Mac File Transfer Problem Solved With Dragster.

One new Mac appllication. One long standing, four-year-old problem was solved yesterday.

File transfers have always been a rump roasting pain for me. Always.

FTP this, SFTP that, login to a Mac here, a Windows PC there, email this or that. What a pain.

The problem is rather simple. Moving files from one place to another. A photo, an image, an application, a folder of files.

There’s dozens of Mac applications that will do it. None did it the way I want. Easy. Fast. No think. Done.

Dragster does it. Why it took so many years to do it this way is beyond me.

Here’s the scenario. I’m sure you’ve experienced the same problem, and probably have some of the same solutions.

I have files that I want to move to other machines. FTP or SFTP work fine. Fire up Transmit, login, copy. It works.

Too many steps. How about just moving a file to the Mac across the room on the home network.

Login via Finder. Navigate to appropriatae folder on other Mac, drag and drop.

Wait. There’s the solution. Drag and drop. How come nobody thought of that until now?

Actually, they did. FileChute does that and doesn’t cost much but is limited in functions.

My needs don’t seem to be so limited.

Dragster takes a truly Mac-like view of the problem (broad in scope) and provides a truly Mac-like solution (simple) that works.

Think of all the different steps required to negotiate a file on your Mac to another location. Login IDs, passwords, IP addresses, email applications.

Then, there’s all the different applications and protocols to worry about. Just moving a file from here to there should be easy.

It is. Fire up Dragster. It sits in your Mac’s Dock, just waiting for the first part of the secret plan to make your life easier.

Drag a file to Dragster. Immediately a pop up menu appears with options; Send to iDisk, email, Remote Server, Local Folder.

Essentially, the first step is to determine where you want to Drop what you’re dragging.

Let’s say you’re sending a file to a remote or local server (same process). The dialog box asks for the location, login ID, password, etc.

Dragster remembers all that. The next time you need to move a file somewhere, it’s just Drag and Drop. Dragster just does it.

Mac, Windows, Linux server, Email, iDisk, Mac over there, folder somewhere on your Mac. Drag and Drop.

Protocols? We don’t need no stinkin’ protocols!! Dragster does AFP, FTP, SFTP, SCP, SMB to remote machines.

I was sold after a full day of use. It’s the best $19 I’ve spent on a Mac in quite awhile because it solved a specific, lingering problem with simple elegance.

Drag file, drop file. Done. It worked every time, no hiccups or gotchas.

Is Dragster perfect? Not yet. If you send files to many different places, the menu of locations could get overwhelming (though you can control the size of the icons in the Dock menubar).

There’s an extra step in emailing a file that needs to be improved. Dragster logs in remotely, but doesn’t logout; drop the server connection when it’s done sending the file.

Those are not deal breakers but will need to show up as improvements in future versions.

I know what you’re thinking. “Jeff, you can do that in the Finder.” The answer is, “No, you can’t. Not really.”

There are a couple of problems with the Finder and the Sidebar which make Dragster shine in comparison.

The Finder forgets things. Regularly. IP addresses, servers, folders, locations et al. The Finder’s memory of what you want to do is broken, hence a low trust level.

Dragster also comes with a context sensitive Right-Click pop up menu that functions the same was as Dragster in the Dock.

If you move files here and there, I haven’t found a more elegant, simple, workable solution for so many options than Dragster.