1. JustAnotherBeerbot's Avatar
    Okay, here's a neat trick I just figured out. This may be old news, but new to me...

    Copying files via wi-fi sharing to the playbook typically chugs along at close to 1MB/sec.
    Downloading files in the browser runs much faster (5+ MB/sec).
    Any files placed in the media share are picked up by the media library (music, photo, video apps). This includes the downloads folder.
    So if you happen to have a web-server running on your Mac or PC, you can just make your large media files available via the web server then tap&hold on files to "save link as".

    Files will download to the device close to 5x faster via this method.

    You can move files around in your wi-fi share afterwards (ie. from downloads/ to videos/) if you want without incurring a copy penalty.

    While this may not be terribly convenient for copying multiple files, you can always make a .zip of the files and hunt around for an unzip app. If there isn't one out there yet, you can bet there will be.
    Of course, by then the wi-fi sharing may be running at full speed
    04-25-11 11:05 PM
  2. sylvaing's Avatar
    You should post this to the Tips and tricks thread.
    BigAl_BB9900 likes this.
    04-25-11 11:07 PM
  3. JustAnotherBeerbot's Avatar
    You should post this to the Tips and tricks thread.
    sure thing.
    04-25-11 11:17 PM
  4. HaTaX's Avatar
    Yup! Its a good way of moving files around. Been doing this for a while as an easy way to get files from my server on my 9700. The speed improvement over wifi sharing is a nice bonus as well... You should create a thread with the steps needed to setup iis!
    04-26-11 12:37 AM
  5. gtirsmiley's Avatar
    Can you please explain some more or provide some type of tutorial? I dont really understand what you mean.
    05-07-11 06:03 PM
  6. gtirsmiley's Avatar
    anyone ? some more details please?
    05-09-11 03:25 AM
  7. HaTaX's Avatar
    Basically you need to setup ISS (Internet Information Server) on the windows machine where the files you want to access are stored. In ISS you're going to create virtual directories to the folders that you want to share out.

    I can look later for some tutorials...
    JR A likes this.
    05-09-11 07:08 PM
  8. wheresmy600's Avatar
    I can look later for some tutorials...
    That would be GREAT if you could do that. The wi fi transfer of movies is S-L-O-W!! I do find, however, that the desktop is method is pretty quick.
    05-09-11 07:35 PM
  9. HaTaX's Avatar
    Well, there's no canned tutorial I can find right now for this topic. However, here are the steps that need to be followed. I'll give steps for XP and Windows 7, vista users should be able to follow the 7 instructions as well.


    First install IIS in windows:
    XP - Install IIS on Windows XP
    Win 7 - Installing IIS 7 on Windows Vista and Windows 7
    ALTERNATIVE - Use the Microsoft Web Platform Installer to install IIS on your windows system. Works on XP, vista, 7, etc:
    Download the Microsoft Web Platform


    Next up is to create virtual directories to the folders you want to share out:
    XP - Create a Virtual Directory (IIS 6)
    Win 7 - Create a Virtual Directory (IIS 7)

    Here's what I did with my configuration. I started with a base directory like "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\files" and made a virtual directory in IIS that pointed to it. That makes it so the webserver will display anything in the "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\files" directory when browsing to "http://localhost/files" on that computer. When accessing from another device, replace localhost with the DNS name or IP address of the computer running IIS.

    Now with your files root setup it's time to create some links to the folders you want to share out. There's a few tricks here, but this allows you to share out folders from other computers on your network as well as local folders. In IIS right click the "files" (or whatever you named it) virtual folder you just made, and create another virtual directory. In the physical path you put the folder you want to access and in the alias field put a name you'd like to have displayed. Remember!!! If it's a network path, then you need to ensure the credentials you use have access to read that folder and files!

    IE, alias of "HomeServer-Videos" with a physical path of "\\HomeServer\videos" would display as "HomeServer-Videos" in the web browser and link to files stored in "\\HomeServer\videos", a network path.


