Posted by Nicholas Andrade on 05/08/06 17:16

Dick Jones wrote:
> I created a custom DVD and there are a bunch of people that would like to
> get a hold of it.
> Is it possible to share 3.8 gigs of data somewhere on the internet so I can
> let others download it?
> This is not copyrighted material either.
>
> Thanks for any help.
>
>
I doubt you'll find a free service which would be willing to host a 4GB
file regardless of the copyright status (bandwith/storage is not free).
However you're perfectly capable of hosting it yourself. You have a
number of options, the simplest is to use a FTP server (I use vsftpd in
Linux, no clue if it's available for Windows). FTP is simple & reliable
and there are clients for virtually every OS known to man (Windows even
includes one, albeit it's command line driven). The downside to FTP is
you need to upload the whole file to every person & the more people
downloading simultaneously, the slower the speeds each person receives;
a better option is BitTorrent. BT splits the files into pieces and as
users connect they are given different chunks of the file. Once a user
has completed a certain number of chunks, that user starts sharing the
parts they've downloaded with everyone else (so as more people join the
torrent, file speeds actually increase). There is free software to both
host (seed) a torrent as well as free clients download the file (I
recommend Azureus -- azureus.sf.net). Chances are your ISP does not
give you a static IP address, to correct for this simply sign up for the
free service offered at dyndns.org. You simply download software that
periodically verifies your IP address and sends an update to dyndns.org;
you tell your friends a URL like myshareddvd.dyndns.org which will
always point to your current IP address. If you and your friends are
relatively tech savvy, then BT is the way to go (if your friends don't
know what BitTorrent is, tell them to ask their kids). Hosting it is
relatively simple if you follow a good guide, just look for one on
Google. Otherwise FTP is very simple, and probably your second best bet.

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