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Kahnyl

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Feb 2, 2009
1,584
2
I was wondering how it would be possible to download a file from my home Mac mini to my iPhone using 3G. The app Goodreader can download most things with a URL so how would I go about obtaining a URL for files on my mini? I currently use Dynamic DNS so I have a word.word.net style URL for the machine but what do I do to get to specific folders and files?
 
I was wondering how it would be possible to download a file from my home Mac mini to my iPhone using 3G. The app Goodreader can download most things with a URL so how would I go about obtaining a URL for files on my mini? I currently use Dynamic DNS so I have a word.word.net style URL for the machine but what do I do to get to specific folders and files?

box.net
 
I should have mentioned in my post that I already use Dropbox, but it's not like I can back-up my three HDs to the cloud. Sometimes the ability to download something random from my computer would be fantastic.

It's on all the time. It's always connected to the internet. Heck, it's even running OS X Server. Should be easy enough I reckon, I just have no knowledge of how to do it.

I just need a way to get file links for a utility like Goodreader. I can already connect remotely with VNC and a media streaming app, but neither of those allow me to get the files onto the phone except by VNCing in and uploading them and then downloading them. I'm certain someone smarter than me knows how to eliminate one of those steps.
 
Personally, i like TeamViewer. It's free for personal use, and they have apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows, and Linux. Remote Desktop Control, Presentation, File Transfer, Chat for helping others, etc.

Great stuff.
 
It's simple. Set up an FTP server, then log in using Safari on your iPhone. For some reason Mobile Safari doesn't let you browse a folder via FTP, so you'll have to know the full path to the file before hand. Set up the server, the share point, then the format would be "ftp://username: password@1.2.3.4/SharePoint/File" Pretty simple. Sucks you can't browse though, but if you write a script on your mac to save the contents of the directory you want to browse to a file, then you should be able to work around it.

EDIT: I guess the simple "ls -l >./curdir.txt" is good enough. Write a script to have that done automatically for every folder you wish to browse remotely and it should work out. Or I could write if for you if you wish.

Because I was bored, I wrote some script you can use. I could have made a folder action script, but it doesn't deal with file name changes, which isn't as consistent as I'd like, so:
Code:
property listOfContents : {""}
property listOfFolders : {"path:to:folder", "path:to:folder2","path:to:folder3"}
on idle
	repeat with x from 1 to length of listOfFolders
		if length of listOfContents is less than length of listOfFolders then
			set listOfContents to listOfContents & {""}
		end if
		set curFolder to item x of listOfFolders
		tell application "Finder"
			if (files of folder curFolder as string) is not equal to item x of listOfContents then
				set item x of listOfContents to (files of folder curFolder as string)
				do shell script "cd " & quoted form of POSIX path of (folder curFolder as string) & " && ls -l >./curdirL && ls >./curdir"
			end if
		end tell
	end repeat
	return 30
end idle

It gives you two forms of output, the detailed one "-l" or the regular output. Feel free to delete one of them if you want to. Feel free to add as many folders as you would like to the list of folders, the loop should work regardless. Oh yah, and this has to be saved as a "stay open" app. You can quit it at any time, it just has to be open in order to maintain the list of files.

This is probably easier than loading VNC to look for the full path to the files you want, although in some cases you might have to. Either way... Yah, FTP is the simplest solution.
 
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