On 12/09/2011 08:14 PM, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> After reading several dozen forum posts, it seems nobody has a really
>> good solution for doing this.
>
>    You can thank Windows for this. Traditionally in the unix world
> transferring files from one computer to another has been one of the
> most basic features (and it's the reason why there are so many ways
> of doing that, including rsync, rcp, scp, ftp, sftp, wget, and so on).
> Of course this requires for one of the computers to act as a server.
> This is made difficult in Windows. (Yes, I know it's not impossible.
> I didn't say that.)

I don't know about "impossible". It's actually pretty simple. By 
default, *every* Windows PC acts as a fileserver. If you have two PCs on 
the same network, open Windows Explorer, type the name (or more likely 
IP address) of the other machine. The syntax "\\machine\c$" works by 
default. Type in the administrator password for the remote machine. You 
now have access to the entire local filesystem.

This is the default configuration. You don't have to do *anything* to 
make it work. It's worked since Windows NT 4.0, if not before.

I'm not aware of any Unix system which *defaults* to letting remote 
users access the entire filesystem if they know the root password. 
Probably because it's a stunningly bad idea, unless the local network is 
trusted. But anyway...

This obviously completely fails over the Internet. Or at least, you 
better *hope* it fails. Otherwise your Windows box is liable to get 
rooted very shortly...

(You can, of course, set up proper shared folders to give specific 
people specific access levels to different parts of the filesystem. And 
unlike editing a million HTTP-access files or twiddling text 
configuration files for an FTP client, it's as trivial as right-clicking 
the folder you want to share and saying "share this". Of course, it's 
only really useful if network-wide user authentication is set up, which 
is a whole *other* topic... And, again, it's designed for the LAN, not 
the Internet.)

While we're on the subject, by default you can log in to any remote 
Windows PC that you happen to know the administrator password to. No 
special software required. Again, try getting X11 to let you do that. 
Good luck.

>    The other traditional method to send files is through irc. This has
> worked in the unix world for something like 20 years. Given that irc is
> mostly dead nowadays (it's too "old-fashioned") most people don't even
> know what it is. This works perfectly in Windows too, if only irc was
> still popular there.

It's news to me that IRC is "dead". Indeed, I still use it from time to 
time.

...

I'm talking on an NNTP server, aren't I? o_O

>    One of the most common modern variants of this, one which also works
> easily in Windows, is skype. Of course many people refuse to use skype
> out of principle (the same kind of principle as avoiding facebook).
>
>    If you are regularly transferring files to someone, just make him install
> skype.

Doesn't have to be Skype. Various IM clients have this function too. The 
problem, generally, is the inexplicably slow transfer speeds.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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