Mac|Life - August 2010

LINEBREAK CLOUDAPP

Turn to the cloud for lightweight, ultra-fast file sharing Considering how wired we are, the simple act of sharing a file with a coworker is way more complicated than it needs to be. If I ask Susie to grab a screenshot for a review, we always have to pause to figure out how she should send it. Should she email it to me, IM the file over, or put it up on the server? Where on the server should she put it? It’s a huge waste of time when you consider that all we’re trying to do is share a file. CloudApp aims to simplify the process of quickly sharing files and web links, either with your coworkers, or with friends on social networks like Twitter or Facebook.

CloudApp installs as an item in your menu bar. To share a file, all you have to do is drag the file from a Finder window to the little cloud icon at the top of your screen. If you have multiple files selected, the app uploads them all as a single ZIP file. As you upload a file, CloudApp copies a URL for your upload to your Clipboard, ready

CloudApp’s simple web interface offers tools for managing uploads.

for pasting into an email, Facebook post, or instant message. Even better, you can use a system-wide hotkey to instantly send whatever you’re working on to CloudApp. Through plug-ins called Raindrops, you can customize the application to work with everything from Firefox URLs to Photoshop files and tracks from your i Tunes library. Remarkably, there’s no limit to how much you can store in CloudApp.

By default, the links generated by CloudApp are “private,” featuring long strings of random characters. Changing a setting in the web interface will generate shorter “public” links—great for Twitter—but the distinction is mostly a word game. Nothing you upload is password protected, so everything is accessible to anyone who has—or can guess—the URL. Private links are only private by virtue of their being harder to guess. CloudApp’s minimal Mac application is backed by a web interface that shows all the files you’ve uploaded, allowing you to grab previously generated links to share again and delete files you no longer need. You can toggle files between public and private links via the web, but there’s no way to change the privacy level on files as you upload them from your Mac.

The bottom line. Privacy features are limited, but CloudApp is a great way to quickly and almost instantly pass a file to a colleague or your flock of Twitter followers.—Ray Aguilera