The Netcenter's

Transferring Files using FTP

You can transfer large files from remote computers to your own PC using the FTP (File Transfer Protocol). You will need to know the FTP URL to point to the correct computer and directory on that computer.

The files transferred in this way are often large. These types of files may include text, pictures, video clips, sound recordings, games, maps...just about anything that you can store on a computer. Because of their size, most files transferred by FTP will be compressed or ZIPPED OR ARC'D, to take up less space on the host computer and to take less time to transfer. You should be able to tell is and how a file is compressed by the file suffix (the last three letters of the file name after the dot). Sometimes they have been encoded, in which case you will have to decode the file to make it useful. If you don't already have PK Ware's PKUNZIP.EXE installed on your computer by now, you will want to get it now. It's indespensable when transferring files between IBM compatible computers. Their Web site is: http://www.pkware.com. You will also want a copy of PKZIP.EXE to zip the files you want to transfer to others.

If you want to transfer a small file, you may want to simply attach it to an e-mail message.

Again, you need to know the kind of computer you are transferring files to so that they might be useable at the other end.

To access files you wish to transfer, you must know the FTP URL. It begins with the prefix: ftp://.

There are two types of FTP servers: anonymous and non-anonymous.

You can get files from any anonymous FTP server. You will be asked for a login ID and password. Use the word anonymous as the ID and your e-mail address as your password.

To get files from non-anonymous FTP servers, you require a user identifier and password. The system operator must give you this information to let you download a file from this kind of system.