geeky tutorials, tips, guides and reviews
Looking for a quick and easy way to search file sharing web sites like Rapidshare, Megaupload, Hotfile, Mediafire and more? The web site FilesBay does the job pretty well. Like your everyday, run of the mill search engine – you type in the phrase you are searching for and hit the enter key on your keyboard. There is no re-inventing the wheel here.
Convert Files promises to give you the ability to convert just about any file format to any other similar file format, for free. All you have to do is upload the file (or give them your file URL), select your input format, your output format and your e-mail address and they will e-mail you a link to the converted file.
Some of the file formats they will convert over include:
Archives – RAR to TAR, ZIP, TGZ, TAR.GZ
Documents – DOCX to DOC, ODT, RTF, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
Presentations – PPT to ODP, PDF, SWF
Images – JPG to GIF, BMP, PNG, TIF, PDF
Audio – MP3 to WAV, OGG, AAC, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR
Video – FLV to 3GP, AVI, MP4, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V
That is just barely scratching the surface on what this great online tool can do. After converting, the file will stay on their servers for up to a week before it is deleted. Also, as far as size goes, you can convert a file that is 100 MB in size or less.
For anybody looking for an easy way to convert a file from one format to the next, but don’t want to download any special scripts or software to do so, Convert Files is a perfect converting companion.
You can file this one under cool things I didn’t know I needed. File2.ws is a unique service that promises to convert anything into a web page. Fuffy kitten aside (because they won’t fit in your CD-ROM drive no matter how hard you try) it does a good job at delivering on that promise.
All you need to do is browse for the file you want to convert, and then hit the “start conversion” button. Some of the files it currently supports include:
Once uploaded, every converted file has a unique web address created for it, so you can point others to it and share the document in question. So if you are searching for a free way to convert any file into a web page, give them a shot at File2.ws.
Time to see what the latest tool looks like in the free image hosting world. This time around, I was asked to check out Pict.com. This web site is a free image hosting service that lets you “share your images in a single click”.
How do you use it?
After a short while, your image(s) will be uploaded. To share uploaded image move the mouse over the image and click "Share it" link. To view uploaded image just click on image thumbnail. The JPG, GIF and PNG image file formats are supported. Also at this time there no limit to the number of files you can upload and share.
To help out with ease of use, they even thrown in Firefox add-on. Overall, I would say this web site is well worth checking out if you are in search of a quick and light image hosting tool.
Need to find a file fast? Over the years, I have collected some of the best (and maybe not so best) free file search web sites out there. Here are the ten best resources to search for a file online.
What About Google? Of course, the ultimate alternative to all of these would be doing a file search in Google. How do you do so? Well, just start any Google search with filetype: and then put in the file type you want to search for. Taken from Google, here are the most popular file formats you may want to search for using this trick.
So if you are looking for a .txt file about hosting, you would type into the Google search box…
So, if you are searching for a file on the web – you might try these resources or this neat Google tip. Either way should get the job done for you.
I have another free hosting tool that you might want to give for a spin. UploadPedia is the most recent to catch my attention. You can upload up to 100 files at once, with the max being 100 MB. One interesting thing that they do is list all the top downloads and recent downloads that have been added to their service. If you are looking for privacy, this might not be the uploader for you. They do have a way to password protect your uploads though, so you don’t have to share if you do not want to. You can also search the files that have been uploaded too. From their terms of service, it looks like they accept any type of file, as long as it is not pornographic or copyrighted (or I guess both).
I am always in search of new and different free hosting setups from all around the Web. One of the most recent to catch my eye has been Filego.net. The maximum file size you can upload is 50 MB – and I couldn’t really find much as far as bandwidth limits go. With time limits your file will stay hosted as long as somebody downloads it at least once every 30 days.
Here are some of the benifits they mention on their web site:
With content limitations, looks like they really don’t have any. You could upload anything as long as it isn’t copyrighted material. Well worth a first or second look if your looking for a free file host and you can find them at Filego.net.
Sounding like the mumblings of a caveman, FileBig.com is on the scene and will allow you to upload up to 50MB per file to share with your friends, forum buddies and file sharing amigos. Here are a handful of the perks.
The promise a free file hosting experiance that can not be beat. You can use the web site interface to upload all types of files (as long as by all you mean .JPG, .GIF, .PNG, .TIFF, .BMP). It will allow you to easily share files on MySpace, Facebook, eBay, and more.
I ran into a problem yesterday, because I got a .docx file e-mailed to me and I could not open it. Why? Well from what I could tell this seems to be one of Microsoft’s wacky file formats that you can only open using their products. Since I use OpenOffice.org as my word processor, spreadsheet, and more of choice I needed to find a quick fix.
That is when I stumbled upon this neat tool provided by Microsoft. Get read for this name… the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats.
(Try to say that ten times fast!)
I downloaded and installed it, now I can right-click the oddball files, pick “Open With…” and choose this new download. When you do it pops up with a box asking you what you would like to convert it to. With my .docx file I just turned it into a regular .doc file and I was done.
Needing a good piece of freeware to undelete your mistakingly deleted files? We have all done it. You hit delete, you remember you needed something off of that hard drive or memory card and bang your head against the desk in frustration because it is all your fault.
Restoration looks to be the answer to your problems. It is an easy to use, straight forward and tiny un-deleter that will recover your lost files, or will at least give it a try. Restoration works with FAT and NTFS as well as digital cameras cards.
Of course the biggest tip I could give you for this type of situation would be to make sure you don’t write to the hard drive or card that you are wishing to recover files from. If you do you are risking writing over the space that you are trying to recover.
The major positives about this program is it is easy to use and doesn’t take a degree to master. All you have to do is point it in the direction of the hard drive or memory card you wish to look into and hit one single button. It will also run on Windows 98/ME/2000/XP and Vista.
On the negative side, I wish there was an easier way to restore files from it once you find them on the card. Currently you have to do it file by file, saving each file you restore to a new location.
All in all, Restoration is a great free product that does the job when it comes to recovering deleted files.
Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter to receive updates.
Mitch Keeler is nothing more than your average Joe trying to leave his mark on the world though both his professional work and his online projects, articles, podcasts and more.
