GigaOM » Collaboration

8 iOS apps that make it easier to go paperless

Amber Singleton Riviere — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:25:16 +0000

Several factors are making us shift more toward going paperless: the need to be mobile and location-independent, greater speed and convenience, an increased awareness for going green, not to mention our need for pinching pennies in today’s economic climate.

Now, with the advent of things like smartphones, tablets, and the iPad, new applications designed for those devices are making it easier and more practical to go paperless.

Penultimate: Your iPad notepad

Penultimate by Cocoa Box turns your iPad into a notebook, allowing you to jot notes and create sketches in multiple colors, separate them into notebooks by topic or project, and then email all or part of your notes in PDF format. It even includes three built-in “papers” (graph paper, unlined and ruled), but you can import images of different backgrounds or papers — or download paper packs — to create your own texture or style. Price: $1.99.

SignMyPad: Simple contract sign-offs

The Android- and iPad-compatible PDF reader SignMyPad has built-in annotation functionality, allowing you to sign and date PDF documents right from your iPad and then email it to another party. You can also save documents into versions for gaining multiple signatures, and the app can import documents from and save them to Dropbox. Price: $3.99 for the basic version, $19.99 for SignMyPad Pro, which adds geolocation tagging.

MyFax: Fax without a fax

If you work with clients or colleagues who still use fax machines, MyFax’s mobile faxing app, available for iOS and Blackberry, lets you send and receive faxes from your smartphone and via your email account. Just snap a photo of the document you want to send (the app is optimized for sending photos of text), choose the recipient from your Address Book and send. To fax by email, attach the document to an email message, address it to the fax number plus an @myfax.com and send. To receive a fax, simply give out your MyFax number, and your received documents will be available as an email attachment. Price: Free app, service costs $10/month after a free trial.

JotNot: Turn your iPhone into a handheld scanner

JotNot lets you scan from your iPhone, email the scan as a PDF or image, and fax the scan to U.S. numbers. You can add pages to documents, creating a multi-page scan, as well as delete and reorder pages and send documents to EverNote, DropBox, or Google Docs. JotNot can scan and save a variety of documents, including receipts, business cards, and notes. Price: Free.

DocScanner: Simple scanning

DocScanner is a scanner app for the iPhone, Mac, Android, Qt, and the Symbian S60 that allows you to scan documents simply by taking a picture. It then automatically crops everything other than the document out of the picture and even detects your document’s paper size. Other helpful features include the ability to search multiple-page documents, as well as words within documents. Price: $4.99.

Business Card Reader: Quickly add new contacts

The multi-platform Business Card Reader from SHAPE Services lets you take a photo of a business card, and then it “reads” the picture, extracts the contact data, and enters it into your smartphone’s address book. The built-in browser even lets you check out a new contact’s LinkedIn page right from the app. Price: $4.99 for multi-language support, $3.99 for Asian languages only.

OfficeDrop: Scan to the cloud

OfficeDrop‘s app scans documents directly to the cloud for storage and sharing. The ScanDrop desktop app is available for both PC and Mac, but the iPhone and Android Scanner apps allow you to scan and upload documents using your smartphone. Once uploaded, the document’s text is searchable, thanks to OCR, and sharable with colleagues. Price: Free

Square: Easy payments and receipts

Square, available for Android and most iOS devices, lets you accept credit card payments directly from your smartphone and uses “smart receipts” to send to customers via email or text message. You can create a display with photos and prices so that customers can view your products directly from your iPad, for example, and then keep track of the number of sales you’ve made in a given day. Price: Free app and reader.

Image courtesy of Flickr user mattjiggins

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Share screenshots with Dropbox Screen Grabber

Simon Mackie — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 21:04:13 +0000

A while ago I wrote about Grabbox, a nifty Mac OS X utility that allows users to share screenshots via Dropbox. Today I stumbled across an equivalent app for Windows: Dropbox Screen Grabber. It allows you to take screenshots using a predefined hotkey combination and then instantly uploads them to your Dropbox public folder, while the URL of the uploaded file can placed on your clipboard to make sharing the screenshots really easy.

You can elect to take screenshots of the whole screen or just the active window. Dropbox Screen Grabber actually has a few features that make it a little more versatile than Grabbox: You can redefine the hotkey combination; automatically resize screenshots before uploading them; and control which Dropbox folder they are uploaded to. You can also use it to automatically upload screenshots of your desktop at predetermined intervals, which could be useful if you want to monitor or record a process, for example.

