ftp problem

I used IMovie (first time I used it and quite a nice program) to edit a movie of my nephew's wedding and then tried to upload it onto rapidgator so that the rest of the relatives could access it.

Unfortunately I can't seem to do it. I used their ftp solution and over the course of a week (including many e-mails between me and the help desk at rapidgator) haven't been able to upload the file. Next I downloaded a program called Filezilla and tried it with that. Still not able to upload the file.

The website says to make sure that "FTP client is in passive mode" whatever that means. Could that be the problem? Is there something on my Mac that is preventing me from getting this file uploaded.

If all else fails I will take the file off my iMac (because it does not have the ability to burn dvd's) and put it on my MBP so I can burn disks but I would rather do it the FTP way.

Any ideas???

You could open a dropbox account, put the movie in the dropbox folder and let it upload, then share the dropbox file URL with everyone you want to get the movie. That's a quick way to get it done.

Cool...thanks did not know about Dropbox.

Do the people who want to get the video have to have dropbox on their computer also?? I can just see my 85 yo mom trying to download a program. She can JUST get through her e-mail.

Thanks again for the response.

No, you can open the account. You will end up with a Dropbox folder on your Mac. Anything you put there will upload to the Dropbox site. Once it is there, you can go to the Dropbox site, pick the file and choose to share. It will then ask for the emails with whom you want to share and will send them a link to the file that will then download the file to their computer. Easy.

Great...Thanks a lot for the info. Will get right on it

Well....I installed the dropbox app and it looked good. I tried to send the file to the groom but....my e-mail server will only let me send files up to 700 or so MB and the wedding movie is in HD and runs about 2.5 GB.

So I am back to the same question. Is there something that I need to do on the IMac to get the "ftp client in passive mode"? Or is there something else that I am overlooking??

Thanks in advance.

No, you don't "send" anything. Just copy the movie into the "Dropbox" folder that should be on your Mac and it uploads to your account at Dropbox.com from there automatically. No FTP to set up, no email to send. Just drop the video in the box and wait for it to copy to the cloud. Once it's uploaded, you go to Dropbox.com and ask to share the file. As I said, you will then be prompted for the emails to share with and you're done. Dropbox.com will send an email to the recipients inviting them to download the file.

Okay Jake:

The video seems to be uploaded to the cloud. At least it shows up in my dropbox folder. When I right click on the file form the movie several options drop down. One indeed is the option for e-mail. I click on e-mail and it brings up my e-mail program. It then s l o w s down the entire computer for 2 or 3 min and at the end of that time I have my outgoing e-mail message with an icon showing the entire video sitting in the field where you are supposed to write. It shows the size at 2.53 GB.

Something is wrong. I recently upgraded to mavericks....could that be the problem??

Wait...I mis read your reply. Let me try something else and I'll let you know whats up.

Once the file is uploaded to the cloud, you want to go to Dropbox.com, login to your account, and then share the file from there. Doesn't use your email at all.

Yeah I finally saw that. sometimes I'm a bit slow.

Finally got the info sent and hope that he gets it.

Thanks a lot. I MUST learn to read!!

Great! Now that you have Dropbox, here's how it works. Every file you put in the dropbox folder on your mac is automatically copied to the dropbox folder at the dropbox.com site (the cloud). So from now on, all you have to do to share is to put the file in the dropbox folder, wait a bit for it to upload to dropbox.com, then send the email to share from there.

There is an even simpler way to share if you want to try it. That is to give people full sharing rights to the folder. In this scenario, you invite them to share with read and write privileges to a shared folder in your dropbox account. When they accept the invitation, they get read/write authority to that folder. So basically, any file anyone puts in the folder will then be automatically copied FROM that folder on their machine to all the other machines, also automatically, through dropbox. Basically, anything in that folder will be copied to every other machine that is sharing that folder. There is a downside risk in this approach in that if anyone deletes the file from their shared folder, it will be deleted from ALL the folders that are synced, so I only put copies, not the original, in the shared folder. But it's great for sharing big files as I only have to upload them once, don't have to fight email systems and it all works automatically. It is also great for collaboration on shared projects, as all the sharing members can see and work on the same document.

Basically, set it up once for your mom and now all you have to do is drop the picture in the folder on your machine, then email mom with a short note to tell her to look in HER folder for the picture.

Even easier. In your Dropbox folder is another folder named Public. Move the file there. Then right-click on the file and select "Copy Public Link".
Paste that link into an email and send it.

Yes, but doesn't Public let ANYBODY see it? That's why I don't use Public and send the sharing links to other folders. Also, I don't want all of my sharers to share all files, so I have varying groups who can share varying folders.

No, only the people you send the link to ( and whoever THEY send the link to) and only that file. Whoever gets the link cannot see whatever else is in your public folder.