What is FTP?

FTP simply lets you upload this information more easily. It is not good enough to have a program running over the web to make this connection. May hosting companies include a program that acts like an FTP program, but they are typically unsecure, slow, and not as easy to use. FTP is much better at uploading and manipulating your files.

Overall there is one giant upside to FTP – IT IS SECURE— most FTP programs have a very secure connection and since it is temporary it is very hard to track down and intercept your uploads.

There are a few examples of programs that you can use.

WS-FTP – This is a program created by a company called IP Switch (http://www.ipswitch.com/). It is a very simple program and very user friendly. It is the preferred program of Professor Moolah. I use it extensively. Here is what the website has to say about it:

• Best-in-class secure file transfer: Protect files before, during & after file transfer
• 256-bit AES transfer encryption over SSL and SSH protocols
• OpenPGP file encryption
• File Integrity Checking up to SHA512
• Industry leading automation and productivity features: Enhance productivity & save time
• Schedule
• Backup
• Synchronization
• Email Notifications
• .Zip Compression
• Scripting

And many more great features for computer file transfer:

• Workspaces
• Linked Folders
• Search
• Server-to-Server transfers
• citrix admin, etc
• Microsoft Vista compatible

For most of you non technical people this may not mean a whole lot, but that is ok. Maybe it would be better to see a screen shot of what it looks like:

As you can see it looks a lot like the file manager in windows. Much of the menus are the same, and it is very intuitive to use.

FREE ALERT!

FileZilla – Sounds mean but it really isn’t. FileZilla is a very good very efficient FREE FTP program. It is fairly new (and the people who developed it and use it would probably argue here), but it seems to be very stable and easy to use. Professor Moolah just began using this program and it is great. Here is what the website has to say about it

• Easy to use
• Supports FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)
• Cross-platform. Runs on Windows, Linux, *BSD, OSX and more
• Available in many languages
• Supports resume and transfer of large files >4GB
• Powerful Site Manager and transfer queue
• Drag & drop support
• Configurable Speed limits
• Filename filters
• Network configuration wizard

So far it all seems to be true. Here is what it looks like:

For a whole bunch more screen shots you can go to the site and see them here.

The bottom line? FTP is needed if you decide that you are going to have a lot of involvement in developing your site. You need to have a safe secure and easy way to upload your files. Particularly if you are going to add any widgets or custom themes to your WordPress site.

You need to know your site username, your password, your ftp location (typically ftp.yourwebsite.com), and on occasion your port # (the default will typically work), and that is about it. After that both of these programs are easy to use easy to setup and very useful in manipulating your online files.