StuffIt Connect Help

About StuffIt Connect Service

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE STUFFIT CONNECT SERVICE

Once you have activated your StuffIt Connect account, that account will remain active for one year. To continue using StuffIt Connect after the first year of service has expired, you must purchase another year of service. At this time StuffIt Connect does not automatically re-bill you once your initial term has expired. However, you will be notified when your service is about to expire.

StuffIt Connect allows you to store up to 2 GB of files on its servers. These files will remain on the StuffIt Connect servers for as long as you choose to keep them there, so long as you keep an active account.

You may transfer up to 4GB of information every month. If you exceed your 4GB allocation during any calendar month, you will be prevented from uploading more files to the service until the first day of the next calendar month. In addition, the shares you have already posted cannot be downloaded until the first day of the next calendar month.

Use of StuffIt Connect is subject to the Terms of Service you agreed to when setting up your account. Click here to review the terms of service.

If you have feedback about the StuffIt Connect service, we'd love to hear from you! You can send feedback by clicking the "Feedback" link that is included at the top of every page.

Back to top

Log In

If you already have a StuffIt Connect account, you must enter the email address you used to create the account, along with your password, in the fields provided. Click “Log In.” If you have forgotten the password to your StuffIt Connect account, reset your password by clicking the link provided. Passwords are case sensitive.

If you do not already have a StuffIt Connect account, you can create one by clicking the link provided. StuffIt Connect accounts are only available to those who have purchased StuffIt Deluxe 2010. You will be asked to provide your StuffIt Deluxe registration number as part of the account sign up process.

Click here to purchase a copy of StuffIt Deluxe 2010.

The StuffIt Deluxe® Setup Wizard will walk you through the steps necessary to set up your StuffIt Connect account. It will also configure your copy of StuffIt to automatically use StuffIt Connect when sending larger files as email attachments using the “Stuff & Mail” feature.

Once you have logged into your account, if there is no activity detected for 30 minutes StuffIt Connect will automatically log you out.

Back to top

Available Shares

The “Available Shares” page is your StuffIt Connect home page. It displays a list of all the Shares you have uploaded to your StuffIt Connect account. Any time you send a large file using "Stuff & Mail” from StuffIt Deluxe, and any time you upload a file using the StuffIt Connect interface, the resulting upload will be displayed as a Share on the “Available Shares” page.

When you upload multiple files with StuffIt Connect, those files are combined together into a single "Share" – by default the Share will be created as a StuffIt X archive, however you can also choose to use Zip compression. To change the default compression format, do the following:

1. Click the “Account” button
   
2. On the “Account” page click the “Settings” link
3. On the “Settings” page check the “Use Zip instead of StuffIt X box”

For security and superior compression, Smith Micro recommends using the StuffIt X format.

To create a new Share using the StuffIt Connect web interface, click the “New Share” button. The help pages associated with the “New Share” form will walk you through the process of creating a Share.

Once you have created a Share, it will remain available from the “Shares” page until you either delete it or your StuffIt Connect account expires. You can store up to 2GB of Shares as part of your StuffIt Connect account.

The “Available Shares” page displays a list of all your uploaded Shares. If you have more than 10 shares, StuffIt Connect will display 10 items on each page.

To share a package you have uploaded for somebody, click the "Invite" button next to the Share name. On the page that follows, you will be prompted to enter an email address and a message. Your recipient will receive the Invitation via email. The email they receive will include a web link that they must click to download your file. Upon clicking the link your recipient will first be directed to a StuffIt Connect landing page that is associated with your Share; a download link on this page allows them to start downloading your files.

To edit the details displayed for your Share, click the "Edit" button. You can change the display name and the description of the Share. Both the name and description will be seen by your recipients in the email invitations you send out.

To delete a Share, for example to free up space on the service, click the "Delete" button next to the Share you wish to remove.

To download a Share from the StuffIt Connect server to your computer, click the display name associated with the Share.

