) | Jean LeLoup & Bob Ponterio SUNY Cortland © 2009 |
Moving files from one computer to another over the Internet is accomplished through FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Remember that accessing web pages is done through HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol). So HTTP will show you a web page in your web browser, and FTP will let you send files back and forth between computers. In like manner SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) does email, and FPTP (French Pastry Transfer Protocol) lets you eat cream puffs that are actually located on the other side of the Earth (What? You don't have this one on your computer yet? )
We will look at three ways to upload your web page to your web server space (AKA publishing). All three methods use FTP behind the scenes to make the transfer.
An easy FTP technique may be available to you from any Windows computer. You can use Windows Explorer to connect to your web space account via FTP just as you would view any folder on your computer and avoid having to use any other FTP software.
Caveat: Increased security might make this option unavailable from off-campus. In that case, you should use an FTP program (see below).
To do this, open:
My Computer or Windows ExplorerIn the Address window type the ftp address of your host machine:
ftp://studentweb.cortland.eduYou will be asked for your User Name and Password. NOTE! On the old SUNY Cortland system, students needed to use their NetID as their web user name, but now the ID should be the same as your email login: firstname.lastname. Faculty accounts require the user name in the format "cortland/YourEmailAccountUserName".
Once connected, the Internet Explorer window will resemble the Windows Explorer folder view. Now you can copy and paste your local files to the appropriate folder in your online folder window just as if it were a folder on your local hard drive. Be careful not to get confused about which version is local and which is remote, and keep track of which is your most up-to-date version. Here is a sample view of an online folder.
Once you have an active web space, you should see a default web page using the address:
http://studentweb.cortland.edu/john.smith/
This is only if your name is "John Smith" 
This might be different if you had a web space previously on the old system.
We'll look at how to use WS-FTP, a very popular program, to copy your web sites from your local computer to your web server space. There are lots of FTP (File Transfer Protocol) programs available, many free; you might want to try out a few to find the one you like best. You can get a trial version of WS-FTP Home from Ipswitch for free (They also have a Pro version). You can certainly find free software for FTP such as FileZilla (available in our lab), FTP Commander, FTP Navigator, Coffee Cup Free FTP, Cute FTP Home, FreeFTP.
Remember that a web page is made up of not only the HTML file that you have made but also any files that you have included in your page (images, sounds, etc.). To transfer a page, you have to transfer all of its associated files. By keeping each project in its own folder, we will make it easier to manage your site by moving or copying the entire folder at once.
In our lab we are using the free software FileZilla (you can easily download this an install it at home for free). Here we can connect to the account of a student, John Smith, with the Usernane that should be the same as his email login: john.smith. The Host (or server) is studentweb.cortland.edu to put a web page at the address http://studentweb.cortland.edu/john.smith/mini2/index.html
The Host Name is the name (address) of the computer where the server is located. In this case studentweb.cortland.edu.
The User Name or User ID should be the same as your email login: firstname.lastname. So for this student, the FTP login name is john.smith (but only if your real name is John Smith).
The Password is the password that you have chosen for your account.
Once connected, you can browse and copy files or folders from the local site on the left (your computer) to the remote site on the right (your online web space). Your files will be copied to your new folder and will be accessible using your URL or web address.
The software makes it even easy to do all of these things. You can also set up connections for many different web sites that you might wish to edit.
Many web page editing programs such as DreamWeaver and KompoZer can publish your web page from right within the editor. They will need the information about the web server address where your web space is located and your account log-in information to make the FTP connection. This is exactly the same information that we described above. These programs basically have FTP software built-in and can do quite a bit to help keep the online version of your web site in synch with the local version that you are editing. Never save the login information for your accounts on a public computer.
As you have learned, you will always keep your entire web site in a folder on your hard drive, perhaps even in folders within folders. But each project should be be entirely located within its own folder so that you can move your project around simply by moving this folder. Be careful never to copy your folder into itself (either on your computer or on your web space) or you may end up with the equivalent of a "temporal paradox" reminiscent of the old Star Trek series!!!! 
Saving a local copy
You could save the project folder to a floppy disk, but floppies are very small, only 1.4 MB of data. They also are notoriously unreliable and slow. Yuck! 
Nobody uses them any more. If you are using floppies, you are probably also writing in cuneiform!
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Finally, the best solution at the moment is to use your USB Flash Drive while you are working on a page and keep it in synch with a version on your hard drive. Flash drives are inexpensive, fast, and look just like another hard drive or folder. They usually come with a USB extension cable to make it easier to plug them into your computer. Before unplugging your USB Flash drive, be sure to use the Safely Remove Hardware icon to stop the drive (shut it down). This prevents accidentally unplugging it while it is trying to transfer some data. |
FTP 101 - A Beginner's Guide
FTP Tutorial from CandidInfo
Zen and the Art of FTP: An FTP Tutorial
FTP Tutorial : HelpQuest
Adobe Dreamweaver Tutorials
Univ of Michigan - Managing your site with Dreamweaver 8
Adobe Dreamweaver Support Center
How to Design and Publish your Website with Nvu
Saving Files and Publishing in Nvu
