14 DAY TRIAL // Communication is the basis of our development. Even before man could speak or write, he was able to communicate with his tribe when it came to hunting or dominating. But along with the world's development, communication between human beings has reached a higher level too. The most important feature of our long distance communication is the ability to write. It all started with cave paintings, map drawings and continued with the first real mail or postal system created by the ancient Romans. Telecommunication had a great impact on our world because thanks to radio broadcasting and man's ingenious capabilities in 1920 was made possible the first transatlantic two-way radio based conversation.
Nowadays, we can rely on two types of telecommunication, the analog one that includes telephony, radio and TV broadcasting and the digital type, which allows telegraphy, computer-mediated communication and computer networks. And speaking of communication via computer environment instant messaging, forums, blogs, PC to PC talk and e-mail is all we ever hear about. The Internet has surpassed any type of modern yet classic means of communications. Cellular phones, postal infrastructure, TV, radio, newspapers and books have not been replaced, but they have been transferred to the digital world. Reading a paper book, buying a newspaper or sending a postcard via mail are features that apparently only romantic people use. And in this faster and faster moving world, there is hardly any time for these out-of-fashion methods. Not that this is a bad thing, because the relationship among people all over the world has never been at this high level.
A feature of this new communication method is the ability of sharing files. Small, big, graphics, applications, music, movies, legal or illegal all kinds of files are being transferred between PC users all over the Internet. And this wide environment offers a lot of ways to achieve this task. Peer to peer, the Send file option that most instant messaging softwares have, torrents, FTP and via e-mail. Small files are easy to be sent using all these ways, but when it comes to bigger ones, some of them just can't handle the job. In order to solve this situation in the case of e-mail, some software developers managed to create different ways for us to be able to send files larger than the permitted limit. Some of them store the file on their server and then the receiver downloads it from there (Pando).
Vombato Mail Drive represents another type of solution to this problem. It uses the storage capacity of your e-mail account but it splits your file in smaller ones. Using this type of application allows you to use your e-mail account as an additional hard drive.
Configuring this application is like setting up any e-mail client. You have to write your e-mail address, password, the incoming server (POP3 - Post Office Protocol version 3) and the outgoing server (SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). If one of these services requires secure connection (SSL - Secure Sockets Layer) you must check the Use Secure Connection box. If all these are correctly written, you have to click on the Account settings tab and then select to Set active your account. Setting up Vombato Mail Drive is extremely easy if it has all the data needed to connect to your e-mail and you can also use multiple accounts.
Uploading a file is easy, as you only have to drag and drop the file to the main window. When sending a file to another e-mail account things get a little complicated. You have to select a Temporary Folder from the User & Folder Settings window and a minimum file size. When the file exceeds this size, Vombato Mail Drive splits the files according to that size. So if you send a 7000KB file and the limit is 5000 KB the application splits the file in a 5000KB and a 2000KB file.
There are two ways for that person to receive that file. The first one is according to the developer's suggestion and it implies that the receiver should use the same application to check his e-mail and download the file. But while trying to perform this task the program informed us that it "Could not connect to the POP3 server". But the application was set up correctly for it could send the file. So the only option to receive that file was to download the split files and combine them in our case using Total Commander. I don't think that this is a proper solution to get things done, but we had no other choice.
You can also encrypt the files you want to upload. You just have right-click on Vombato tab, choose to Upload File To Vombato Mail Drive and check the Encrypt file box and type a password for that file. The encryption method used by this software is called AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). The program has a feature designed to decrypt that file.
The Good
The idea of using your mail account as a hard drive is very good, the idea of sending "huge" files through your e-mail is even better and the easiness which the application provides is excellent.
The Bad
The idea of not being able to use the most important task, that of sending/receiving big files, is really bad.
The Truth
The application looks good, feels good but it really needs some working on its features.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
