a bad idea, right? After all, there are a lot of online storage services, and one simply can’t discover them all. You just find one that works well for your needs and start using it, but there’s always something better hidden behind the corner. Today, the time has come for FileFactory!

FileFactory allows you to upload files up to 1GB in size each absolutely for free, but also provides FTP upload capabilities to its Premium members (you’ll have to pay to become one, obviously), a free streaming music service, and a bunch of other goodies I am sure you’ll be delighted to discover.

Speaking about my own experience with FileFactory as a guy who just opened it up and upload a file, I should say that upload speed is really good (I uploaded a file having 434 MB in 10 minutes or so), but I can’t say I am crazy about all the ads present here and there. At least, I should also say that I don’t like the captcha you have to face when downloading a file, either. Oh, well, I guess you can’t always have it all…

All in all, FileFactory is surely one RapidShare alternative to try for free when you have to upload some large file. Hey, you can even get a Premium account if you need those features! Just be sure to get back here and share with us a few thoughts about the bang for the buck offered by this online service, all right? Good luck!

Rapidshare Alternative Of the Week – 2shared

Codrut Nistor — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 07:36:15 +0000

Last weekend, I enjoyed a little trip to a good friend of mine who’s living in a really beautiful town (from my point of view, it’s enough for a town to be hidden in the mountains to call it “beautiful,” but this one is more than just that). Anyway, the idea is that, despite the fact weather was pretty bad, I managed to end up with quite a few pretty cool pictures. As I arrived home, I got the memory card out of my camera, stuck it into my reader, then got all the pictures on my computer. Nothing out of ordinary, right? Once I packed the images, I simply used Google to find another RapidShare alternative to use… and I ended up facing 2shared in just a few seconds, so now I am going to tell you more about it, because it’s really one online service to bookmark, as you’re going to see right away!

To make a longer story short, I will only say these: no size limit (I didn’t try to upload any 20GB file, but it seems there are no problems with files up to 1GB… at least that’s what I can say after spending some time with this service), no annoying ads or captchas (that doesn’t mean 2shared is free of any ads, only that they don’t get annoying), and you don’t even have to create an account!

2shared also offers two really useful features – Search and Watch. While the first one’s purpose should be obvious, let me tell you about the purpose of the second one – it allows you to see what is being downloaded at a certain time, and some of the most recently downloaded files. If you consider this to be a privacy issue, just pack your files in password-protected archives, and then upload them to 2shared. That’s all, folks!

Image Search Awesomeness With Ginipic

Codrut Nistor — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:55:29 +0000

For a few years, I avoided applications that did nothing more but search stuff on the Internet and deliver it to my desktop. Even now, I can’t say I am crazy about desktop search programs, but Ginipic seems like a worthy piece of code, especially since I am really disappointed by Google’s Image Search… and if I can get search results from various sites like Flickr all in one place, that’s awesome!

To make a longer story short, I will only say that Ginipic can search images on Flickr, Google, deviantART, Photobucket, Picasa, and a few others, but it gets even better than that – you can also add some of your local folders as source! Once you get your results, you can easily set them as wallpapers, download them, print, post to your blog or share via a bunch of services like Mixx, Facebook, Reddit, and so on.

While playing with it, Ginipic only used about 10MB of memory, and results came up pretty fast. Sure, its speed may depend more on the speed of your Internet connection that that of your computer, but still… this surely looks like a nicely optimized piece of code (Windows only, unfortunately, and it also requires Microsoft’s .NET Framework 3.5 SP1), if you ask me!

That’s all, folks! I really enjoyed messing with this little piece of code, and I can only hope you’ll also like Ginipic and find it useful. Speaking for myself, I can only say that this one will surely remain in use on my computer for a really long time…

Share Your Images With PicturePush!

Codrut Nistor — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:23:46 +0000

When talking about photo sharing websites, most people will jump up saying “Picasa” or “Flickr,” and I don’t think there’s something wrong with that. On the other hand, there’s much more to this than just the giants, since there are plenty of smaller ones offering similar services, but only a few of them are able to match the storage space or features offered by the big ones. Obviously, I decided to tell you a few words about a little one that offers exactly what most people who want to share some of their personal photos need, namely PicturePush.

Just like most similar websites, PicturePush can be used to upload images even without having an account, but this way you won’t be able to create personal albums and so on. Anyway, it’s good to know that you can quickly upload images here in case of emergency (or when the space available for your account has run out). Users who got free accounts get 1GB of space, while Pro members will get unlimited space and no ads, as well as a bunch of other features, such as password-protected galleries or daily backup to Amazon S3, all for € 19.70 a year / $ 23.64 a year. That’s not bad at all, if you ask me!

Other than the above, I should add that best way to decide if this online service is worthy of your attention or not is to upload some files without creating an account to see how fast does that work, and then browse some of the existing galleries. Speaking for myself, I think that PicturePush is pretty fast, and the amount and placement of ads aren’t really annoying. So, what do you think – am I right, or not?

P.S. Did I mention you can also upload videos? Consider I just did it!

Rapidshare Alternative Of the Week – FileSend

Codrut Nistor — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:53:10 +0000

On the Web, there is no perfect site, only great ideas with room for improvement. That’s why giants like YouTube, Google Search or Digg got competitors – they may be great, but they’re far from perfection. Same thing goes when we’re talking about RapidShare – it’s enough to remind you of the wait time required for free users and those captcha texts and you’ll surely agree my little find today is much better. Sure, this one’s not perfect, either, as we’re going to see a bit later, but now please allow me to introduce you FileSend!

While its name may not be original, FileSend surely gets the job done properly. Every time I find a new tool from this category, there are three major things to check: file size limits, upload/download speeds, and ease of use (captchas and wait times surely won’t help here!). To be honest, I simply don’t care about the advantages of paid accounts. I paid for my hosting plan, I can host my files to share with friends there, I don’t want to pay for RapidShare or anything like it, got it?

With FileSend, the things look like this: without bothering to register an account, you’ll be able to upload files as large as 500MB (this is the upper limit, but you can get a free account and increase it to 1GB), upload speed is insane (as you can see in my screenshot, I went well above 400KB/s), download speed is really low (about 20KB/s or so, that’s all I managed to get), and – best of all – there’s no captcha and no waiting time when you’re downloading a file. Is this awesome, or what? Please give this online service a try and drop a comment below with your opinion, you won’t be wasting your time!