    Finally we need to enable directory browsing on the base virtual directory: (Combined article)
    XP & Win 7 - IIS6.0 UI vs. IIS7.x UI Series: Directory Browsing : Nitasha's blog : The Official Microsoft IIS Site
    (Base virtual directory used in this example was "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\files")



    Now here's the clincher, if you've followed these steps to this point you will NOT be able to see these links in the web browser yet!!! Reason being is that the virtual directories may exist to the web server, there is nothing in the folder to display to the user so show there is a link there. Here's how we fix that...

    Navigate to the base directory you started off with in IIS. ("C:\inetpub\wwwroot\files" in this example) This folder SHOULDN'T have any folders in it yet, that's what we're going to create in this step. Create folders that match the name of the alias you gave the shared folders. ("HomeServer-Videos" in this example) This will display the folder name in the web browser, and IIS will display the virtual directory that you mapped previously instead of the empty folder you created in the base directory.

    Complete!!! At this point you should be able to browse your network share from any web browser on the same network. I've used this on many different BB devices and it works great, is fast on the PB as well.

    There's a few other things you will want to look into...

    1.)If you want to access this from the outside you NEED TO ENABLE SSL as well as authentication for the site. SSL is important as you don't want passwords transmitted in plain text. You can use a self signed certificate for this purpose, it will display an error at first when accessing the site, but the password will at least be encrypted. Also consider running on a non-standard port here so the site isn't easily found from the outside.

    2.)Restricting access to the site by IP address is a great way to control what devices can see the webpage if you're on a shared network. For IIS 7.0+ look into "IP Address and Domain Restrictions", IIS 5-6 have it in the directory security tab.

    3.)Remember the importance of credentials when accessing a share on a remote machine! Best practice would be to make a user account just for this purpose that only has read access to the share. I know the #1 problem people will run into here is that it "won't work with my network path". Credentials are going to be the issue 90% of the time.

    4.)It is important to create the virtual directory pointer to the folder in IIS BEFORE you create the empty directory in the physical folder. If you create the physical folder first, IIS will not map it as a virtual folder correctly.


    Wow......... That took a while.... Whew....


    Let me know if this helps you out! I can tweak and expand the steps if people give me feedback as to what works for them and what doesn't!
    Last edited by HaTaX; 05-09-11 at 10:33 PM.
    Herve5, spike12, BlazorBoy and 5 others like this.
    05-09-11 10:26 PM
  10. HaTaX's Avatar
    So has anyone tried this out? Just wondering if my instructions were clear enough...
    05-12-11 12:07 PM
  11. HaTaX's Avatar
    Awww, I'm hoping that post helps SOMEONE out! Let me know if I should add screenshots or whatever to help make it a little clearer. I've had a few BB buddies ask me how to do this in the last few days as well, so I think people are looking for easy ways to grab files from the network on their PB...
    05-14-11 01:10 PM
  12. iceking66's Avatar
    awesome post. It's clear to a tech savvy person . Waiting on my PB to arrive to fully test. 1mb transfers would be painful!
    05-16-11 02:37 PM
  13. Guyzer's Avatar
    okay so I have the ability to access the file shares on my win7 machine from my playbook. though when I try to click on the file to d/l it says:

    HTTP Error 404.3 - Not Found
    The page you are requesting cannot be served because of the extension configuration. If the page is a script, add a handler. If the file should be downloaded, add a MIME map.

    so I guess I need to add a MIME map. I wonder if this is an easy thing?
    11-30-11 09:46 PM
  14. Guyzer's Avatar
    okay it was actually very easy to set that up. noticed they have a mime types gui in features view. easy to use program just a tonne of options that makes it hard to navigate around with.

    now what I would like to get, having quick access to my laptops large photo database, is a nice overlay. hoping to find a program either for blackberry/android that will allow me to point to the web share over wifi and swipe photos across. instead of having to use a browser to click on the link, open the photo, click back, click on the next link, etc. etc.