Dropbox Screen Grabber is a free download from the Dropbox Addons wiki. Users of multi-monitor setups beware: it has a known bug that means it will only take screenshots on the primary monitor.

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ShareFile offers enterprise-friendly file sharing features

Charles Hamilton — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 11:58:10 +0000

There are a huge number of apps file sharing apps available including Box.net, Minus, FileShareHQ and Accellion. Another option in this very crowded market that is billed as being “exclusively focused on small business/enterprise features” is ShareFile.

ShareFile is worth checking out if you’re looking for a business-oriented file-sharing service, as it offers many features that you’d find in most of the other file sharing services, plus a few that won’t be found with more consumer-oriented solutions:

Security, user and file management

Files transmitted and stored with encryption
Tracking and alerts to confirm that clients have received files
Granular folder-level permissions
Bulk load client users from Outlook or spreadsheet
Activity reports showing who uploaded and downloaded files and when

File access and transfer

Upload individual files up to 10 GB
FTPS over SSL transfers, compatible with traditional FTP clients
Map a local drive letter to ShareFile account
Automatic resume of interrupted transfers
Access via the web, an Outlook plugin, and through desktop, iOS and Android apps
API and command-line tools
File versioning
Full-text search
Ability to request file copies on DVD or hard drives
Ability to send a DVD or hard drive for initial population of files

Customization

Custom branding
Tools for your website, including a login widget and an upload form

Not all of the above features are available with all pricing plans.

ShareFile told me how one of its customers, a worldwide restaurant chain, uses the service to make creative materials available to their franchisees. The same customer’s HR department uses ShareFile to send sensitive employment documents.

The company boasts data centers on the U.S. East and West Coasts, as well as in Ireland and Singapore, but provides telephone and email help from a U.S.-based support staff.

ShareFile is available in several pricing plans, ranging from $29.95 a month for two employee accounts and 5GB of storage, to $499.95 per month for 150 accounts and 150GB of storage. All plans include unlimited client users. A 30-day trial is available.

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GoDropBox allows people to upload files to your Google Docs account

Simon Mackie — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 21:05:48 +0000

UPDATE: GoDropBox has been renamed GoFileDrop.

GoDropBox is a nifty third-party add-on for Google Apps that adds a public mailbox to your Google Docs account, enabling anyone with the appropriate link to upload files to your account. This is handy for web workers who would like to accept files that are too big to email and don’t want to have to use additional file transfer tools.

Once installed via the Google Apps Marketplace, you’ll be given a unique URL that you can then forward to other people, which allows them to upload files to your Google Docs account through their browser (they can only upload files and don’t have the ability to read or otherwise access your account). The upload page is fairly basic, as shown in the screenshot above. It is easy to use and supports drag and drop, allows batch file uploads and can show upload progress. Uploaded files appear immediately in your Google Docs account.

The installed version of GoDropBox is only a trial, offering up to 100 users on a domain just 50 MB of data allowance each. Additional data is priced at $5 for 2 GB per month, $9 for 5 GB per month, or $15 for 10 GB per month (subscriptions can be canceled at any time).

Note: Confusingly, despite the name, this has absolutely nothing to do with file-sync-and-sharing service Dropbox. Also, in order to use it, you’ll have to be a Google Apps user and an admin will have to install it on your domain.

(via Digital Inspiration)

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As email passes 40, is a midlife crisis in the cards?

Andy McLoughlin — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 12:04:56 +0000

A few weeks ago, electronic mail, or email as it’s now affectionately known, hit the respectable age of 40. When Ray Tomlinson, a young computer engineer, sent the first email in 1971, he could only have guessed how it would impact the way we communicate in both our business and personal lives.

Email has transformed the way people shop, bank, communicate with family members and do business. Now an essential tool for approximately one billion mobile workers across the globe, email continues to dominate the way in which we communicate.

Four decades since the first message – believed to be “QWERTYUIOP” – email seems to be going strong. But is it about to hit a midlife crisis? With web workers now using more sophisticated collaborative apps and social business tools to communicate and share information, are we going to see email’s reign come to an end?

