|
|
|
An FTP Tutorial |
In order to upload your pages, or post them to the web, you'll need these things:
- Your HTML files
- An understanding of how file names work
- An FTP Utility
- Some information from your ISP
|
|
Information from Your Internet Service Provider |
The information you will need from your ISP is:
- What's the host name? This is the name of the server you'll upload your pages to.
- What's my User ID? This is usually your email address.
- What's my password? This is generally the password you use for your account when you sign on.
- What will my URL be? For most services, this will be the host name followed by your email address. For instance, on AOL it will be http://members.aol.com/youremailaddress/
|
|
Understanding File Names |
- This information is critical to getting your file to be recognized by a web browser:
- Don't use spaces within file names: use homepage.htm instead of home page.htm
- Keep all of your file names short, easy to remember and lower case. Consistancy throughout your web site will make your life much easier in the long run.
- Don't use symbols within your filenames (like #). These can be misinterpreted by the browser. Keep your file names to letters and numbers.
- Graphic files are not embedded in a web page. All files must be uploaded individually. If you have a web page with three graphics, you'll be uploading four files for that page: the HTML file and three individual graphics.
- File names must have a correct file extension. HTML files must end in .htm or .html. GIF files must end in .gif, and JPG files must end in .jpg or .jpeg in order for the web browser to understand what kind of file to display.
|
|
Step By Step: How to Upload |
Once you have this information, you're ready to upload the page you've created.
The next step is to make sure you're connected to the Interent. Then open your FTP Utility. Below is an example from WS-FTP:
You'll discover that there is a place for all the information you've received from your Internet Service Provider. The Profile Name is what you'll save the FTP information as. Next, enter the Host Name, then User ID, and Password information. Deselect the Anonymous checkbox. Click OK.
The next screen you'll see, if you're using WS-FTP, will appear as shown below.
On the left pane is your computer. Browse to find the file you want to upload. On the right is your space on the web server. To upload your file, highlight the file you want to upload in the left pane, select the right arrow button, and voila! Pretty nifty, right? What's even better is that if you have a lot of files to upload at once, you can highlight more than one file by clicking, then shift+clicking or control+clicking to select multiple files. Once again, select the right arrow key to upload the files to the server.
You'll see some icons next to both the right and left panes of the windows. These icons are for the following tasks:
- ChgDir - Change Directory.
- MkDir - Make Directory.
- View - Is for previewing text files.
- Exec - to execute a file.
- Rename - to rename a file or directory, very useful if you've mistakenly uploaded something using an incorrect file name.
- Delete - to delete a file or files.
- Refresh - to refresh your view of the current director, if, for example, you want to make sure that the file you deleted is really gone.
- DirInfo - Opens a text editor with a list of your files. This is actually a nifty trick, because if you have a large, complex directory and you want to view what's in it, you can print out a version.
You'll also notice there's a set of checkboxes for file types. Leave the setting at automatic.
Once you've uploaded your file or files, close the FTP Utility and then you'll want to use the last bit of information you received from your ISP (What's my URL?) to check your files online. Open your web browser, and type in the URL for your page. If you've uploaded your file as index.htm, this is the default page name on many servers so you won't need to type in the path to this file. For example, if your URL is http://www.isp.com/wdflo, and you've uploaded an index.htm or index.html file, that will be your URL.
If you have any further inquiries about FTP, or any of our other services, please let us know.
Copyright © 2008 onlyhosting.net
Protected by Copyright, All rights reserved.
Contact Us
|
|
|
Does your business need reliable email or web hosting? Onlyhosting provides outstanding features and support, contact us today
|
|
