filicio.us blog

We’ve just added RSS to filicio.us, so all (public) files can now be downloaded via feeds. Feed URLs look like this:

• http://filicio.us/rss/demo/ (most recent public files published by demo)
• http://filicio.us/rss/demo/podcast (most recent public files published by demo tagged podcast)
• http://filicio.us/torrentrss/demo (most recent public files published by demo, but for BitTorrent applications)

This is the easy way of getting the standard rss feeds. In fact, the feeds has been added as a part of the filicio.us API, which means than any API request with format=rss specified will be returned as RSS. A few examples:

• http://filicio.us/get-files?format=rss&username=demo&password=demo&limit=100&orderby=creation_date&order=desc (Get all the 100 most recent files — private and public — uploaded by demo)
• http://filicio.us/get-files?format=rss&username=demo&mode=search&search=superman (Get a list of demo’s public files where either the filename or the description includes the string “superman”)

(And yes, I realize that it’s time to actually write some API documentation. This thing has grown out of the sparse blog doc.)

(Refer to this blog post for an introduction of the api, and a listing of the basic options)
I’ve added a few more options to the “api”, which means that you can now retrieve a list of private files through the api (by sending the password that goes with the username, obviously), and you’re no longer limited to listing files by only one tag.

This means that you can now:

• http://filicio.us/get-files?username=demo&password=demo (get demo’s private and public files)
• http://filicio.us/get-files?username=steffentchr&mode=tag&tag=ip&tag=egnenoter&tagmode=or (list all of my files tagged either ip or egnenoter)
• http://filicio.us/get-files?username=steffentchr&mode=tag&tag=ip&tag=egnenoter&tagmode=and (list all of my files tagged ip and egnenoter)
• http://filicio.us/get-files?username=demo&mode=tag&tag=first&tag=second&password=demo (list all demo’s files — private and public — tagged either first or second)

If you really want to be Web 2.0 these days, true ajax’ing (as in fullfilling the holy trinity by doing async, javascript and xml at once) is not enough: You also need an api. And when you’ve got the xml thing down, you’re almost there, so after a few minutes of hacking, we’re ready to introduce our very own file sharing api.

Another very important part of the whole Web 2.0 universe is sparse documentation, so we’ll simply explain the api with a few links to my public files:

• http://filicio.us/get-files?username=steffentchr
• http://filicio.us/get-files?username=steffentchr&mode=user_recent (30 most recent files)
• http://filicio.us/get-files?username=steffentchr&mode=untagged
• http://filicio.us/get-files?username=steffentchr&mode=tag&tag=metode

(There’s probably more to come, but this should illustrate the basics…)

I’ve just added preliminary support for an added layer of openness at filicio.us: You can now browse other user’s public files through the web interface. The UI is exactly the same, although many actions have been disabled (since, obviously, you can’t delete other user’s files or add metadata such as tags).

For demonstration purposes, look at http://filicio.us/steffentchr or http://filicio.us/demo.

A month or so ago Amazon launched it’s file storage service named S3. The gist of it: Host all your files in one place, have them be accessible from everywhere and only pay for the storage and bandwidth used. And it very affordable at $0.20 per GB you transfer (upload or download) and $0.15 per GB per month for storage. For you as an ordinary user there’s one glitch though: It’s not designed for you! There’s no (web) interface for uploading, downloading and organizing your files.

This is the exact gap that filicio.us is designed to fix. filicio.us is a simple file storage service built using Amazon S3. You can register for an account with S3, and then use our service for uploading your files, organizing them using tags and sharing them with others. In essence , we’re providing a thin shell between you and S3 — and ajax superpowered one at that — which allows you to actually use S3 for your own purpose.

Now, if you want to know more, have a look at our nice About filicio.us document (this document also details how you can try out the service without signing up). Or if you can’t wait to get started, go to filicio.us and create a free account.

We’ve recently created a file service, filicio.us, based on Amazon’s new Simple Storage Service (S3).