All of the consultants on RealWorld Systems projects work out of home or satellite offices - we don't have a central office, and many of us have never met despite several years of working together. We're linked together by various distance collaboration tools, mainly email, phone conferences, instant messaging, and a private extranet.

For years, I've been looking for an application that makes project file sharing easier. A consulting project might involve 10 different team members, each generating dozens of documents and files. By the end of a complex project, there may be hundreds of documents, culminating in a set of final reports. Our intranet, which is based on Microsoft Sharepoint Services, is excellent but it’s not ideal for sharing working files. It’s a hassle to upload documents, and we only do it for the most important ones that everyone needs to use as references. Typically, we don’t upload the working documents that are revised by many people over a period of days or weeks.

Like most collaborative groups, we send documents back and forth by email, resulting in massive email storage and a lot of confusion about which documents are current. I’ve tried many solutions, including Groove (which has just released version 3), Sharepoint Services, Critical Path, Punch Networks, Xdrive, Tenix, ReBOL, and so on, and all of them have fatal flaws for our purposes.

• Some only work on Windows XP or higher, which leaves out team members who use different operating systems.

• Some take up massive amounts of computer memory. I really like Groove, for example, but my team flatly refuses to use it because it slows down their system too much.

• Some are so complex they interfere with the running of other programs (in technical terms, they screw up the Windows registry) even after they are uninstalled. Groove is another culprit here.

• Most require the laborious uploading of documents onto an online service. Even if the process is fairly easy and quick, it just doesn’t seem to get done when people are in a hurry.

Ideally, a file sharing application should work on different operating systems (Windows 98, Windows XP, Linux and Mac), should enable secure encrypted file sharing, should be as easy to use as saving documents to your own drive, and should make group document revisions as simple as working on a Local Area Network in a regular office. It should also be lightweight and simple to uninstall.

I’ve recently been using Shinkuro, and I’m pretty excited about it. Shinkuro is a small software program that enables teams to securely share files, exchange instant messages, and do simple screen sharing. It works with the four operating systems listed above (though it requires a small workaround for Win98 systems), and it’s currently in free beta. [Update from May 10 2004: It looks like there may be problems with some Win98 systems, so it may not work with yours.] The developer, Jeff Kay, has promised that it will be reasonably priced even for nonprofits when it’s formally released.

Its best feature is its incredibly easy file sharing; you designate a folder on your computer for sharing, and every document that you drag into that folder is shared with your designated Shinkuro group. You can do free backups that way (automatically backing up files on another server by saving them into the shared folder), and you don’t have to remember to upload the files onto a separate extranet. The files are encrypted and sent through the internet in small packets, so you can share huge files without needing to send them as attachments in email messages. And when your team members make revisions on your documents, their revisions are stored as separate documents so your versions don’t get overwritten. It looks great, though we haven’t fully tested it, and it seems perfect for project document sharing.

Shinkuro also offers instant messaging and ‘presence awareness’ to team members. Presence awareness means the ability to see when team members are online and at their computers – it’s similar to working in a central office and being aware when colleagues are at their desks by peeking over the cubicle. With presence awareness, it’s much easier to exchange information quickly or set up ad hoc meetings. Shinkuro’s version, unlike many of the free IM services like MSN, Yahoo and AOL, offers totally private, encrypted instant messaging with only the people you have chosen to invite.

Optional but increasingly important in team collaboration is screen sharing, in which you can see what’s on another colleague’s computer (e.g., PowerPoint slides, a document or a live software program) and discuss it during a meeting. Shinkuro offers a simple form of screen sharing in which users can show what is on their screen to other members of the same private group. It’s useful for document revision, to make a presentation, to show a graphic, or to carry on a software training session. There are other services that do a better job of screen sharing (I’ve already talked about glance.net and ASAP on this blog) but it’s a nice little feature that saves time when you’re trying to explain something visually.

Besides Shinkuro, collaborative groups will still need a variety of tools including email and group teleconferencing. Email is simple; everyone working online already has an email program, and it’s possible to get good free email services that work just as well as the most expensive.

Group teleconferencing has been expensive until recently. Skype, a Voice over IP application, has just released a version that supports free encrypted teleconferencing for up to five participants. You need a headset, a computer and a highspeed internet connection, and then you can make unlimited long distance or group ‘phone calls’ for free. Skype is expanding quickly – seven months after its launch it has been downloaded over 10 million times and it's available in many languages, including Chinese. Apparently the voice quality is very good, though I haven’t tested it extensively. We use a stand-alone teleconference service by Enunciate because most people are still reluctant to use computer headsets for their phone calls. Skype offers presence awareness and instant messaging as well, and will soon (supposedly) be able to link to regular telephone networks for an extra charge.