Use DropCopy For Free And Stop Using SneakerNet

If you’ve been a Mac user for awhile you already know how to move files from one Mac to another.

Not so for average everyday switchers from the Windows world. My neighborhood poll says SneakerNet is alive and well.

By the way… I’m baaaaack! Pregnancy is done. Baby is here. And if I have another potty episode like yesterday, both kids will find their photos on eBay. Yes, I ran out of diapers. That means Wal-Mart.

Wandering through the local Wal-Mart with two kids under two under tow is not my idea of a fun morning. Remember my next door neighbor? The one with the Windows PC that was always on the fritz and who I convinced to buy a Mac? That one. She loves me.

Whenever she has a computer problem, question, she asks her neighborhood system administrator. That would be me. In exchange for the wealth of knowledge and expertise I provide, she will watch my kids while I rent a truck, head to Wal-Mart and return with a couple of palettes of Pampers or Huggies.

Yesterday, the last of my emergency Huggies saw the darkness of my son’s behind. “Mrs. Iglesias, would you watch the kids while I run to Wal-Mart for a couple of days? I’ll help you update to the latest version of Leopard! OK?”

She bought it. Little does she know that two or three clicks will get the upgrade herself. Knowledge is a small price to pay for an hour at Wal-Mart. And a mocha latte at Starbucks. And a facial, and nails, and hair. And lunch.

Regardless, the deal was made and I was back home before dark, just before her daily supply of pharmaceutical grade sanity enhancers ran out.

I came back with a few crates of diapers (enough to make it through the weekend). She was ready with a question or two. Guess what reared an ugly head? SneakerNet.

You remember SneakerNet, right? It’s how we moved files from PC to PC, sometimes Mac to Mac. Copy a file to a floppy disk, take the floppy down the hall, deliver it. SneakerNet, though not modern, is very effective.

Windows users still use SneakerNet but burn files to a CD for transport. Even among average Windows PC users, floppy disks are passe’. Mrs. Iglesias was eager to see me return. Both kids were fed, asleep, and re-diapered using her emergency diaper stash.

Her husband took some photos on their new digital camera, and she imported said photos into iPhoto, but her daughter wanted copies of the photos on her new MacBook (black—white is soooooo 2004). Her method of photo delivery? SneakerNet. She was all ready to burn a CD and hand it to her daughter and asked me if there was an easier way.

See? A little knowledge goes a long, long way to unwashed masses of PC users making the trek to Apple’s Crystal City of Mac users. Yes, Mrs. Iglesias, there is a better way than SneakerNet.

Mac OS X’s ability to connect to other Macs on a local network is famed both for its simplicity and utilitarian ideal, and for the fact that most PC switchers end up saying, “I didn’t know you could do that.” You can. We did.

Still, some new Mac users don’t fully comprehend what’s required in connecting to another Mac and transferring files. Connecting is painful. Then that whole drag and drop thing causes beads of sweat to appear on previously smiling faces.

So, I showed her how to log on to her daughter’s MacBook, and where to drop the photos so they would show up in the right place. Guess what? That was still too complicated. Mrs. Iglesias ran to the other side of the house, went into the forbidden land of her daughter’s room, and asked her to check to see if she got the photos. Repeat every week until 2012.

In the end, I installed DropCopy, and set it up so she could drop whatever files she wanted onto a spot on the desktop with a pop up window, and they would automagically appear on her daughter’s now-locked-in-her-room MacBook.

No more SneakerNet, no more invasion of privacy, no more guilt, daughter’s stress pimple recede.

DropCopy is one of those nifty Mac applications that bridges the gap between those Mac users who know, understand, and use networks, and those who buy CDs so they can give photos to their kids. Granted, SneakerNet works, but there is a better way.

Mrs. Iglesias doesn’t speak French, so couldn’t figure out what was meant by Bonjour or ZeroConfiguration. Drag and drop she understood. “Put your files or photos here, drag and drop to here. They’ll get there. Trust me.” It’s that easy. My neighbor can handle half a dozen screaming meany kids under the age of six, but file transfers give her the shakes.

DropCopy places a spot on your Mac’s desktop. Drag a file to it and drop it on whatever local Mac pops up. There’s even a nifty little outer space cybernet futuristic sound to tell you something happened. If you have two or three Macs at home, DropCopy is free and works easier than logging on to a remote Mac (remote, as in the nether regions of a teenagers room, or a husband’s desk—both territories where angels fear to tread).

If your network is a bit bigger and populated with others who can handle the mere basics of drag and drop, then $25 is your cost.

As it was with Mrs. Iglesias, she still figures she owes me. All I did was click a few times to get OS X 10.5.2 to download and install, though I sat and watched the screen for awhile to make it look like I was doing something worthy of her shaping and molding my children for a few more hours a week.

Showing her how to avoid SneakerNet got me a couple of evenings out for dinner. I might even take my husband.