Welcome to the DropSend Help Blog
This is the official site for all DropSend news and support. We'll be answering common questions, solving recurring problems and generally lending a helping hand.
Windows: How to Find a File … After Forgetting Where You Saved It
General, Tips
Have you ever copied a document to your hard drive, but couldn’t remember where you saved it? Have you created a new file with a program and can’t figure out where to go when you want to attach it to an email? How about downloading a file from the web with your browser and then not knowing where to go to open it?
If any of these scenarios are familiar to you, then this tech tip should be helpful. We’ll start with the simplest methods and work our way to the more complicated.
1. Check the Recent Document Folder
In Windows XP, this is named Recent Documents.
In Windows Vista/7, this is named Recent Items.
Click on the Windows Start Button and scroll up the menu to either Recent Documents or Recent Items. There, you will find the last 15 files that you have opened/saved on your computer.
2. Check the Recently Used List in Your Applications
Looking for a file that you last used in Microsoft Word? Open Word and click File to see a list of recently used files. With Word 2007, you want to click on the circular “Office” button to display your most recently used files. Typically only the 5-15 most recently used files are listed in applications.
3. Check Your My Documents or Documents Folders
Microsoft Office applications usually save to those folders by default. If you never have had to specify a new location to save a file, your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files are probably here.
4. Create a Fake File to Save
If you weren’t able to find your file with the two methods above, then creating a fake file with the application could work. Let’s say you know you created the file in Excel, but just don’t know where you saved it. Create a new file in Excel and go to Save As; you should see the directory where the files are being saved by default. That should give you a pretty good hint where the file is located. You can also right-click on file to bring up a menu of actions – re-save the file somewhere else, move it, email it, etc…
Applications usually remember the last location you saved a file, but often times that last location isn’t necessarily where you save every single file. This can be quite frustrating if your folder is in an uncommon location on your hard drive.
With most applications you can change the default location where the files are being saved. This option can usually be found within the Options or Preferences menu items.
Creating a fake file is particularly helpful for applications that save files to their own obscure default location. I usually try and save these files to my Desktop or to the Documents folder.
5. Use Windows Search to Find the File
If none of the easier methods have worked, you can always use the Search function that is built into Windows. This method will help you most quickly if you know the name of the file you are looking for. Even if you don’t remember the name, you can probably still find the file by searching by the date you may have last modified it, by a portion of the file name, by the size of the file, or even the document extension of the file. In extreme cases you can also search the contents of every file to match up with what you are looking for. You would only do this if you have absolutely no idea what the file name is or if it was mixed in with a bunch of the same file type.
In Windows XP: Click Start, Search, Select All Files and Folders, and then choose search criteria.
In Windows Vista/7: Click Start and then in the Start Search field, type what you think the document name is. With indexing turned on, you can also try typing a specific word that might only be in that document. Indexing makes searching the contents of a file nearly instantaneous. If nothing shows up in the search results, click search anywhere to bring up the Advanced Search menu. From there you will be able to search various criteria.
6. Additional Tips
The Search function is also a great way to organize your files. If I want to put all my pictures in one folder, I can search the entire drive for files that have the extension .jpg.
If I’m cleaning out my hard drive to free up space, I’ll start with Search to find the biggest files to delete first. For example, I could search for all files over 5 MB and delete what I don’t need.
June 7th, 2010
Password length
General, Support Topics, Tips
Please be advised that passwords MUST be at least 6 characters long.
May 13th, 2010
Upload / Download Speeds
Upload / Download Speeds
Typically uploading a file will always be slower than downloading; this is just a limitation of the Internet infrastructure. But there are a number of other factors that affect the speed of uploading a file, such as:
1.) Your connection to the Internet, whether you are wired or wireless
2.) The ISP providers link between you and the Internet.
3.) The Internet itself; certain times of the day are busier than others.
4.) Traffic going into our datacenter at peak and off-peak hours.
5.) Encryption and compression of files.
