Fiddling With UpRight

UpRight, by Otaku Software, is a One-Click file transfer utility, aimed at web developers and anyone else who might need to quickly upload a file to an ftp server without going through the normal upload motions. I browse the Otaku site every few months because their software is, for lack of a better word, nifty. UpRight isn't brand new - I passed it over once or twice thinking it was just one more app to install, but after a couple of weeks of serious toying, I'm pretty happy with it.

I have basically three uses for UpRight:

  1. Uploading files to my web site for various reasons
  2. Uploading podcast audio for my chuch's web site
  3. Quickly moving data to my "general crap" S3 bucket

For each, I'd always had a different workflow which involved an AJAX web form, ncftp in cygwin and Bucket Explorer, respectively. With UpRight, it's one two clicks, and data begins to move. (Note: It would be one click, but I have more than one upload location, and UpRight nicely nests these for me rather than create multiple context menu items.)

Really, the S3 access is my favorite. It's rare that I actually need to access my bucket(s) from work - generally all of my usage is from home - however, Bucket Explorer doesn't live up to my expecatations. Nothing big, really... it just randomly forgets my S3 credentials and sometimes thinks that I don't have an internet connection. Other than those "features", it works "fine".

UpRight, however, works perfectly for this purpose. It is no more and no less than as it advertises itself. It moves selected files/folders, and it does it very well.

Of course UpRight is, like any software application, not perfect. There are a couple of things I'd like to see Otaku improve or add:

  • Handle file overwriting. Right now, it just overwrites without asking. I'd like to see at least the option for a prompt which I can choose to turn off as needed. Per-location prompt preference would be great.
  • SCP support. UpRight would be perfect for the quick uploading I do from work to home, currnelty using WinSCP (which I do really like).

One feature I don't have much use for is the ability to take an action after the upload completes. In its current form, this allows you to customize the "completed" dialog, send an email or copy some text to the clipboard. I can very easily envision strong use cases for each of these options, but for me.. meh. I'd love to see an option to "run this command" as well so that I could have the upload trigger a script of some kind.

Overall, I've saved some time with UpRight. It's not a killer app, but it saves a couple of minutes throughout the week, and I really like that. Otaku also makes a few other nifty utilities such as TopDesk (Expose and 3D task switching for Windows) and DeskSpace (think Compiz Fusion for Windows). I've been using TopDesk for a few years, and have had varying degrees of use for it since, I think, version 1.2ish. At the moment, I'm using it to quickly move my windows out of the way when I need to see my desktop, tile my app windows when I have too much going on, and display the pretty 3D task switcher when my laptop's memory isn't completely used up.

Were I to score products, I'd give this one a 7/10 - Not awesome, but certainly very useful. I'll install it next time I reload my system. I don't, however, so you should ignore this and the previous sentence!

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