Email is a great communication tool. You can get in touch with business colleagues, family and friends at the touch of a button. Gone are the days of waiting by the front door for a letter from uncles and aunties across the globe, or sitting by a fax machine waiting for that signed document to come back from a client’s legal team. However, email isn’t a collaboration tool. Anyone who has tried to collate feedback from numerous colleagues on a document over email knows how painful the process can be. No one seems to remember which version the team is working on and there is always that one person who sends over some (supposedly) final amendments overnight. Hours can be wasted waiting for emails to go back and forth, searching through inboxes for missing documents, and putting large files onto CDs, USB sticks or FTP servers due to file size restrictions.

It is little wonder then that web workers across the globe are turning to the likes of Dropbox for storing and sharing files. Store your files on one computer, and they’ll automatically appear on your other computers with Dropbox installed. Simple. Indeed, Apple has finally joined the party and realized that emailing photos from your phone was so 2010 — its forthcoming iCloud service will provide a far smarter way to move your content between devices. Evernote is another popular tool with remote workers, enabling you to quickly capture anything. Whether it’s a photo, a screenshot or a web site, whatever you capture is stored, processed and made searchable. And, of course, there’s Huddle. Being cloud-based, Huddle enables you to manage your projects, files and people on any device, from any location.

With social networks making it so easy to stay in touch and share information with people in their personal lives, the demand for such simplicity in the workplace has increased. Take Facebook, for example: You can message your friends, share your photos and videos (and every other aspect of your life should you so wish), and co-ordinate events from wherever you are. With more than 500 million active Facebook users spending 700 billion minutes per month on the site, and more than 200 million people tweeting, email’s grip on our personal lives may well be coming to an end.

For business, however, it’s a different matter. Yes, there are tools being used to make our working lives easier, but removing email from the workplace completely will require more than just introducing intuitive, easy-to-use tools in the office. It requires a change in habit. Email is deeply entrenched in our daily working lives and moving to other tools will require a culture shift. Any new tools and services need to be integrated into processes from the outset of a project / program / campaign so that people become accustomed to using an alternative tool. And this is before you start the mammoth task of introducing client and partner companies to your amazing new tool. While email may not dominate workplace communication in another 40 years, there’s life in it yet!

Andy McLoughlin, Co-founder and EVP Strategy at Huddle, can be reached on Twitter @Bandrew.

Photo courtesy Flickr user ilamont.com.

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Egnyte adds easy file sharing to Windows, Mac OS X and Outlook

Charles Hamilton — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:15:01 +0000

Egnyte, a file management, sharing and backup system I wrote about last fall, has been updated, and has added several ways to simplify accessing and sharing files in the cloud.

The company now offers add-ons for Windows Explorer and the Mac OS X Finder that allow users to right-click (or control-click) on a file and be offered the opportunity to send or share that file directly from the desktop, as part of Version 6.0 of Egnyte’s Personal Local Cloud application. An Outlook plugin with the ability to share files as links or attachments is also available. In addition, Egnyte includes the ability for enterprise IT departments to enforce limits on file sharing and other security policies.

Egnyte positions itself as “Dropbox for the enterprise,” since it provides secure means of allowing workers to access their files while giving IT departments the control and security they need. The Egnyte “Local Cloud” service that synchronizes on-site and cloud storage is also popular in enterprises.

The folks at Egnyte told me that their product is becoming increasingly popular in large, 1,000+ person operations where mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous. In fact, in a recent study, up to 40 percent of the access to Egnyte’s service came from mobile sources, with the iPad being the single most popular device. Egnyte’s mobile apps are proving very popular, with more capabilities and other platforms coming soon.

The “Dropbox for the enterprise” space is getting more crowded, with the likes of Accellion and Box.net also offering enterprise-friendly secure file sharing and backup features. Egnyte will be hoping these updates help to keep it up with the pack.

The service is available at several price levels, and a 15-day free trial is available.

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Soonr Brings Cloud-Based MS Office Document Editing to the iPad

Aliza Sherman — Mon, 23 May 2011 17:04:47 +0000

The iPad can be a handy remote working tool, but only to a point. So far, tablet computers seem to have been more useful as “data consuming” tools than genuine work devices. One stumbling block I’ve found is the inability to easily edit documents that you’ve stored in the cloud. Until now, that is.

