notegirl

Get a file onto a computer that isn't yours

The hotel printer is next to a PC that a thousand guests have used. You need one PDF on it, and the usual way is to type your email password into a browser you don't trust. Don't.

The situations this is for

The hotel business center. Boarding pass, visa letter, a parking permit. The PC has a printer attached and a browser that remembers whatever the last guest typed.

The library or school computer. Often locked down: no USB sticks, no installs, sometimes a kiosk browser that only opens websites.

A coworker's or a client's laptop. You need to show them a file or leave one with them, and you are not going to sign in to your Google account on their machine.

The family computer. Grandma's PC, with your photos on your phone and no cable in sight.

Why the usual ways are the wrong ways here

Signing in to your email on a shared computer means your account is open on it until you remember to sign out, and the browser offers to save the password. A USB stick is never in your pocket, and plenty of shared PCs have the ports switched off. A cloud link still means your account, on their machine, and a file sitting in your cloud afterwards. AirDrop and Quick Share need the other machine to be the right brand and set up for it, and a hotel PC is neither.

The one-minute way

  1. On the borrowed computer, open notegirl.com. It is a plain web page; no download, no sign-in. It shows three words, like lemon otter cabin.
  2. Type those words into your phone. Open notegirl.com on your own phone and type the computer's three words into the TO box, then tap Connect. Notice what just happened: the only thing you typed on their machine was a web address.
  3. Send the file, use it, and delete everything. Tap Send a photo or file on your phone and pick the PDF. It appears on the computer; click Save or just open it and print. When you are done, press Delete everything, which clears both screens, and close the tab.
Open Notegirl

What is left behind

Nothing that is yours. There is no account on their computer to stay signed in to, no password the browser could have saved, and no copy on any server, because the file went straight from your phone to that screen. If you clicked Save, the file is in that computer's Downloads folder, so delete it there too if it matters. Then the three words stop working the moment you close the tab, and the next guest gets a blank page.

Coming back the other way

The same link carries files to your phone: a scan from the hotel's printer, a document a client has on their laptop, a photo from the family PC. Drop it onto the Notegirl page on the computer and it lands on your phone, where Save puts it in Files on an iPhone or Downloads on Android, and Share… offers Photos for a picture.

Locked-down networks

Hotels and schools sometimes stop devices from talking to each other directly. When that happens the pieces go by way of a relay that cannot read them, and you lose a few seconds, nothing else. If its browser can't open websites at all, you have found a kiosk, and this page can't help with that one.

Questions

Is anything left on the other computer?
Only what you chose to save there. Notegirl stores nothing, and there is no account to stay signed in to.

Can the hotel or the library see my file?
No. It travels encrypted from your phone to that screen. Notegirl's server only passes the introduction, never the file.

What if the computer's network is locked down?
Blocked direct connections are routed through a relay that cannot read the file. Blocked websites are another matter: then nothing web-based works there.

Does a boarding pass print properly?
Yes. Send the PDF rather than a screenshot and it prints at the right size with a scannable barcode.

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