Clip2Net: Free and Speedy Collaboration Tools

Many web workers are remote collaborators, and if you’re like me, e-mail and online storage sites are among your primary collaboration tools. If you share a lot of files, folders and screenshots with others, take a look at a freeware application called Clip2Net. It lets you select an area of your desktop and upload it online in an instant. You receive a link to the image and also code to use for publishing the image on a blog or site. Uploading files and folders to share is also very fast and easy.

Clip2Net is all about speed. Historically, for example, when I’ve wanted to publish an image from my screen to the web I’ve reached for an image capture tool such as IrfanView, then I save the file I’ve captured locally, and then I might upload it using a service such as Flickr. Clip2Net anticipates that these steps go together, and eliminates the need for multiple applications.

You don’t have to register to use Clip2Net, but I recommend doing so, because you get more control over what you upload and share if you do. You get access to 500MB of storage space for your files and images if you register, and you can manage what you upload with more precision.

Clip2Net has added access to the PicNik image editing service to its mix, so you get most of the same features that you would expect in a dedicated image editor. You can set hotkeys for automatically, say, capturing your desktop, and you can also capture videos of your screen activity if you want to, say, demonstrate a task to a remote colleague.

Sharing files and folders with others is a drag-and-drop process, and 500MB of storage space is more than you’ll find on many competitive services. However, if you routinely share files that you need to be very secure, I might recommend one of the more security-enhanced online storage solutions, such as Box.net’s or XDrive’s.

The best way to get to know how to use Clip2Net is to watch the video demos available online. If you, as I have, have become used to running multiple applications when sharing information with colleagues you may very well find that this one alone does the job.

What collaboration tools have made a difference for you?

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