Soonr is the first cloud file storage service to offer integrated editing for Microsoft Office documents on the iPad. Unlike cobbling together of file storage apps such as Dropbox and SugarSync with editing apps such as QuickOffice and Documents-To-Go, Soonr brings it all together so you can directly edit any files stored in the cloud using a single app. No configuration, no hassle, no cross-app interdependency. It also works offline when you don’t have a Wi-Fi connection and will sync back up when you do. And you can store, share, access, search, edit and sync your files from any tablet securely through Soonr.

Available both on iTunes and the Android Market, Soonr offers a 30-day free trail. A Premium account costs $7.95 per month for three users with 10 GB of storage, while Soonr Pro is $19.95 per month for five users and 40 GB of storage. Soonr supports Mac and PC, and mobile devices including Android, iPhone and BlackBerry; and iPad and Android (Honeycomb) tablets. The Soonr editing feature currently supports Microsoft Office 2003 (Excel, PowerPoint, Word) and Microsoft Office 2010 (Word only) files.

Here’s a short video demo of Soonr’s editing function:

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Chatbox Adds a Collaboration Layer to Dropbox

Simon Mackie — Thu, 19 May 2011 21:02:38 +0000

Chatbox is a Mac app that adds simple collaboration features to popular cloud file sharing and storage service Dropbox. It allows you to post status updates and comment on the files stored within your Dropbox account, and even chat in real-time with other Chatbox users. Cleverly, all communication and storage is done via your Dropbox account, so there’s no need to register a separate Chatbox account, and the app will also work offline, syncing data when an Internet connection becomes available.

The Chatbox application’s window has a fairly basic interface: a field for entering status updates or comments at the top, with a pane showing recent updates underneath. It’s a fairly basic app, but if all you need is a simple way to discuss, comment on, or annotate the files you store and share via Dropbox, it works pretty well. A couple of minor criticisms I have of the app: There doesn’t appear to be a way to edit or delete Chatbox updates that have previously been posted, and also it’s not immediately obvious how you associate a Chatbox status update with a particular file. (You need to right-click on the file and select “Show Chatbox” to bring up the Chatbox window for that file; any updates are then associated with that file).

Dropbox isn’t the only file storage available, but its popularity and open API mean there’s a thriving ecosystem of third-party apps built on top of it. Chatbox is a pretty useful add-on (not bad for what was apparently a weekend project), but I wouldn’t be surprised to see developers building on this concept and bringing out more full-featured and polished collaboration apps for Dropbox.

Chatbox is a free app currently in beta and only available for Mac OSX; you can download it here. It requires a Dropbox account.

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SecretSync Adds Client-Side Encryption to Dropbox on the Fly

Simon Mackie — Tue, 17 May 2011 21:04:36 +0000

Although popular cloud file sync service Dropbox does encrypt files that are uploaded using it, if you want to be completely sure that your files are secure, you should encrypt them yourself — that way, an attacker won’t be able to access your data, even if your Dropbox account is compromised CompletelyPrivateFiles’ app SecretSync is an on-the-fly client-side encryption tool that provides you with a secure folder; any files added to that folder will automatically be encrypted before being synced with your Dropbox account. Providing you also have SecretSync also installed in any other machines that you use, decryption is also automatic.

Once your files are encrypted, even if someone gains access to your Dropbox account, they won’t be able to access your data, as the image below shows:

SecretSync is very similar to BoxCryptor, another client-side file encryption app for Dropbox that we’ve covered previously. Once installed both apps are completely transparent in use, encrypting and decrypting your data on the fly using the 256-bit AES standard before uploading your files. Although SecretSync works in a slightly different way to BoxCryptor — SecretSync puts an encrypted folder on your hard drive that’s linked to your Dropbox account, while BoxCryptor provides an encrypted virtual hard disk — they both effectively provide the same on-the-fly encryption of specified files. Like BoxCryptor, SecretSync is currently in beta and is only available for Windows, although the SecretSync site notes that clients for Linux and Mac are on the way. There’s no indication yet if there are any plans to charge for the service.

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Digital Filing Service OfficeDrop Now on Android

Aliza Sherman — Thu, 12 May 2011 16:00:04 +0000

OfficeDrop, an application for scanning, accessing and sharing paper and digital files via the cloud has been rolling out onto a variety of platforms. The company has announced that the OfficeDrop Paper-to-Go app for Android is now available, in addition to existing applications for Mac Windows and iPad.

