transfer

Using an iPod to rebuild your music library

Last week some family members suffered a corrupted hard drive on their only PC. They had no backup. They're relatively light computer users--no online banking, no important business documents--but the lesson still hurts. Their e-mail contacts weren't too hard to recover--they simply called everybody they had regular e-mail contact with and told them to send an e-mail. Their digital photos are gone forever, unless emergency tech support courtesy of their son-in-law produces a miracle. And their music library?

That's one nice thing about having a large-capacity MP3 player: if you're lazy about backup, at least you … Read more

Microsoft's Fast unit probed over accounting

Microsoft's recently acquired Fast Search & Transfer was charged on Thursday with accounting fraud by Norwegian officials, Reuters reported Thursday.

According to the Reuters report, police raided Fast's offices in Oslo in order to preserve evidence.

Microsoft didn't mention the charges in a statement, but it confirmed that police showed up at its offices Thursday.

"We can confirm that the Norwegian Police for Economic Crime this morning conducted inquiries at Fast's offices in Oslo," the software maker said in a statement. "Microsoft and its subsidiary Fast Search & Transfer (are) cooperating fully with … Read more

Featured Freeware: Core FTP Lite

Core FTP Lite is a top-notch FTP client with a wide, uncluttered layout to keep things organized. Easy to use and lacking only the most advanced of features--like multisite connections--Core FTP is a must-have.

Major functions, such as Site Manager for maintaining connection information, Quick Reconnect, and mode switching, are given big buttons on the toolbar. When you're connected to a site, though, the file-management pane also replicates buttons for most of these functions so you don't have to mouse very far to use the tool you need. The client supports all essential FTP functions, including multiple transfers, … Read more

Yippie Move migrates all your e-mail for ten bucks

Thinking about switching e-mail providers but don't want to lose all the messages from your old in box? For $10 an account a service called Yippie Move will do all the heavy lifting for you. It works with about 40 various Web and educational e-mail providers, or with any account that supports IMAP. Just plug in the credentials from your old mail service with your new account and it will do the migration for you.

While advanced users could do all of this themselves simply by mass forwarding, Yippie Move is aimed at e-mail newbies and those who don'… Read more

What to do when the executive has no clothes

Technology executives are notorious for their out-of-proportion egos and hot-headed tempers. Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs-- even Andy Grove--are all members of a long list of distinguished high-tech executives who are famous for not suffering fools lightly, among other things.

But what happens when they're the fools? What happens when a high-powered executive has his head up his you-know-what and has lost all sense of objectivity? What happens when a gutsy employee speaks up? Well, in many cases he gets his head chopped off for his trouble. In shrink speak this is called transference, which in this case means unconsciously taking one's own feelings of inferiority and guilt out on another.

Given a choice, the vast majority of people would rather forgo the whole decapitation thing rather than declare that "the emperor (or should I say executive) has no clothes." Not surprisingly, this phenomenon is rampant in the technology industry.… Read more

Streamfile lets you send files to friends; malware to enemies

Got a big file you need to send to a friend or family member? You can either spend time uploading it to a hosting service, or start a one-time transfer that will be deleted from the cloud within 24 hours. Streamfile is a service that does just that and with a high level of simplicity, making it pretty close to perfect for sending large files to non-tech savvy individuals.

Just pick what file you want to transfer to your friend (up to 2GB in size) and the service will spit out two URLs for you to send either on your … Read more

First Look video: SmartFTP

Do you maintain a Web site or blog? If so, you've probably experimented with several FTP clients to keep your site up to date. While there are a lot of good File Transfer Protocol apps available, SmartFTP continues to stay high on our Most Popular list for good reason: It has the features you need and it's incredibly easy to use.

Whether you're a pro Web designer or are looking to start your own site, check out this First Look at SmartFTP, the affordable shareware FTP client with pro-level features.

Transfer AutoCorrect settings to a new PC

If you create custom AutoCorrect entries to speed up your typing in Microsoft Word as I described on Monday, you might need to move those entries to another PC someday.

Years ago, Dave Rado wrote a Word macro for backing up and restoring the program's AutoCorrect files. It still works for Word 2007--or at least it did on my PC.

First, make sure macros are enabled. In Word 2003, click Tools > Macro > Security > Security Level, and select either of the bottom two options. In Word 2007, click the Office button, choose Word Options > Trust Center &… Read more

Featured Freeware: FileZilla

Rich in Web content, short on cash? Open-source FTP application FileZilla is handy if you're looking for a feature-rich tool for Windows, Macs, and Linux machines to handle transfers and don't want to part with your bucks. The multilingual app caches directories to speed up browsing, and multiple secure connection options ensure that you can move files around without concern.

FileZilla supports all the major features you'd expect from a top-notch FTP client: bookmarking, a site manager, QuickConnect for fast switching on the fly, the ability to connect to multiple servers at once, and a powerful filter. … Read more

YouSendIt gets desktop help

I've found that I frequently use the large file transfer service YouSendIt to send big files, videos, scans, and pictures. And I've taken to recommending the service to others when I hear about a problem getting a file from one place to another. That's rare--usually the Web services I like the most are a bit too rickety to recommend to people with real lives and jobs.

But one thing about YouSendIt has always bugged me: the need to go to the browser to upload a file for transfer. I hate browser uploaders. Fortunately, the company just released … Read more