6.) Etc
Data transfer speeds are sometimes displayed in Kbps (KiloBytes per second) which is different from Kbps (Kilobits per second), as well as from MBps (MegaBytes per second) and Mbps (Megabits per second). The following chart will help you convert and calculate from one measurement to another:
Telecommunications bit rates
Bps = 1 bit/s
Kbps = 1000 bits/s
Mbps = 1000 Kbits/s or 1000000 bits/s
Gbps = 1000 Mbit/s or 1000000000 bits/s
Tbps = 1000 Gbit/s or 1000000000000 bits/s
You can determine your data rate by going to one of the many sites on the Internet that can calculate the speed. A popular site for this is: http://www.speedtest.net. When reviewing your speed score be sure to pay attention to the measurement unit being used. This is often confusing to people who are not IT experts, as communication rates are typically shown in bits per second.
It is a common misconception to use 1024 in conversion between kbps and bps, in calculating telecommunication data rates 1 Mbps = 1000 Kbps. However, if you are calculating storage capacity of data on a hard disk 1 MB = 1024 KB.
Consider that a 1 MB file is equal to 1024K bytes or 8,192 bits, but a 1 Mb transfer speed is equal to 1024K bits or 128k bytes. When converting from K Bytes to K Bits use a factor of eight.
Example:
1 Kbps = 1 kbps = 1 kilobyte per second = 8,000 bits per second
A 100 KB/sec [Kilobyte-per-second] upload speed therefore is equal to:
-
=0.8 Mbps [Megabit-per-second]
=800 Kbps [Kilobit-per-second]
=0.1 MB/sec [Megabyte-per-second]
A simple way to perform the conversion is to use an online tool like this one:
http://www.mediaroad.com/products/speedcheck/free_tools/unit_convert/
If you are interested in learning more on this subject refer to:
http://innovationzen.com/blog/2006/07/28/the-broadband-speed-guide/
January 27th, 2010
Import your Contacts into DropSend
Desktop Tools, General, New features
DropSend makes it easy to add your contacts by importing them via a CSV file. Most email applications can export a CSV file (comma separated) of your contact list.
Create the file using the following syntax: {First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Company Name}.
Once the file is created log into your DropSend account and click on the “Contacts” tab. From here look for the “Import contacts from CSV file” area and click on the “Browse” button to select the CSV file you created. Next click on the “Import Contacts” button, this will import your CSV file into DropSend. On the next screen select all of the contacts you wish to import, if you want to choose them all – click on the topmost selection box. At the bottom of the page click on the “Import Contacts” button. That’s it!
December 7th, 2009
Users and Contacts Within the Dropsend Business Plan
Business Plan, General, New features, Tips
We have recently divided Users and Contacts into 2 separate entities within the Dropsend Business plan.
We now have 4 different kinds of Users:
1. Internal User: can send/receive files + online storage but cannot add/edit new user
2. Admin: is an internal user, but can manage the user
3. Owner: is the user who registered for the account and can do everything
4. External User: can only send/receive files To manage the users, you have to click on Users (next to Contacts) .
July 23rd, 2009
Group Contacts Now For All Plans
General, New features
We have had numerous requests to allow all users across all plans to be able to create contact lists. So effective immediately Dropsend now supports group contact lists for all plans. This means you can create a list of people you commonly email and now not have to enter each email address separately to send them a file anymore.
May 23rd, 2009
Business Users can create a “DropBox”
Business Plan, New features
Business users can now create from their control panel a special “DropBox” to place on a website for their users to be able to upload files to a preselected folder in the Business Users online file storage area.
February 25th, 2009
New Adobe AIR Desktop Tool
Desktop Tools, General, New features
It’s been a while since we worked on improving our desktop tool and we have received lots of ideas and suggestions. So we have been working on a new desktop tool written in Adobe’s new AIR environment. You can try it out here:
http://www.dropsend.com/uploadtools_air.php
Our new desktop tool works on both Microsoft and Apple OS’s. This is still in beta but we are very pleased with the results so far. Please drop us an email with any suggestions or comments.
January 28th, 2009
Business users can now specify a time limit and download limit for their sent files to be downloaded
Business Plan, General, New features
Business users can now select a period of time between 1 day and 14 days for their recipient to download the file(s) they sent using DropSend. Also added in this new release is the ability for Business users to specify how many times their sent file(s) can be downloaded. This will allow Business users to better control access to their files and manage their online resources more effectively.
January 28th, 2009
Business Plan users can now password protect files they send
Business Plan, New features
We just added a new feature to allow Business Plan users to password protect individual files before they are sent providing an added level of security for all Business Plan users.
December 19th, 2008