    I find this is a good replacement for bridge files since we lost them with the lastest 2.0 beta. I am also thinking that the wifi at 5mb is faster and more seamless than the bluetooth 723 kbps. (1.5 Mbps w/ overhead) speeds. I hear the new bluetooth is faster and has more radius but doubt the playbook will have it for a while.
    11-30-11 11:12 PM
  15. bounce007's Avatar
    Thank you so much! Why didn't I think to do this before?? I use WiFi sharing all the time and it bothered me that the speed fluctuated from time to time. This is a great post! Thanks again
    Cancross likes this.
    12-01-11 06:52 AM
  16. tofo17's Avatar
    I have a Netgear Stora NAS that has a flash web interface allowing me to download my files via web browser locally or over the internet. I can't believe how fast it is compared both drag and drop from windows and using FTP on the PB!
    12-01-11 06:59 AM
  17. bounce007's Avatar
    Yup! Its a good way of moving files around. Been doing this for a while as an easy way to get files from my server on my 9700. The speed improvement over wifi sharing is a nice bonus as well... You should create a thread with the steps needed to setup iis!
    According to this: Available Web Server (IIS) Role Services in IIS 7.5

    FTP server features is not available for Windows 7 Home Premium users. Will this result in Home Premium users (and below) not being able to transfer files between computer and PlayBook???
    12-01-11 01:00 PM
  18. bounce007's Avatar
    Man... This is frustrating me lol. Been at it all evening and can't set this up... any help????
    12-01-11 11:32 PM
  19. Guyzer's Avatar
    i can tell you win7 home premium has the ability to make it work. with the problem your having ill have to look into it. im a noob to. theres always a way to make it work and once we find it you'll look back thinking how easy it was...

    but until then give me some time. maybe one of the pros can help out. they most likely would like more information on what problem your having. details and all
    bounce007 likes this.
    12-02-11 12:06 AM
  20. Guyzer's Avatar
    first thing I ask is if your playbook and the computer are on the same network?

    second did you make the special firewall permission for the share over the network?
    -a quick way to check if its a firewall issue is to just turn it off for a second, try it out, then you know what you need to work on.

    third do you actually have a space in your home server? "Bounce Files" I wonder if that could be causing the issues.
    12-02-11 12:09 AM
  21. bounce007's Avatar
    i can tell you win7 home premium has the ability to make it work. with the problem your having ill have to look into it. im a noob to. theres always a way to make it work and once we find it you'll look back thinking how easy it was...

    but until then give me some time. maybe one of the pros can help out. they most likely would like more information on what problem your having. details and all
    Thank you for your response. I took a nap and woke up refreshed and figured it out. My antivirus was blocking it. Then I had to make sure I put added the file extensions I was trying to access in the MIME types.

    It's noticeably faster than WiFi sharing too. Thank you OP, thank you HaTaX and thank you Guyzer!

    12-02-11 06:39 AM
  22. ritesh21aggarwal's Avatar
    I done with this procedur....

    But speed of my data transfer is same as 1.16-1,20 MB/s as same speed i got on Wifi sharing...
    there is no diff in my sharing speed..
    i have netmetre installed, by means of that i got to knw speed.....



    please help me how to inc my upload speed so i am able to transfer at high sppeed 5X
    01-06-12 05:38 PM
  23. Guyzer's Avatar
    this is for d/l only from your webserver, laptop or desktop
    01-06-12 08:03 PM
  24. bounce007's Avatar
    Just wanted to bump this up, in hopes that some new PB user may find it useful.
    BrizzadMan likes this.
    04-12-12 02:39 PM
  25. Guyzer's Avatar
    Just thought I would post an update to a new use i found with the iis server. I had troubles playing certain video files on my playbook but for some reason when I access them via my iis server they stream in the browser.

    Previously I was using orb which kinda worked but it was bad quality as it was streaming from a laptop. Now its great quality and I'm loving it. Watching the latest breaking bad season 5 and its awesome!!!

    To watch mp4s on the IIS server you need to add the mime type. Goto feature view > MIME types > New > name "mp4" type "video/mp4"
    07-23-12 01:50 AM
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