Uploading your new pages to the Internet!
What is FTP?
FTP stands for "File Transfer Protocol". Put simply, FTP is another piece of software that allows you to use the Internet to download or upload files from one computer to another. In this case, transferring your web page to your Remote Host Web Server (ISP) and then keeping it updated. In order to make this happen you need FTP software and you need to know the "name" or address of your directory on your Web Server plus your User Name and Password.
FTP Tools
Do you need Software? See Third Party Apps.
Basically there are three steps to follow:
Building a "Session Profile".
Making the Connection.
Transferring the Files.
1. Building a "Session Profile".
WS_FTP
A session profile allows you to store information about a specific FTP server you are using. This includes its "address", your userID on the system, your password and (optionally) start-up directories on both your machine and the FTP server. As in a Phonebook, each entry can have its own name which you apply. Make a new entry and give it any name (e.g. "My Web Site").
Under Host Name: enter the name or IP number of the server you are wanting to upload to. e.g. www.myserver.com or ftp.myserver.com .Or if you have your own domain, enter www.mydomain.com or ftp.mydomain.com.
Under Host Type: select Automatic detect, which takes care of about 90% of all hosts.
Under User ID: enter your userID given to you by your ISP (Often it is the same UserID as your dial-up account).
Under Password: type in the password you use to login to your dial-up account (Again this is the norm, if not check with your ISP). Note that this comes up in "protected" text. Check the Save Password box if your machine is fairly secure. If it's not secure then you can type in the password here each time you use this service or wait until you are asked for a password.
In most cases, you can leave the other boxes empty. The FTP Servers will automatically place you in the right directory.
2. Making The Connection
You only need to do step 1 once. The next time you call up your FTP tool, the "Session Profile" for "My Web Site" is there and just needs to be selected.
Once you are satisfied you have entered the correct information, Click "Apply" and then "OK". If you are not connected, you should be taken through the dial-up steps. You can also connect prior to starting an FTP session.
3. Transferring Files
Once you see the Directory and files on the FTP Server, you know you are connected.
There are two kinds of file transfer, ASCII and Binary. ASCII is for text and Binary is for graphics. As a rule Choose Binary as it will handle both HTML and graphics.
There are two arrows, which indicate the direction of the file transfer. Note that these actions are irreversible. Once you transfer a file, it overwrites any file it finds with the same name and does not ask you if you want to do this. So be careful to pick the right direction if you've been updating files on the client machine. Also note that most web-servers run on Unix, which is case sensitive. This is the opposite of most desktop environments. What this means is that if you refer to a file in your HTML called "Example.html", but the file is actually named "example.html", it will work just fine locally but will not work correctly once uploaded.
You're done... Open your browser, locate your file (refresh if it was an update) and make sure your changes loaded correctly.
