File Sharing With and Without Borders

With the advent of more convenient forms of communication, the activity of file sharing has become the norm in everyday life. No longer is it sufficient to send a postcard as you traverse various regions throughout your holiday travels. Take a quick photo on your mobile and send the image as a file to family and friends.

Common methods to share files with others start with the humble email and its option for attachments. Since web email providers lifted the ceiling limit on mailbox sizes, the magpie nature in all of us hoard all sorts of files received and sent. The thumb drive is another piece of staple accessory for most computer users. Some have even taken on to wearing them as costume jewelry or managing them like a prison guard's ring of keys as they walk around with a bunch of drives dangling from a lanyard. This veritable invention, also known as the flash drive, pen drive or memory stick, is excellent for file sharing. Whoever thought up this innovation ought to be enshrined in the halls of IT fame.

Did you know that mobile phones and portable music players also play an interesting role in the sharing of files? Depending on brands, by loading a piece of software into the phone, it then communicates with another computer with no problem whatsoever. As such, it is a step forward in driving the thumb drive towards redundancy.

If you are void of sharing devices, peer-to-peer sharing of files is an excellent option over a local area network. Create a folder for this sharing activity and configure it to allow access over the network. To safeguard your computer, it is best to limit access to known users as sharing a file with everyone is courting disaster. Place the file to be shared in said folder and let your known users pick it up over the network. Alternatively, computers with infra red ports can also send and transfer files via this protocol. This method is slower than transfer over the network and also requires direct line of sight between computers, placed in close proximity.

Above mentioned methods focus more on sharing files with individuals or specific groups. What if you want to share a file with everyone, friend or foe, known and unknown? Websites which provide these functionalities are probably the solution as they present your offerings to the world. Despite all this freedom, it is worth a precautionary measure to not infringe on copyrights if you are sharing a file to which you have no rights of ownership. Uncontrolled swapping of music files became the bane of song writers and producers, thus causing the shutdown of some file swapping sites. If you do not want to court unnecessary legal entanglements, it is best to accord rights where appropriate.