The free Android app can be downloaded through the Android Market, and will soon also be offered through the Amazon App Store. It provides more functionally than the current iPad app as it allows you to take a photo with your phone’s camera in lieu of using a scanner, giving you more flexibility while you’re on the go. The text contained on the documents you photograph becomes searchable, in the same way that text in documents scanned in through the OfficeDrop desktop app do.

Using OfficeDrop, you can connect a scanner directly to many cloud storage apps, including Evernote, Dropbox, Google Docs and OfficeDrop’s own digital filing cabinet, which allows users to organize, search, share and access documents from anywhere. If you’re concerned about security, the Android app and the other OfficeDrop apps and services use a fully encrypted system to protect your files and data.

OfficeDrop also offers mail-in scanning services, similar to Shoeboxed, where you can mail documents to the company and have them scanned and added to your account. Its online Digital Filing System starts at $9.95 per month for 10 GB storage ($44.95 per month for teams). Mail-in scanning services start at $19.95 per month for home office use and up to 50 scanned pages per month, going up to $99.95 per month for the Paperless Team account.

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25 Apps for the Virtual Worker’s Toolkit

Aliza Sherman — Wed, 04 May 2011 15:02:07 +0000

Working remotely means not having the easy access to the machines and systems you used to when you were cubicle-bound. That means no no bottomless supply closet, no access to conference rooms or presentation tools like projectors, fewer face-to-face meetings. As you work increasingly in the cloud, what are the basic tools you need — and where do you get them?

Here is a list of five basic categories of tools all remote workers should have at the ready, and a variety of options to consider for each category.

Document Collaboration and Workspaces

There is a bit of a blur between virtual workspace and project management tools. These tools emphasize collaboration:

1. ideapi. Recently reviewed by Simon, this is a simple online tool for creating documents and collaborating on discrete sections of the documents.

2. Glasscubes. I’ve been using virtual workspace Glasscubes for a while now. Here’s my latest post taking a fresh look at the app.

3. Binfire. A free solution that lets you “manage projects by adding members, creating tasks and milestones, and assigning responsibility.” Here’s what else Amber has to say about Binfire.

4. Hyperoffice. A collaborative suite bundling email and communication, project management, database management and group meetings. Reviewed here by Amber.

Project/Task/People Management

Some of these tools also offer collaboration features, but they are more focused on managing tasks and people and getting things done efficiently.

5. Huddle. Many moons ago, we reviewed Huddle, and the team collaboration space is still going strong.

6. Cohuman. Delegate, assign and prioritize tasks with others for free. It even integrates into Google Apps. Simon published a screencast about this app.

7. Teamly. A collaboration tool with an emphasis on priorities, as Thursday explained in her initial review.

8. ProjectTurf. A collaboration app for running a project including briefs and time cards. Thursday reviewed it here.

9. Zcope. Simon felt this combined project management and collaboration tool had a lot of potential. It has slightly more advanced project management features than many of its competitors.

10. Mavenlink. This SaaS app neatly integrates project management, collaboration and invoicing. I reviewed it recently.

11. Microproject. Simple, online project management for the smaller team. Here’s our review.

12. Wrike. We’ve covered Wrike several times, including most recently when the company added mobile apps to its project management and collaboration solution.

Desktop Sharing/Presentation/Web Meeting Tools

GoToMeeting is one of the leaders in the desktop sharing/web meeting space (did you see the announcement of its Skype integration?), but there is an array of other useful remote presentation tools out there:

13. iMeet. Elegantly combines video and audio calls with document sharing. I reviewed it in March.

14. join.me. A no-registration, free screen sharing app that fills a gap now that DimDim is now defunct. We’ve praised it here on WWD before, including announcing its iPhone app.

15. yaM. An app to streamline the process of holding meetings including planning, scheduling and note taking. See our review.

16. Zipcast. Slideshare’s quick presentation tool adding video and chat to your slideshows for public (free) or private (fee) presentations. Mathew reviewed it here.

