This tutorial will explain to you all the terms and concepts you need to know to feel comfortable with the whole idea of putting stuff on the Net. With this background behind you, you will be able feel confident tackling any FTP (Publishing) program (well, you may not know what the buttons are but you will know what you want to achieve).
This is a long name for a simple concept. To transfer files over the Net, the computer sending and the computer receiving the file must be speaking the same lingo. This lingo specifies how the files are to be passed from computer to computer. This lingo or protocol is called (in a rather self-referential manner) a File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The actual mechanics of how the files are passed is not important right now.
The Server is a computer that is actually connected to the Internet. Apart from this, there is nothing all that special about a Server. The Server is can be almost any computer, and the operating system it uses is usually UNIX or Windows NT.
A Browser is the software you use to surf the Net. Put simply, Netscape is one, Mosaic is one, Microsoft Internet Explorer is one and a 6:30 train to LA is not one at all.
A URL can give the address of any Web page on the Net. A URL stands for (rather unenlighteningly) Uniform Resource Location. All this means is that there is a unique URL for every Web page on the Net. The Uniform bit refers to a protocol again. URLs typically look like this:
http://www.sausage.com Sausage Softwares Home Page.
http://www.netscape.com Netscapes Home Page.
http://altavista.digital.com Altavistas Home Page (a search engine).
Just type the URL into your browser and away you go.
A Web page is a document that you create using HotDog PageWiz. The language they are written in is called HTML. The address of your Web page is partially dependent on the name to which you save your HTML file and partially dependent on the name of your Server.
There is a special Web page called index.htm. You may have noticed during your travels that you dont have to type the full address of an HTML page. For example, if you were to look at Sausage Softwares Home Page, you need only type http://www.sausage.com, and not, http://www.sausage.com/welcome.htm. This is because there is some shorthand going on. If you ask for no web page at all, the server automatically returns a Web page called index.html or index.htm
Because of this it is convention to have the index.htm page as your welcome page. So you should name the welcome page index.htm This way, when people come surfing to your WebSite, they need only type (say) http://www.surfnet.com/~yourname and not http://www.surfnet.com/~yourname/index.htm
The Internet is one serious amount of computers connected together. The most important aspect of these linked computers is the ability to get information from one computer to another.
So what actually happens when you surf.
First off, you type a URL into your browser,
http://www.surfnet.com/~elisefowler/welcome.htm
Your computer sends out a message to the server called www.surfnet.com asking for the Web page called welcome.htm belonging to elisefowler.
Elise Fowlers server then looks in a special directory that Elise uses for her Web pages. The server is looking for a file called welcome.htm. If this file can not be found, a message is returned to your Browser. This message is usually along the lines of URL not found.
Assuming the file welcome.htm is found, then this file is copied from Elises server to your server and then on to your personal computer. You can now view the contents of Elises welcome.htm file using your Browser.
The key points to notice here are:
Every server has a unique name.
Your server looks in a particular directory for your Web pages.
So now the entire functionality of the Upload FTP program can be explained. You are simply being asked for the answers to the following questions:
a) Which server do you want to upload your files to?
b) Which directory on that server to load your files into?
c) Which files do you want to upload?
If you keep this in mind when using FTP for the first time, the prospect will seem much less daunting.
Finally, if you dont know the answer to any of the above questions there is one person that can certainly help you out, your friendly ISP (Internet Service Provider). Your ISP is in charge of your server and they know all the answers to your queries.
So send your ISP an e-mail with the following questions (the e-mail address is usually help@ etc.):
Hi,
I want to upload some files to the server with the aim of putting them on the Net.
I need to know the following:
What is the address of my server?
What directory should I upload these files to?
What URL would I use to view my index.htm file once I have uploaded it?
Thanks for your time
Regards,