What is FTP?

FTP is the name of the program or method that you use to transfer files from one computer to another. It's most common use here at MaineStreet is to upload files from your home computer to your account here at our servers.

What do I do?

Let's assume you have already created your web pages on your home computer and are ready to upload them to your home directory on our servers. You would start up your computer, log in to MaineStreet as you normally would, then start up the FTP program.

Windows FTP

You would be trying to connect to auburn.maine.com, your userid would be jdoe, and you would enter your password and hit "OK"

Once you were successfully connected, you would next see a screen that had two windows of information, split left and right, with some buttons in the middle and to the right of each window.

The window on the left will be showing your files and directories on your local hard drive on your computer. The window on the right will be showing the files and directories located in your home directory on our server.

The windows themselves are split top and bottom, with the directory names in the top section and the files in the bottom section.

To transfer your files from your local machine to your home directory here at MaineStreet, you would first select the files from the left-hand window and highlight them. Then, you would click on the button in the middle of the screen that shows a right-pointing arrow. The files would then be uploaded to your home directory here at MaineStreet.

That about sums it all up! It's actually a pretty straightforward program; you can reverse the process and download files from your home directory to your own computer in essentially the same way.

Macintosh FTP

The program you will probably use the most on the Macintosh is called Fetch! It is a very simple program to use for transfering files to and from your Macintosh.

Once you have connected to MaineStreet as you normally would, either through InterSLIP or FreePPP, you would start up Fetch!

Let's suppose that your account is jdoe@maine.com, and your POP account is auburn.

1. Connect to MaineStreet as you normally do.

2. Open Fetch.

3. You will see a window that has a series of text boxes to fill out:
   

   You can either fill in the information for the remote computer to which you wish to upload, or you can use one of the preconfigured shortcuts. If you are uploading to MaineStreet, connect to your Host, which is the same as your POP account, such as brunswick.maine.com, auburn.maine.com, portland.maine.com, etc...

   Your Userid is the first part of your email address. For the sake of this example, it would be jdoe.

   You can create a shortcut to your own home directory by opening Fetch and choosing Customize - New Shortcut.

   

   You get a screen called Bookmark Editor. Type in the name of the shortcut you wish to create. Leave Type Unknown. For Host, type in whatever POP account you have (for example: gray, auburn, portland) Enter your UserID. Type in your Password. Leave Directory blank. Click OK.

   

   You will now be able to go to File and choose Open Shortcut. Your new shortcut will be in the list.

4. Once you have selected the remote computer, a single window on the left that shows the available files in your currently selected folder will appear. You have the choice of Put File or Get File. Choose Put File.
   

5. A file dialog box from which you can now locate the file which you wish to upload will appear. Highlight the file and hit the Open button.

6. A new window will appear asking you to enter a name for the file to be saved under on the remote computer. Enter the name or accept the default name.

7. You will have the option for changing the File Format. Some common choices are:

      Text         >>  HTML pages, index files, etc.
      Raw Data     >>  Image files (gif, jpeg, etc.) 
                       and binary files
      Application  >>  MacBinary
      BinHex       >>  For transmitting Mac files 
                       in text format via email
   

8. When you are ready, hit Ok and you should see the animation of a small dog running. Once the file is transferred, the dog will stop running.

Please Note
Fetch has very good Help Files under the Balloon Help menu listing. Check them out if you have any questions or want to learn more about the features of Fetch.

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http://WWW.MaineStreet.com/extranet/handbook/FTP_FAQ.html rev 2003-05-15