Well ok.. Perhaps that’s going a step too far.. However oneway offers a quick and easy way of uploading files to either FTP or SSH sites direct from your ‘right click’ context menu.
The application is a tiny 1.6MB download, and has barely any foot print at all. Once installed all you need to do is find the file you want to upload, right click on the file and choose Upload To.. from your context menu. This will then launch the connection creation form, where you can specify what you want to connect to and which remote folder you want to upload to:
Once completed, the details added are stored and a new context menu is added to the list. The next time you highlight a file and click it Oneway will automatically upload the file to the directory.
This really is a quick and simple way to upload large or small volumes of files.
You can download OneWay here (Requires OS X 10.5 or higher)
Online storage solutions seem to be popping up all over the place thick and fast. Each featuring it’s own good and bad points. One of my favourite’s is Dropbox. As with many online storage solutions drop box features it’s own feature rich desktop client. The client is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and some mobile devices. Some of the clients features include: File Sync, File Sharing, Online Backup and Web access. For a complete list of features check out the website.
One of the best points of the Dropbox client is it’s ease of use. The local Dropbox file system is just like your native file system and fits in seamlessly with it’s surroundings. The only give away being the slightly different icons and different context menu.
The context menu (right click) gives you access to some of Dropbox’s main features from inside your local Dropbox location. Features include ‘grabbing’ the public URL, navigating to the Dropbox webpage and reverting to a previously backed up file.
Each file stored inside the local Dropbox folder contains an addition to it’s icon, in the form of a tick. This is a quick and easy way of checking the status of files in your local and remote Dropbox locations.For example, Dropbox has the ability to make files you place inside the ‘Public’ folder available to download by anyone who you pass the link onto. So if you copy a file into you local DropboxPublic folder, wait for the green tick to appear then right click on the file and click ‘copy public link’. Your clipboard will now contain a link to a public version of the file you have uploaded. An example of this is a PDF file stored in my public dropbox: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4204803/burgerking.pdf this is a collection of promotional vouchers for a popular fast food chain. This method works with almost any file and on any version of the Dropbox client.
The Dropbox service also offers a web-based front end to your ‘Dropbox files’, thus giving you the ability to access your files from anywhere in the world with an active internet connection. This combined with the ability to Sync the contents to as many devices as you want creates quite a powerful collaboration solution, for groups of people who work on large numbers of files.
The sync’ing also gives you a seamless background backup solution, ensuring that all your critical data is backed up without you having to do a thing!
The online storage can even be used to host a simple website which you can share with your friends and family.
Dropbox accounts are completely free if you are happy with the 2GB’s of storage, however if you are hungry for more you can upgrade your account to either 50GB or 100GB’s of storage space for a small monthly fee.
If you are interested in finding out more information about Dropbox, or in signing up for an account you can find their website here.
If you spend allot of time uploading files to FTP sites then you may well find this automator add-on invaluable. Essentially this enables you to create a ‘drop box’ type folder in which you can drop files. Then hit the Automator application shortcut, which will automatically ‘chuck’ them up to an FTP folder of your choice.
This is a whole load easier then opening your FTP client each time and logging in then navigating etc etc etc.
To give you some ideas of what you could use this for, I have a couple of variations.. I use one to upload screenshots to a location on my web server for my blog posts. I also have one for uploading important backups to another FTP location. The download also comes with an example workflow to upload to a dropbox account. Perfect if you like drop box, but don’t like the cumbersome dropbox client.
There is also an example which resizes the images before it uploads them!
You can download the add-on from the official homepage. Alternatively download a copy of the XCode source from here.
I guess if you wanted to build on this script, you could even program it to monitor the folder for changes and upload as soon as it happens..? The possibilities are endless.
All iPhone owners will already be aware of the lack of features in the built in iPhone camera app. It was a bit of a disappointment if you ask me.. However, the people of at Joby have released the new Gorillarcam app. Which sports some pretty nifty features, plus it’s completely FREE!
As per the screenshot on the left, the Gorillacam app is capable of:
- Self-Timer – Set your camera up on your tripod and set the timer for that family group shot, no longer will your beautiful face be missing from your pictures!
- Time-lapse – Set your camera up to take a shot every 10 seconds, to achieve a perfect time-lapse collection, handy for stop start animation perhaps?
- 3 Shot Burst – handy for catching those all important action shots, one press of the button gives you 3 shots 3 seconds apart.
- Bubble Level – does what it says on the tin, perfect if you are using your iPhone on a tripod and want to achieve perfect level photos
- Grid – again, pretty self explanatory – split the screen up into grid squares, handy for getting something in perfect centre of your shot.
- Press Anywhere – is a nice feature, enables you to take the picture by tapping the picture and not the small capture button ilke in the built in iPhone app.
Overall the app seems to perform pretty well, my only comments are due to the way the app accesses the camera and camera roll it seems to be a bit slow at actually saving the pictures. Which isn’t an issue for me, but if you need instant access to take the next shot then this isn’t for you.
Still, overall I think for free the app plugs a lot of holes in the iPhone’s picture taking capabilities.
Joby are also the boffins behind the fantastic Gorillamobile which is a flexible. mountable device stand.