17. CrunchConnect. Charles recently reviewed this web conferencing solution with an emphasis on sales.

18. FuzeMeeting. A fee-based video conferencing solution with collaboration features.

19. Yugma. Free and fee-based Web video conferencing with desktop sharing.

20. Zoho Meeting. Free for one-to-one video call meetings, or starting at $12/month for up to five participants.

File Storage/Sharing/Syncing

Giving the entire virtual team access to files – especially big ones – without having to email them back and forth is critical for remote work processes.

21. Dropbox. Store and share files in the cloud securely, and get access to them from your mobile device. Ryan covered the latest version of Dropbox late last year.

22. Box.net. An enterprise-friendly file sharing and collaboration, reviewed most recently by us here.

23. SugarSync.We’ve written about this file sharing and backup solution before including most recently about new features for its iOS app.

Miscellaneous Useful Cloud-Based Tools

A couple of online tools that help you do things that previously required pricey desktop software.

24. Diagram.ly. Simon recently reviewed this easy-to-use site for creating flow charts and other diagrams.

25. Tom’s Planner. A Gantt chart-based planning tool, with easy drag-and-drop functionality; it’s now iPhone and iPad compatible.

What are some of your must-have tools for remote work?

Image courtesy stock.xchng user spekulator

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Xobni’s Gadgets Bring Third-Party Collaboration Tools to Outlook

Charles Hamilton — Tue, 03 May 2011 19:00:37 +0000

Xobni, a popular productivity add-on for Outlook that automatically displays additional information about email contacts, has announced that it is making available “gadgets,” third-party additions to Xobni that will allow well-known collaboration tools as Yammer, Chatter, Dropbox, Evernote and Salesforce to become an integral part of the Outlook interface.

The first crop of gadgets includes tools for web-based document sharing, lead tracking, issue reporting and monitoring, and note-taking, such as:

An Evernote gadget that automatically displays notes containing the name or email address of a particular contact, and allows adding and editing.
A Dropbox tool for finding files and sharing them by creating links that are entered into email messages. Drag-and-drop file sending is planned for the future.
A JIRA bug tracker tool that allows programmers to update project status inline.
A Google Translate tool that automatically translates entire conversations, both incoming and outgoing. Xobni says that the translations are good enough to be helpful for use in customer support.
A WebEx tool to schedule meetings, and start them on the fly.

Other gadgets available today include:

Productivity: GoldMail
Collaboration: Huddle and Microsoft SharePoint
Content: Facebook, Flickr, Hoover’s, Klout, LinkedIn, Twitter, Xing, YouTube, Yelp
CRM: Salesforce CRM

Xobni was one of the first companies to bring “social CRM” services to the inbox, but has more recently seen significant competition from the likes of Rapportive, Gist and Liaise. By hooking into third-party services, the gadgets can offer offer additional capabilities not offered by Xobni’s competitors.

When I spoke with Xobni representatives recently, they said that the rationale for developing this platform was simple: research shows that in the enterprise, people spend 38 percent of their screen time in Outlook, so it makes sense to make Outlook as capable as possible.

Xobni says that its system relies on open APIs, and it is based on OpenSocial. Developers can create their own gadgets; they can be created with straightforward web development tools. The infrastructure can even be hosted on intranets to take advantage of corporate LDAP servers. Gadgets are not yet part of Xobni for Gmail beta, but they are on the way.

The new Xobni gadgets are available from the company’s website. Most of the Xobni Gadgets are free, but the JIRA and Saleforce gadgets are priced at $9.99 per user per year. Xobni handles billing and payment for developers.

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Email Files to a Dropbox Account With Send to Dropbox

Simon Mackie — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 12:05:22 +0000

Ever wished you could send email attachments to your Dropbox account just by forwarding them to a special address? With free service Send to Dropbox, you can do just that.

Authorize Send to Dropbox to connect to your Dropbox account, you’ll be provided with a unique email address (something like yourname_somerandomnumbers@sendtodropbox.com). Any emails you send to that address (by forwarding them or by including the address in the email’s “BCC:” field, for example) will automatically get processed by Send to Dropbox.

