FTP: How to Use Core FTP Lite to Upload Your Files to the Internet

Many websites begin on hosting sites as Geocities, where you can use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) programs. It makes it easy to move things to just where you want it and see how it will look as you're doing it. If you've ventured into the land of html, or html editors, you can still use places like Geocities, but you're probably using the Text Manager to edit your pages. When you get hosted on another domain, however, you are thrown into the land of FTP (File Transfer Protocol). What FTP is, is basically transferring files from a folder on your computer to the domain in internet land. It may seem difficult, but it's not. Core FTP Lite (Which is a free program that you can download on downloads.com), makes it really easy.

01. Download and install Core FTP Lite to your computer. When it's installed, run the program.

02. The first thing you see when you open it is a Site Manager box. This is telling you to log in. In the box under Site Name, you can call your site whatever you want. This is to keep it separate from any other sites that you upload to using this program. In the box to the left, you will see your Site Name appear. If you had more than one site, you would just click whichever site you were wanting to upload to.

03. The next box is your Host/IP/URL This is simply ftp.whatever the domain you're using. For example, if your domain was host.com, your host FTP IP would be ftp.host.com. It is important to get this information correct, or the program will not log you in.

04. The next box is your user name, and that's YOU@host.com. Make sure to put the @, just like you would in an email. This identifies you as which hosted subdomain you are on the main host site.

05. The last thing you need to sign in is your password. This is either something that your host set up with you, or you set up for yourself. If you are unsure of what your password is, or you forgot, ask your host.

06. When you've filled these things out, click connect. The program will connect you to your space on the internet. On your computer, you should have a folder with all of your html documents. Using the file icon under Filename on your program (on the left side of your screen), find your folder with your documents.

07. Once you have found your files, click the ones you would like to upload to your website (hold Ctrl as you click if it is more than one at a time), and then click the arrow pointing to the right just above there. The box at the bottom of the screen will tell you the status of each file being transferred.

08. Once your files have finished, you will be able to see them on the internet!