Josh's Soapbox: FTP

My thoughts on the Internet, Life and the Universe

The ramblings of Josh.
None of the things mentioned here are endorsed by the company "Albury Local Internet".
If you have any comments please mail josh@albury.net.au

Sending and Receiving Files

I am amazed at the number of times I have people ringing up complaining that they can't send an email thats Megabytes in size. Or conversely that they should have received an email from a friend that contains an attachment of some new game or whatever.

Email was never designed to send files, in fact it was never designed to do anything except enable the transfer of SMALL notes to other people.

Surprisingly enough, to transfer files you should use an FTP client. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol! And it was / is designed to SEND Files as well as RECEIVE files.

The next bit is a bit sarcastic so if you want to cut to the chase hit here

Now I can hear people say "but thats too hard" or "I dont know how" or ... a million other things. If you want to achieve a task or goal using a tool or tools you must take the time to learn how to use the tools. People do not expect to get into a car and think "I want to be at the shops" or "I want to go to Bob's" and have it magically take you there. No. In fact people will laugh at the suggestion, you need to LEARN how to drive. If you only want to go to the shop you can either walk or learn a few things and drive. Now if you only want to drive to the shop you need to be able to:

Open the car door
- Possibly including:
- Find correct key for door
- Find correct hole for the door lock
- Put (correct) key into (correct) hole for door lock
- Turn key in the correct direction to UNLOCK (not lock) the door
- Now (SHOCK and HORROR, depending on the make and model) activate the the door release mechanism and open the door!
Get into the car
Put the correct key into the ignition lock (MAY be different from door key)
Turn key in correct direction to enable the ignition and crank the engine
When the engine catches release pressure on the key allowing it to return to the ignition only position
Now something completely different that you NEED to use your FEET for: Press the clutch peddle in (If a manual transmission) AND put you foot on the brake peddle (both MANUAL and AUTOMATIC transmission)
Yada...Yada....

You get the idea. If you want to get to aunt Mary's in another state you will need many more skills. You will need to be able to check the vitals of your car before and during the trip, fuel, oil and water (Both level and temp). You will need to obtain the skills of navigation. You will also need a drivers license. I could go on but I assume you get the idea.

FTP.
To transfer files using FTP you will need an FTP CLIENT and possibly SERVER. A client can be obtained from WS_FTP . This is a zip file which will need to be unzipped using PKUNZIP or other zip extracting tool. Then, after reading the instructions here you can transfer files using FTP. If the person / company you wish to receive a file from has an FTP SERVER then you simply point your client (ws_ftp) to their server. ie. ftp.albury.net.au/pub/ and grab the file from the correct directory. If they dont have a server on their machine then you will need to run a SERVER. Such a server can be obtained from here FTP Serv-U Note that this is has both 16 and 32 bit software. If you are using trumpet as supplied by Albury Local Internet then you will need to use the 16 bit software.

Once you have it running the person who is trying to send you the file can send the file to you. If you are sending a file to an FTP SERVER it may be necessary to place files you are sending them in a directory called
< INCOMING >

Congratulations, you are now using the CORRECT TOOL to move files around the biggest network on planet EARTH.

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