Polkast: A Non-Cloud Way of Transferring Files

 Cloud is good, especially if you want to access your personal documents on the go through your tablets and smartphones . However, all cloud services, including the famous iCloud, have something in common, they charge you a lot when you exceed the free limit of storage that the company offered, such as Dropbox, which offers 2GB free storage, and iCloud which offers 5GB storage for free. The more storage you expand, the more you need to pay. Besides that, there's another problem, most of us prefer to store our documents in our PC at home, which has a massive physical storage, rather than choosing to store them online. So is there any other alternative to obtain your documents from your home PC when you are elsewhere, far away from your home? Some of you might tried using IM clients such as Windows Messenger, Skype, and Yahoo Messenger. Some even come out with the idea of using TeamViewer to obtain documents from their folders at home. But, those methods are SLOW! And without someone at home, those ways are hardly accessible. Things got even worse when you try to retrieve your video files.


Now we have another great solution, called Polkast. The most significant advantage that we found on Polkast is, it's totally free! It's a different concept from Cloud based storage. It doesn't store anything on the network, so there's no data storage limit. The procedures of setting up the account is extremely simple. On your iOS or Android devices, you just have to download the Polkast App (free). At the same time, connect your laptop or PC to the internet and download for PC. If you are using a Mac, there's also a Mac version for you. After the installation of Polkast on your PC has completed, you can sign up an account through the Polkast software on your PC, by using your email address. The sign up process is very fast, and when it is done, you can now turn on your Polkast app on your tablet or smartphone. Now, key-in the email address and password that you used to register your Polkast account just now. When you have successfully sign in, Polkast will connect automatically connect to your HomeBase (your PC storage). At the meantime, please make sure that you keep your internet connection, PC and the Polkast software on. Through the Polkast app in your iPad, you can instantly access your files stored at your Documents, Music, Picture, and Videos folders of your PC (both personal and public folders). If you want to retrieve any of your documents, just tap on the file and a "Download" and "Share" buttons will appear. You can select "Download" to download the file to your Polkast profile or you can "share" your file through your iMessage for those who use iOS. So far, I still haven't find any way to move the downloaded video files to my Video App in iPad. That's the only flaw I can find till now. The download speed is fast if your device connected to your HomeBase through the same wifi network, but if you are distance away from your home network, using wifi hotspot or other networks, it might be slower, depending on the local connection speed.