To view details of the Share, click the Display Name of the Share. Included in the Share's details you will find a list of all active Invitations. From this list of Invitations you can see how many times a particular Share has been downloaded on an Invitation-by-Invitation basis.

Back to top

Creating New Shares

You can create new "Shares" using StuffIt® Connect's web interface. To create a new Share, follow these steps:

1. From the "Available Shares" page, click the "New Share" button.
   
2. Select the items you wish to share by clicking the "Choose Files" button.
   
3. You may add multiple items to a StuffIt Connect Share, but you must add those items one at a time. Tip: You can combine items into a single Zip or StuffIt archive before uploading them to the StuffIt Connect server.
   
4. When you have selected all the items you wish to share, type a name for your Share in the field provided. This name will be seen by those with whom you share your files, so it is best to pick a descriptive name.
   
5. Type a description of the files you are sharing. This description will be displayed to those with whom you share your files, so it is best to pick a descriptive name.
   
6. StuffIt Connect will automatically pick a file name for the archive created when you upload your Shares.
   
7. You can optionally encrypt your files using StuffIt's strong encryption technology. To encrypt your files, type and confirm a password in the fields provided. It is very important that you do not lose this password. Smith Micro CANNOT recover your files if you forget your password.
   
8. When you are finished adding files and creating a description, click the "Create" button. An uploading screen will be displayed while the files you have selected are uploaded to the StuffIt Connect server and compressed into an archive. Do not cancel or close this page until the upload has completed. Depending on the speed of your Internet connection and other factors, this process can take some time.
   
9. Once the upload has been completed, StuffIt Deluxe will display the "Invitation" page. Use the Invitation page to type in the email addresses of the people with whom you would like to share the uploaded files. Once you have entered the email addresses, StuffIt Connect will send them an email inviting them to connect and download the content you have shared. If you do not wish to send out Invitations at this time, click on the Shares button to return to the Shares list.

A known problem exists with the Mac version of Firefox where by Mac OS X "packages" (such as applications and iWork documents) are incorrectly handled by the file selection box displayed by Firefox. You can work around this problem by compressing packages into a Zip or StuffIt archive prior to uploading.

Back to top

Invitations

To share files with your friends, family, coworkers, or friends using StuffIt® Connect, you must create an Invitation. This Invitation will be sent to your recipients via email. This Invitation will include the name of the Share you uploaded, along with a description of its contents. The Invitation will include a personal message that you can type at the time it is sent, as well as a link that allows your recipient to start the process of downloading your files. When they first click the URL in the Invitation email they receive from StuffIt Connect, they will be taken to a StuffIt Connect landing page that is specific to your file. Clicking the download link on this page will instruct your recipient’s web browser to start downloading the files you have shared. The file downloaded will be compressed as either a Zip archive or a StuffIt X archive based on your account settings. Your recipient can download free software to decompress (i.e. "unpack") the download from Smith Micro's web site. The software program they will require is called StuffIt Expander. StuffIt Expander is free software available for both Macintosh and Windows computers.

To send an Invitation using StuffIt Connect follow these steps:

1. From the "Available Shares" page, click the "Invite" link next to the name of the Share you want your recipient to download.
   
2. On the page that follows, type the email address of the people you would like to download the Share.
   
3. You may enter multiple email addresses in the "Email Address" field. Each entry must be separated with a comma. StuffIt Connect will remember the email addresses you enter and will add them to your account address book. Each recipient will receive their own personalized Invitation via email.
   
4. You can choose to enter a password to prevent unwanted downloads of your Shares. Note that this password will NOT be used to encrypt the files you are sharing. Encryption can be added to a Share as it is created. It cannot subsequently be added to an existing Share. When you enter a password as part of an Invitation, your recipient must enter this password to start the file download.
   
5. By default, an Invitation created using StuffIt Connect will expire after seven days. You can change the expiration date using the controls provided. When an Invitation expires, the Share to which it points is NOT deleted. Only the download URL created to allow your recipient to download your files is deleted. You can send as many Invitations as you like to a single Share as long as your subscription has not expired and as long as you have not exceeded your monthly bandwidth allocation.
   
