Back in August, I wrote a post that rounded up some of the easiest methods for getting around email attachment size limits. Lots of people run into these limits when trying to send large files over email — especially from corporate, school, or ISP provided email accounts — and it can be hard to know you’ve run up against it until the person you were sending the file to reports the email didn’t go through. Keep reading for an update and expansion on that original post — many of the services I originally wrote about have changed, and some new ones have come along.

What’s Changed:

TransferBigFiles.com. When I wrote the original post 8 months ago, TransferBigFiles was my favorite method for getting around attachment size limits. All you had to do was upload a file and enter the email address of your recipient and they would receive an email with a link to the file. Well, the site still works that way, but instead of having a 1GB per file limit, it’s now 100MB. If you sign up for a free account, it’s 250MB, but that still constrains you to dramatically smaller files than you were able to send before (though 250MB should be more than large enough for most any photo or audio files you wish to send, and most video files should work as well). You will now also need to sign up for an account to use most of the features of the service, such as password protecting the file or including a message to the recipient. Paid accounts start at $5 a month, let you transfer files up to 2GB. Overall, TransferBigFiles is still a useful service, but now you may need to sign up for an account, and you’ll have to look somewhere else if you want to transfer really big files.

FileDropper.com. FileDropper hasn’t changed dramatically, but it has gotten less convenient for those wishing to use it to email files. The service still lets you upload files up to 5GB for free (and with paid accounts up to 250GB). However, when you upload the file, instead of giving you a link to that file (which was easy to copy and paste into an email), it now gives you a link to a page from which you can download the file (after entering a captcha). This adds a step to the process, and could prove confusing to the person you’re sending the file to, especially if they’re not computer-savvy.

What Hasn’t:

Gmail. Gmail still has an attachment limit of 25MB, which at the time was the largest of the email providers out there (and plenty big for most pictures, audio files, or Office documents). However, they have been surpassed by…

What’s New:

Hotmail. The new Hotmail, which launched earlier this month, now reigns supreme as the free email provider with the largest attachment limits. Using Hotmail, you can send up to 200 files, each of which can be up to 50MB (which allows you to theoretically send 10GB worth of files in a single email). Hotmail does this by uploading the file(s) to Windows Skydrive, a service which gives you 25GB of free online storage, and then including links to the files (or a gallery of thumbnails in the case of images) in the email. This method has both pros and cons. The biggest upsides are that you won’t be hampered by your recipient’s attachment size limit, and that your files won’t be taking up space in you or your recipient’s email accounts. However, because Skydrive has a capacity limit you may find that you run into it, which would mean having to clear things off of it before you could use it to send more large files. You can set your attachments to have an expiration date (90 days by default), which will be important to keep Skydrive from getting filled up if you are using Hotmail to send files frequently.

Related Posts:

• Get Around Those Pesky Attachment Size Limits
• iPhone OS 4.0 (iOS 4) — Run Though, Impressions, and Tips
• Gmail Tips and Tricks

This morning, I downloaded the latest major software update for the iPhone and iPod Touch — iOS 4 (renamed from iPhone OS). I’ve been playing with it all day on my iPhone 3GS, testing the new features and exploring how it performs and what it can do. I have an extensive run though, some thoughts and impressions, and some useful tips.

iOS 4 is available now for all iPhone 3G and 3GS users, though original iPhone users have been left out and iPad users won’t get it for a few months. To get it, you just need to plug your iPhone into your computer and hit update, but if you don’t have iTunes 9.2 yet you’ll have to upgrade to that version first.

Let’s run through things one at a time:

General Impressions

It’s fast. Rather, on the 3GS the new OS is noticeably snappier than the previous version (3.1.1). Icons seem to fly around and I haven’t run into any noticeable lag, even when running many apps in the background (which I’ll get to below). That said, reports from users of the iPhone 3G are that the new software is not any faster on that device, but it isn’t purported to be any slower either.

It’s pretty. Not only can you select a background wallpaper for the homescreen (you can check mine out in the post image), but the look of the dock has changed to more closely resemble the one in Mac OS X and some of the icons (notably the calculator) have been made a little more attractive. iPhone 3G users are apparently not able to set their own homescreen wallpaper, but it should be noted that these changes are purely cosmetic.

Multitasking

It’s the big, headline feature of iOS 4, and so far it seems to work as advertised. Multitasking allows apps (or rather, specific features of apps) to run in the background while you are doing other things on the phone. For instance, I can listen to a station on Pandora while surfing the internet, or answer a phone call while using a GPS app without losing my guidance. Apps have to be specifically updated to run in the background, so many or most of your non-Apple apps won’t work in the background right off the bat. The first thing to do after updating to iOS 4 is to hit up the app store to see which of your apps have updates and download them, so you can take advantage of the new features right away. It should also be noted that iPhone 3G users won’t get multitasking – apparently the 3G doesn’t have the processing power to handle it.

