File Hosting and Media Sharing

For a while now, I’ve wanted to share some of the content from my Herb Classes with readers, but couldn’t figure out know how to publish or link to the plant related handout sheets that I had created. Google’s Blogger, which is where my Blog now resides, allows me to link to other places and add photos, but doesn’t allow me to store data so readers can download.

It took me a while to figure out that there are a number of free file hosting sites available that will allow me to store my documents online for absolutely nothing. Zilch, Nada, Gatz. And free is always a good thing to a small-time, beginner blogger like me. A Google search will give you a fuller list, but here are a few names of potential places to store your stuff online.

MediaFire

MyFreeFileHosting

FileDen

I’ve chosen to use Mediafire. A lot of the free applications are fairly similar in function but Mediafire was noticed by PC Magazine, Cnet, PC World and Lifehacker which put it in the winners circle for me. It’s super easy to use, takes very little time to set up an account (which is optional), and within minutes I had successfully uploaded a file.

Once the files are stored online, I’m able include a link to them from my blog. Readers can then download the files for their own information or use. Very cool.

I really wouldn’t have figured this out if not for a friend of mine, David Seah, who’s an avid and well respected blogger in his own right. Dave is quite a bit more skilled with the online and technical worlds than I am so when he suggested I use an online file hosting package for file sharing, I paid attention. On his blog, Dave writes about productivity and other methods of empowering ourselves. Check him out - he’s one of the smartest people I know and fantastic at combining technical and creative concepts in ways that most of us can only imagine.

Now that I have a file hosting application in place I’ll be adding more content from my herb classes for anyone interested in learning a bit more about the plants.