Izimi – Share any file on your computer instantly by turning your computer into a web server

Posted on July 19, 2007 at 3:05 pm

I have to give thanks to David for telling me about Izimi, a site where you can share all of your files instantly from your computer without having to upload to a server! You can share as many files as you want and they can be of any size oe file type. There are no limitations or restrictions on what you want to share because it’s all being shared from your computer. When someone wants to download your shared file, they download it directly from your computer, thereby cutting out the middle man!

This type of sharing is called Live sharing, which means that the instant you decide to share a file on Izimi, you can send the link to someone and they can start downloading it immediately. How is that possible you ask? Well, it’s because the Izimi software turns your computer into a “server” of sorts. That means that in order for people to download your shared files, your computer must be on and you should have a fairly good upload speed for your Internet connection.

So make sure you use this program on a computer that’s going to be on most of the time and connected to the Internet. Using Izimi on your laptop might not be the best idea. However, installing Izimi on your desktop, sharing files from your desktop, and then using a laptop to access those files from any web browser anywhere in the world is a good idea.

The program is really easy to use and allows you to instantly share hundreds if not thousands of files! Once you install the software, you can start sharing files by right-clicking a file on your computer and choosing from the three new Izimi options listed: Share Publicly, Share Privately, and Create an Advert.

Almost instantly the file, whatever the size, will be “shared” and you’ll get a dialog box with the web address (URL) for the content page of your profile on Izimi, a link that you can send to friends in an email or IM, and embed code that you could use in your blog or web page if the content is embed-able.

The web address of the content page of your Izimi profile will only show the files that you shared publicly. If you share files privately, you have to send the link to whomever you want to allow access to the file. Once you share a file, you’ll see it immediately in the Files section of the application. Izimi separates files out into Photos, Videos, Documents, Music, Other and All Files. It’s pretty good at putting the files into their correct categories automatically.

You can share out many files at once by simply select all the files and then right clicking and choosing to share. If you miss copying the link on the initial share screen, you can always go into the application and simply select a file and the URL to access the file is displayed at the bottom. You can also right-click on the file and choose Email URL, which will automatically create a new email in your default email program (great if you’re using Microsoft Outlook).

All you have to do to access your files from any web browser is type in your Izimi profile URL, which is the username you created plus .izimi.com. Fox example, if I want to access my files, I would go to akishore.izimi.com. Simple as that!

Just a note though, if you share files publicly, they will show up in the search results when a query is performed on Izimi.com. Now if your file becomes popular for some reason, you can be assured that your computer will start to slow down because if lots of people are downloading that file, it has to be downloaded from your computer directly and that takes up resources! So be sure before you share anything publicly! You can still access your files from anywhere even if they are private, you just have to know the URL.

[tags]izimi, file sharing, share files on your computer instantly, access files from anywhere, share computer files[/tags]

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Comments

4 Responses to “Izimi – Share any file on your computer instantly by turning your computer into a web server”

david said on : July 20th, 2007 at 10:29 am

Hi, thanks for the mention. We’ve got some really cool new stuff coming soon, including optimization of videos to streaming flash video at the point when you share them. D.

John Wood said on : July 24th, 2007 at 3:35 am

Cool write up! You can also share photo galleries from within the izimi desktop with just 4 clicks and the name of the gallery, initially for 100 photos and you can add as many as you like later. This is a really handy and quick tool! For some gallery examples, see the right margin of this page: http://www.izimi.com/photos

Brad said on : October 19th, 2007 at 3:11 am

Just wanted to let you know of an update on this post…

About a month ago we relaunched Izimi as ShareNow.com – powered by Izimi, until next week that is, when the Desktop becomes switched over to ShareNow as well… We also have a whole bunch of new features which you can watch David’s video by searching the site for “ShareNow Update”…

Check it out!

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Brad
brad.sharenow.com
brad@sharenow.com