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I don’t know about you, but I’m the “computer guy” to a lot of my friends and family. When people have a problem with their computer or they can’t connect to their wireless router, they give me a call. I don’t mind, really, because I enjoy helping these people with these things that I usually already know the answer to.

One issue that kept coming up over the years was how to get people to send me files (large pictures they needed resizing, video they needed edited or posted to a blog) when they were either too large or too numerous to easily e-mail.

I tried having them compress and / or split them into smaller files and having them e-mail me those instead. This usually involved me having them download and install some software and walking them through the compression and splitting processes. I’ve also tried setting up an FTP server, giving them an account, and explaining to them how to upload their files to it. Most of the time they didn’t have any FTP software installed or had problems understanding how they can drag-and-drop files onto Internet Explorer to upload them to an FTP server.

Windows File Sharing always had issues with firewalls or routers: We could never see each other. And boy did they balk at me asking them to open up or forward ports or disable their firewall altogether. (”Won’t I get hacked? Isn’t that dangerous? I don’t want to get a virus!”)

Even when I needed to send them files I would have to upload them to a web server, wait for that to complete, then send them an e-mail with the URL for them to download it. Sometimes their computer would choke up in the middle of a large download and they’d have to start the download all over again. Sometimes the files were incomplete or corrupt. There was just no quick and easy way to transfer files with people without having them download and install special software or configure their network or firewall in some special way to get the job done.

Well, that is, until now.