We’re still here!

It has been a very long time since we posted anything here, so now is as good a time as any!

What have we been up to?
 Don’t worry we have been hard at work behind the scenes answering your support tickets and keeping the current infrastructure up and running.
The rest of our time has been spent creating a more streamlined service for you all to you.

We started from scratch with this one and created our own framework and API to support it; implementing new features and changes will be a much easier thing so expect new features often!

Over the past couple of years we have seen the stability of the Flash uploader get really bad - and it is not coming from us; the reliability of Flash even when handling files of 50MB was really bad.
Browser crashes, uploads failing and slow transfers are what we have had to put up with…
Not anymore - we’ve been working on a Java uploader, the same technology Facebook has used, it’s much more reliable and will allow us to handle bigger and bigger files.

2Big2Send Infrastructure

We have used Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) since the beginning and have not had any reliability issues; so it made sense to move our servers into Amazon’s Cloud offering (EC2) as well.
We have noticed a considerable speed increase on our staging servers since the move. 

So when is this coming?

Very soon - we are in the final stages of getting it all tied together, so for now here is a screen shot of what is to come!

More secure file sending

We know a lot of people don’t think twice about security; but it is getting to the point where we have to start.

At the moment when you send your files the recipient gets an email with a link that they follow and can automatically download; for the more security concious ones this may seem too easy.

So we have just rolled out passworded file sending. This gives you the ability to set a password on the collection so when the user goes to get their files they are required to enter the password first.

The password is not sent along with the files - that would be stupid - so remember to give it to your recipients after you send them something.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from the 2Big2Send Team.

2009 was a great year in terms of growth for us, we are hoping 2010 is even better! There are many things we have planned for the coming months - so watch this space!

Service Update

Helloooo!

For the past 4 months we have been rebuilding 2Big2Send from the ground up and the result it our new look website. Everything execpt the database data has changed making a whole load easier to bring out new features; you should also notice a big increase in speed.

So What Has Changed?

The short answer is everything - but here is a nice breakdown :)

1. Dashboard - This has now been changed to Files and Folders as it makes a whole lot more sense. All of your files and folders are listed here in a much easier way to understand.
2. Folders - You can now create multi-dimensional folders so you can better organise your data.
3. Uploader - The upload status is now a lot more meaningful. We also changed the way we are verifying files so there will be little or no failed uploads.
4. Send - We totally overhauled the sending page as it looked like it was created by some kid in school. It is now organised into folders so you don’t have to go searching through file names to find a file you uploaded. We also made adding recipients easier so you can see who you are sending to, they also autocomplete so you don’t have to type the entire email address in.
5. Mailing Lists - Our premium customers who send emails to the same groups of people over and over again can now put them into a mailing list and send to the entire mailing list, it saves typing in all their email addresses.
6. Collection & Shared - A total overhaul has been done to these pages; gone is the horrible outline of the website, you now just get a list of the files you sent/shared on a simple to understand page.
7. Account - The account page is loads easier to get your head around, all organised into nice sections. We even added in the facility to add an avatar to your account which is displayed at the top of your pages and on the collection page so people know at a glance who sent them the files.
8. Gallery View - When you upload a picture (JPG, GIF, PNG or BMP under 10 MB) we will process it into a resized picture so you can click the ‘Open Gallery’ button at the bottom of folders containing photos to bring up a nice gallery. The original file can still be downloaded by click on the file name.
9. Contacts - We overhauled the contacts page; now you can easily add/edit and delete your contacts. Import functionality will be added in the coming weeks.

There are a couple of other changes; free users are no longer able to automatically store their files, but you can extend the expiry of the file by hovering over the file and selecting ‘Extend Expiry’. This will add 5 days to the expiry from the time clicked, this can be done as many times as you please.

The uploader is a little bit more intelligent in that if you are in a folder and click the ‘upload’ button it will upload the files to that folder making organisation easier.

There isn’t much else to tell - apart from expect a whole wave of new feature throughout this year :)

Thank you for your continued support.

Jamie.

The new uploader

What’s The Difference?

• You can upload multiple files from the same window
• It shows you when a file is totally uploaded and verified
• The upload does not start automatically ie: when you don’t expect it to
• We added better handling for multi byte characters ie: Chinese/Japanese file names
• You can stop and start the uploads at your leisure
• Files that you added by accident can now be removed

What’s To Come?

• We will be adding a better uploading progress report
• It will show an estimate your average uplaod speed
• Based on your speed we will show roughly how long the current file will take to upload
• There are a couple of other things to be added here but we are keeping our lips sealed for a little longer.

Service Update

What’s New/Changed

Uploading & Downloading

• Upload speeds have been greatly increased, some people are seeing upload speeds of 2MB/second.
• We opened storage locations in the USA and Europe, you can now choose where to upload to, the closer the faster.
• Upload and Download speeds have been increased by using Flash to send the data straight to the storage location.

File Organisation

• The Dashboard was implemented to better organise your files by using folders, by default files are uploaded to ‘My Uploads’ (this folder cannot be deleted).
• We aggregated the files into sections based on their type (ie: the pictures include .jpg .png .gif) this makes it much easier to find your files.
• Expired and deleted files are no longer displayed.
• The ability to move multiple files between folders was added.
• Persistant storage was implements as a percentage of your account, ie: files will not expire.
• The file details page was changed to include large buttons for downloading and sending which makes them a lot easier to find.

Sending Files & Collection

• Sending to multiple users has been added.
• Sending multiple files has been added.
• Address book added.
• Ability to import contacts automatically from Yahoo! Mail, GMail, Hotmail/MSN, and AOL added.
• A new collection page which aggregates the files into sections was added.
• Notifications of file downloads only when the entire file has been downloaded was added.
• A Sent Items section was added allowing uses to see all the files that were sent and if they were collected.

User Interface

• The main internal interface colour was changed from grey to white making it easier on the eyes more user friendly.
• The statistics of your account (temporary/persistant space left, bandwidth used) has been added to all folder pages.

Desktop Client

• Compression (to .zip) activated by default to save space on upload.
• Added better error handeling and messaging capabilities.
• Added compression for folders when uploading.
• Added splash screen on startup.

Miscellaneous

• Transitioned to a bandwidth model rather than limiting the number of times a file can be downloaded.
• Monthly bandwidth is capped and reset to zero monthly.
• Limit removed for number of files that can be sent per month.

What’s To Come

• Folder sharing.
• Hosted upload box for your website and notification.
• Premium accounts enabling more storage and bandwidth without adverts.
• Multi-user accounts.
• A full scale address book.
• Better logging of downloads.
• Entirely new desktop client packed with features.

There are many more features that are in the pipeline to implement, so this should just whet your appetite.

We do hope you are enjoying the service and are looking forward to taking advantage of the new features that are no their way.
We encourage you to forward this email on to any friends you think may be able to make use of our service.

Welcome!

Hello World!

Welcome to the 2Big2Send blog; We hope that you will check back here quite often as we will be using it to publish information on new features and general news about 2Big2Send.

There is alot more to come in the near future so watch this space!

Jamie.