Comments on: Use Dropbox? Consider middfiles instead

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 15:01:48 +0000

I personally think Dropbox is a great solution and their future looks pretty bright, http://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2011/10/18/dropbox-the-inside-story-of-techs-hottest-startup/ .

By: Petar Mitrevski

Petar Mitrevski — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:53:24 +0000

Bill,

There isn’t a simple way to share files with people without Middlebury accounts.
We can help share files over the web with people that do have Middlebury accounts via http://go.middlebury.edu/middfiles but it’s a longer process (see my post below). Dropbox certainly makes the process easier, but the operational flaws we’ve seen make us uncomfortable.

Check my post below for some more detail and thanks for the feedback.

Petar

By: Petar Mitrevski

Petar Mitrevski — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:50:44 +0000

Ethan, check my reply below. Thanks for the feedback!

By: Petar Mitrevski

Petar Mitrevski — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:50:15 +0000

Through Middfiles, it’s possible to share files with folks that have Middlebury accounts. LIS can setup a folder and the person in charge of that folder (which can be you) can give access to the folder to specific people. However, at this time, Middfiles doesn’t have a way to produce a link to the files, and neither can it share the files with the public (a login is required at http://go.middlebury.edu/middfiles).

Establishing a method for sharing files with the public (that is, people without a Middlebury account) has been something we’ve pondered but there hasn’t been time to address this. We’ll be sure to update the blog when we have a solutions.

Thanks for the feedback!
Petar

By: Bill Mayers

Bill Mayers — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 15:39:46 +0000

I, too, would much rather use Middfiles than Dropbox. However, I need to be able to share files with staff abroad, and Dropbox makes this easy. I haven’t found out simple way of doing this with Middfiles. If you have a solution that I’m not aware of, I’d be happy to hear about it.

Bill

By: Ethan Murphy

Ethan Murphy — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 13:19:08 +0000

Dropbox is part of my toolset here at Middlebury, but I would rather use Middfiles. Is there a way to “copy a public link” and share that link in Middfiles like there is with Dropbox? I keep a repository of files and custom applications on dropbox that my students need to compress video files. I link my wiki pages to the public links that dropbox provides so they can download them as needed or sometimes I will just include it in an email if someone is looking for something specific on or off campus. I’m sure there is a way to do this with middfiles that isn’t tied to a specific class, but can you outline the steps? Middfiles has always been the best storage option, but I haven’t found a comparable easy way to access the stored files. Forgive me if there is already documentation on this that I have missed.
Thanks,
Ethan