Cross-platform file/folder transfer

I had actually posted on FilePhile some time ago but could not get it to install in Ubuntu 8.04 on the EeePC 901. After typing

java -jar FilePhile.jar

I kept getting this error

Exception in thread “main” java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Could not initialize class java.awt.Toolkit
at java.awt.Component.<clinit>(Component.java:568)
at com.api.filephile.gui.FilePhileGUI.main(Unknown Source)

After much searching, I eventually found a fix here that worked for me. This involves just typing this command into a terminal:

sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun

Now, FilePhile opens, asks me to agree to the EULA and that’s it. Note that it took a while (maybe 4-5 minutes) before the Preferences dialog box actually fully works.

However, to test it, you need to have a second FilePhilee registered user so I created another user in Ubuntu 8.04 on the MacBook. (Note that sun-java6-jre must be installed for FilePhile to work). Strangely, this time FilePhile started without any problem.

Transferring a file from one computer to the other was very simple and just involved “Add Buddy” (and adding the other user’s email address), selecting the file to send and then clicking send.

This looks very nice and is possibly just a little better than the Droopy/Woof combination in that folders are easily transferred and only the email address (rather than the IP) is needed.