By default, Send to Dropbox will store email attachments as files in an “Attachments” folder in your Dropbox account, but on the settings page, you can instruct it to also save a copy of the email messages themselves (in either plain text or HTML format), as well as to extract any ZIP archives it encounters. In addition, you can modify the folder structure it uses:

In my testing, Send To Dropbox worked very well, providing a very simple way to get files out of email and into my Dropbox account — it’s particularly handy if you work from a mobile device, as all you have to do is forward emails. Of course, if you’re dealing with confidential information, the security of using a third-party app like this could be a concern. According to the site’s published privacy policy, Send To Dropbox only stores your Dropbox ID and doesn’t store the emails you send to it, and as it uses OAuth to connect to your Dropbox account, you don’t hand over your Dropbox password to the service. All that’s quite reassuring, but I wouldn’t recommend uploading particularly sensitive files using this app.

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SugarSync App for iOS Adds Remote File Updating, Easy Sharing

Charles Hamilton — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 09:02:54 +0000

SugarSync, a file sharing and backup service we’ve written about before, has updated its iOS app to version 2.2, and it’s a big improvement over previous versions.

Like a lot of my WWD colleagues, I’ve been a big Dropbox user. But the new version of the SugarSync app adds some unique and attractive features, including:

The ability to copy, move and delete files on a remote computer, and to copy files from one computer to another.
The ability to grab a public link to any file in your SugarSync account and email it. The recipient doesn’t need to be a SugarSync user to download the file.
The ability to add images from remote computers to the image gallery on your iOS device.

The SugarSync (iTunes link) is free for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch; it requires iOS 3 or later. SugarSync has a free 5GB plan (as opposed to Dropbox’s 2GB), as well as personal and business plans with a variety of storage levels and numbers of users. According to the SugarSync blog, there’s an Android app update in the works. Apps are available for other platforms, and there’s a mobile website as well.

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Accellion Offers Secure File Sharing For the Enterprise

Simon Mackie — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:05:34 +0000

Dropbox and Box.net have long been favorites of the team here at WebWorkerDaily, they make sharing large files with others a snap, and also work on a number of mobile devices. Thanks to their ease of use compared with clunky traditional file-sharing systems or FTP, these apps are also growing in popularity within the enterprise, too. But their use can give corporate IT departments headaches, particularly with regards to data security and regulatory compliance. Accellion, a provider of secure file transfer solutions, has announced Accellion Secure Collaboration, a new product that aims to bring easy Dropbox-style file sharing and collaboration to the enterprise, while also providing IT with the tracking and control to ensure data security and demonstrate compliance with HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley and FDA requirements.

The Accellion Secure Collaboration product should seem very familiar to anyone who has used Box.net or Dropbox. It provides secure workspaces where users can share files with both internal and external parties, complete with the ability to assign access privileges, share comments and track document versions. Files and folders of up to 100Gb can be transferred, and can also optionally be encrypted for added security. Mobile access is catered for, with an iPhone/iPad app (available late April), and BlackBerry and Android apps also in the works. Plug-ins are also available for SharePoint and Outlook.

A range of deployment options is offered, including virtual server, cloud (via EC2), hybrid cloud and on-premise appliance. Cost varies, but for smaller customers is likely to be in the region of $100 per user per year (dropping substantially for larger volumes). The Secure Collaboration product is available as an upgrade for existing Accellion customers. You can request a trial or run a demo here.

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Joukuu Manages Files Across Google Docs, Dropbox and Box.net

Simon Mackie — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:00:41 +0000

If you’re like me, you probably have files spread across a number of different cloud services, so you might be interested to hear about Joukuu, a Windows desktop app that manage files from Box.net, Dropbox and Google Docs.

Once set up to sync with your various cloud file accounts, Joukuu allows you to browse though your files, open documents by double-clicking, and move files between folders and accounts by dragging and dropping them. You can also delete files and create new folders. It works OK, but I have to say that are some shortcomings that limit its usefulness as an “all-in-one” cloud file manager. Firstly, there’s no built-in search feature, which will likely limit its usefulness if you have a large number of files to deal with. Secondly, although you can drag files onto the Joukuu window to send them to the cloud, you can’t drag files from the Joukuu window into other apps (to drop an image file into a document, for example). Finally, you cannot rename or share files. Only the Lite version of Joukuu is currently available, and it’s still in beta, so hopefully those features will be added in either a later or premium version. The developer also hints that later versions may support more cloud services and also become available for the Mac, too.

Joukuu Lite can be downloaded by signing up at the website. It requires the .NET Framework 3.5 or later.

(via Lifehacker)

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