6. Enter a personal message that will be sent, along with the download link, via email to your recipient.
   
7. When you have finished filling out the Invitation form, click "Create" to send the Invitation(s) to your recipient(s).

Back to top

Downloading

When you create an Invitation using StuffIt® Connect, the service will send an email to the email addresses provided. The person receiving a StuffIt Connect Invitation email will see several things in the message they receive; they will see the name and description of the Share to which they are invited. This information is entered by you at the time the Share is created. Your recipient will also see the personal message you typed when creating the Invitation.

To start the process of downloading files, your recipient must first click the URL that is included in the StuffIt Connect email. This URL will open a StuffIt Connect landing page that is specific to your file in your recipient’s web browser. This page will include a "Download" button. If a password was added when the Invitation was created, your recipient must enter this password in order for the download button to work. When the user clicks the download button, the file you have shared will be downloaded to the Download folder specified by their web browser.

In most cases, the file that your recipient downloads will be a StuffIt X archive. StuffIt X archives can be opened using StuffIt Expander, free software that is available for both Macintosh and Windows based computers. StuffIt Expander can be downloaded at http://www.stuffit.com/mac/expander.html.

If the Share being downloaded was created with a password, StuffIt Expander will prompt you to provide the password as part of the decompression process. StuffIt® Connect uses secure AES 256bit encryption. Smith Micro is NOT able to recover lost passwords used to encrypt your archives. We recommend that you send the password required to open the encrypted archive to your recipient in a separate email message.

Once you have created an Invitation, you can access the Invitation link that is included in the Invitation email by viewing the Invitation’s details. Locate the Share in your list, click on the title, then locate the Invitation in the list provided and click on the invitee’s name.

Back to top

Contacts

StuffIt Connect will automatically remember all the people to whom you have sent Invitations to share a file hosted by the service. You can add more people to your address book by clicking the "Contacts" button and then clicking "New Contact." Type the name and email address for your contact and then click the “Create” button.

At this time StuffIt Connect does not support importing contacts from other online or local address books.

Back to top

Account Settings

Click the "Account" button to view information about your StuffIt Connect account. Click the account name on the page that follows to view information about your account. On the page that follows you can view the following information:

• Display Name - Your current account name
• Email - The email address associated with your StuffIt Connect account
  
• Max File Size - The maximum file size permitted by the system
  
• Max Storage Size - The maximum storage capacity allowed by your account
  
• Monthly Bandwidth Allocation - The amount of bandwidth you can use per month
  
• Storage Used - Indicates how much storage you are current using
  
• Bandwidth Used (current month) - Indicates how much bandwidth you have used for the current calendar month
  
• Expiration Date - The date when your StuffIt Connect account will expire
  
• Compression Format - The current format used when the user compresses the files you upload

To change the compression format used by StuffIt Connect, click "Settings." You can choose to compress files using the Zip format instead of the default StuffIt X compression. For security and superior compression Smith Micro recommends using the StuffIt X format.

Back to top

Mobile Access

The StuffIt Connect service is designed with mobile users in mind. Once you have uploaded a Share to the StuffIt Connect service, you can view that Share and create Invitations using the web browser on your mobile phone. You can also track Invitations to see if your Share has been downloaded. StuffIt Connect should be fully compatible with the web browser provided with almost all web-enabled phones, the iPhone, Smart Phones, and other Internet-capable wireless devices.

Back to top

Account Expiration

Your purchase of StuffIt Deluxe entitles you to a free one-year subscription to the StuffIt Connect service. You can see the remaining time left on your current subscription by clicking the "Account" button and then clicking your account name. The “Expiration” line item will tell you exactly when your account will expire. You will automatically receive a notification via email, to the email address used to register your account, when your subscription to the StuffIt Connect service is about to expire.

After your free one-year subscription has expired, you must purchase a new subscription plan to continue using StuffIt Connect. A one-year subscription will be priced at $49.99 and will be available for purchase from the Smith Micro store. Further details will be provided as part of a future service update.