How multitasking works: When you hit the home button and the part of an app that supports multitasking is running, it will stay running. So, if you’re listening to a song in Pandora, or are getting GPS voice guidance, and hit the home button, it will keep playing (whereas before it would cut out), even if you open other apps. Other apps that don’t actually have something going in the background will ‘freeze’ in place, so that when you open them up they should be in the exact same place they were before you froze them. This means that you can browse the web a little, go check your email, and come back to Safari without fear that you’ve lost your webpage. For that matter, you could start a page loading in the background while you go and check something else.

To see which apps are frozen or running in the background, you double click the home button. This brings up the app switcher, which pops up from the bottom of the screen and shows you the icons for those apps. Clicking an icon takes you directly into the app — this means you can move from one app to another without having to bounce to the home screen first. If you have more than four apps open, swiping to the right will take you to the rest of them. In my experience, once you open an app for the first time it will appear in the app switcher, with the apps most recently being those furthest left.

A few app switcher tips:

Swiping left on the app switcher will provide playback controls for whatever music player you are currently using/were using most recently (such as iPod or Pandora). You will also find an icon there for locking the screen orientation into portrait mode, which could be useful in some instances.

Multitasking performance is remarkably good. Switching apps happens really fast (with a neat little animation), and streaming music in the background did not seem to affect the performance of other apps. In fact, even as I opened more and more apps, I did not notice the phone slowing down at all. Now, I haven’t had the chance to use a really heavy duty app, such as a turn by turn GPS program, but so far the phone has handled everything I’ve thrown at it.

The other big question is battery life. It’s too early for me to tell if running all these apps in the background has really affected the phone’s longevity, since it’s spent most of the day plugged into the computer getting updated.

Folders

Users can now group the applications into “folders”, which allows them to name them under a shared icon. Clicking the icon (which is a box containing a grid of the apps it contains) opens the folder and lets you click any of the apps it contains. To create a folder, you hold and drag one icon onto another, and name it. For some reason, there seems to be a limit of 12 apps per folder, which I found a little annoying. Also, and this is my opinion, the folder icons do not look nearly as good or distinctive as most of the application icons they’re replacing, which can leave your screen looking boring and make it hard to quickly find what you’re looking for.

iBooks

iOS 4 grants the iPhone access to Apple’s ebook reader and store, iBooks. iBooks isn’t automatically included on the phone – you must go into the app store and download it yourself (it’s free). It comes with one book — Winnie the Pooh — and using the built-in store you can buy many, many more. If you have iBooks on the iPad, logging on will automatically sync your library (including your notes, bookmarks, and current location in the books) between the two devices. I will do an entire post with my impressions of the iBooks software — look for it in the next day or so.

Email

Many people are really excited about the new email features, which include threaded email (like you see in Gmail) and a unified email inbox for users with multiple email accounts. Unfortunately I haven’t gotten to use those features since I only have one email account and don’t like threading, but they reportedly work as advertised.

Lots More Tips

Zoom in the Camera: The camera now has a 5x digital zoom. To use it, tap once on the screen while in the camera app, and you’ll see a zoom slider which will let you move in and out. It should be noted that with a digital zoom, you’re not actually zooming in. You’re essentially doing the same thing as cropping the image on the computer — moving in on a portion of what’s being picked up by the image sensor and blowing it up, which will detract from the quality of the image.

There are lots of other small changes to iOS 4. For instance, you can now search your SMS messages using a search bar at the top, use a longer alpha-numeric password to lock your phone, and tether your phone to your laptop once you set up your plan to allow for it with AT&T. I have not gotten to try all these features yet, but several of the ones that I have not touched on can be found at this fairly comprehensive Gizmodo post.

Wrap Up

So far, iOS 4 has more than lived up to its promise. Multitasking, folders, and all the other improvements seem to work, and work well. Moreover, performance is quick (at least on the 3GS), and I have not had the phone freeze, crash, or even stutter in the one day I’ve been using it.

My only gripe is that the iPhone 3G is getting a watered-down version of the OS, and the original iPhone has been left out entirely (despite having the same processor as the 3G). I get that Apple wants people to upgrade to the latest hardware, but it seems unfair to their loyal customers who just want to hold on to their still-functioning phones.

