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Web Site 101 - ABC of FTP

By
Real Estate Agent with Healdsburg Sotheby's International Realty

WEb site 101 banner - abc of FTPI couldn't resist the alphabet soup title. Pushing files back and forth on the internet is an important skill for any blogger, so tying this lesson back to the basics, the ABC's, might help emphasize the importance of this lesson. It won't help you be a better writer, but it's an essential skill if you maintain an outside web site. New tools like WordPress incorporate their own capability for transferring files, but I end up using FTP tools on all my sites, WordPress or not. One final word. This is technical content for non-technical people, especially those who are doing the Web Site 101 lessons. Read on at your own peril.

FTP is an acronym for File Transfer Protocol. It's in in the same internet family of protocols that brought us HTTP, the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol that you see in the URL of every web page. FTP is the most common method for moving files back and forth between your computer and your web site.I have been using various FTP tools for more than fifteen years, so I have had plenty of time to figure out what works best. Filezilla banner

There's not going to be multiple choice recommendations on this. Unlike graphics editing or text editing tools, there's a "best of class" piece of software among free FTP tools. Filezilla is the clear winner in terms of features, ease of use, and overall simplicity. If you don't have an existing FTP tool that you will use to upload your farm.html page, stop reading now and download FileZilla. You want the client, not the server. There are versions for PC, Mac, and Linux so everyone reading this should be able to find the client software they need.

Filezilla ScreenshotI just downloaded and installed the newest client on my relatively slow PC. It took about three minutes from start to finish and ended up taking up 15 MB on my drive, so it's not a big deal.

Three pieces of information are necessary to use an FTP site. You need to know the HOST address which is often the same core information as the web site. Filezilla is smart software, so you can usually enter the domain name in the "Host" text box. Username would be your log-in information and password should be self-explanatory at this point. Try it now. Enter those three pieces of information in the fields highlighted with the red ovals and then click on the Quickconnect button.

Notice the two green ovals in the middle of the image. One says LOCAL and the other REMOTE. If you got everything right the first time your window will start showing you one important difference.

Filezilla connectedThe top window will start showing you the process of connecting and the REMOTE half of the screen (the right side) will be populated with information from your remote HOST. The screen shot I am showing is for my wikiupgreens.com site where you found the anywhere.html page that we used for our template. If you look carefully at the lower left and right windows, you will see that the content matches. There's an anywhere.html file on both sides as well as directories for images and newsletters. This is a drag and drop environment where you can simply drag an updated file, like our anywhere.html, from the left window (your computer) to the right window (the interent). It's that simple to move one file or ten or a whole site from your computer to your host or from your host to your computer.  

For today, please get the software installed on your computer and log into your new site. If you have questions, put them in comments and I'll answer them as quickly as I can.