You have files to share with friends?

Greetingz everybody

Sending of files is almost an everyday activity known to all users of instant messengers like msn,yahoo,gtalk and so on.

But the problem is: At times we have files to share but our friends do not even know what files we have…so they’ll have to ask to all their contacts and so on.Furthermore sending files via messenger unfortunately does not allow us to pause the transfer; what if the file is say 700mb? And either the sender or receiver’s internet connection gets broken during the last 10mb of transfer? (i can imagine your frustration)

The evident solution is here: Set up a server on your own pc whereby friends can view which files you have, use download managers (thus can pause downloads…).

Setting up a server on your own pc…Sounds complicated? Well if you want to share files using servers like Apache, IIS etc, installation and security setups can be a bit tough for newbies, specially if all you want to do with a server is share files.

What I propose instead: use a very compact server which requires no installation or setup! Everything gets running with a simple double-click! Yeah, It’s real and It’s HFS

Step 1:

Download HFS (550KB only). Download link

Step 2:

Double-click on the downloaded file. A window like the one below will open.

Step 3 :

Let’s now test if the server is accessible from the internet…Click on menu, then Self Test

If everything is ok, you should get the msg below. If the test is unsuccessful, then either your firewall is blocking the port or you are behind a router. In case your connection to the internet is through a router, you have to forward port 80 to your pc’s ip.

Step 4 :

Ok, it’s now time to add files to your server; that is, files that you want to share. Click menu–>Add folder from disk (in this case i’m adding a whole folder)

When asked whether you want real or virtual, most of the time, Virtual folder is the most appropriate option

Step 5:

To check out your server’s page as viewed by others, click on the “open in browser” as shown below

As you can see, you can also type http://localhost or even http://127.0.0.1

Step 6:

Don’t close the HFS when you want it to be available to friends for download, just minimise it! Whenever you are closing HFS, you will be asked if you want to save file system. Clicking yes, and giving a name to the system file, will allow hfs to keep track of files you are sharing the next time you run HFS again. So I advise you to click yes

That’s if, now you can share the link to your server. The link is simple your internet connection’s IP address.

for example if your ip is:

194.23.81.42

then your server’s address will be: http://194.23.81.42

If you don’t know your IP, go to this link
, your IP address will be given to you