Nevertheless, I feel like my phone has a lot more utility and functionality than it did this time yesterday, and to that I can only give a big thumbs up.

Related Posts:

• Article: Apple’s Next iPhone
• Apple’s Long-Term Strategy for the iPad
• The iPhone 3GS: My Impressions

I offer tips and tricks for getting most out of Gmail in an article for the Occidental Weekly. Many businesses and schools (including Oxy) have been switching over to Gmail, and Google’s email interface can take a little getting used to. This guide should help make the transition a little easier, and provide knowledge that will be helpful to all Gmail users. Here’s the article lead:

The Gmail interface is different from most other e-mail programs, and it can take a little getting used to. But if you take the time to learn the tricks and nuances of Gmail, it can prove to be a quick and efficient program. Whether you’re using Gmail reluctantly or lovingly, these tips should help make dealing with your Oxy e-mail (or any Gmail account) easier.

Click here to read the whole story >>

A complete archive of all my writing for The Occidental Weekly, including past Tyler the Tech Guy articles, can be found here.

Spend enough time on corporate or ISP provided email, and eventually you’re going to run into a situation where the file you need to send is too big — you click ‘send’ and get an error message, and the person you’re sending it to gets nothing. These caps on email attachment size often aren’t explicitly stated, and it can be hard to know you’re going over them until you realize that the person on the other end never got your file.

I ran into this problem the other day when a person was trying to send me some large image files for a project I was working on. The problem was actually on his end, but nevertheless I went searching for solutions. Here are a few easy ones that should get the job done in almost any situation.

Gmail

Just last month, Google raised their attachment size limit to a healthy 25MB. That gives it the largest attachment limit of any of the major email providers (that I know of). 25MB should be enough to attach most files you would consider sending via email — including images, music, or a Powerpoint presentation stuffed with effects and animations.

If you don’t already have a Gmail account, creating one is free, fast, and easy, especially if you already have a Google login. A lot of people really like Gmail because of its fast web interface, good IMAP support, and large disk space, but even if you’re not willing to give up your main email provider it’s easy enough to create a Gmail account just for sending files and using as a backup.

Of course, even with an attachment limit of 25MB, you’re still constrained by the attachment limit of the person on the other end (unless you can convince them to create a Gmail account too). Plus, sometimes 25MB just isn’t enough. In these cases, one of the following services should come in quite handy.

TransferBigFiles.com

TransferBigFiles.com is really simple. You click to upload the file(s) of your choice, enter the email address of the person you want to send it to, and hit ‘send it!’. Done! The person on the other end will get an email with a link to download the file.

The service is free (they’re in that stage where they’re still trying to figure out a way to make money), and doesn’t even require signup. Their maximum file size is 1GB, which should honestly be large enough for just about everybody. Any kind of document, image, or audio is easily under 1GB, and practically all video comes in under 1GB as well. (Actually, if you’re trying to send a file bigger than 1GB, I don’t know what you’re doing trying to email it in the first place.)

The service keeps your file on their servers for 5 days or 20 downloads (whichever comes first), which is a relief for those who have privacy concerns and are nervous when their files are on other people’s servers, but a disadvantage to those hoping to use the service to host something on the web forever.

To make things more secure, you can add a password to your file so only your recipient (who you’ll have to tell the password to) will be able to open it.

TransferBigFiles was the service I used to overcome my large images problem, and the other person was able to send the files easily and without a hitch.

One important thing: remember to include a personal message with the file, so the recipient will know who’s sending them the file and what it is. Otherwise, your recipient could get confused — and he or she will probably delete the cryptic email from an unknown source that just showed up in their inbox.

File Dropper

If 1GB just isn’t big enough for you, take a look at File Dropper. This service lets you upload files up to 5GB — and that’s just to start. With a paid account, you can upload files up to 250GB in size (at that point, they might as well just make it unlimited).

With File Dropper, you upload one file at a time (you can’t send a group of files at once, like you can with the other options). Once it’s uploaded, it’ll give you the URL where the file is hosted. At that point, it’s up to you to copy and paste it into an email and send it to your recipient.

You can do also other things with that URL, such as linking to it in places outside of email. Unlike TransferBigFiles, File Dropper keeps your files their server forever (as long as they’re being downloaded), which means you can essentially use it as a web host for your files.

A free account lets you upload files up to 5GB, but features such as password protecting your files, making them private, or even deleting them requires a paid account, which start at $0.99 per month.

Related Posts:

• I’m giving the Mozilla Thunderbird email client a try…
• My Favorite Firefox Addons, Part 1
• Article: Web Browser Faceoff

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