Introduction To FTP
------------------------------------------------------------All of your files and subdirectories go into your www directory (the plain www directory). Refer to Chapter 1 to learn about all the different directories in your account. DO NOT DELETE ANY DIRECTORIES OR FILES IN YOUR ACCOUNT. The files pertaining to your web site that you design should be uploaded to your www directory and should be the only files you ever replace.

Now that we've distinguished where your files go, there are several ways depending on your computer system, that you can transfer files to your account directory. The process by which files are transferred to the web server is called "FTP" (File Transfer Protocol). You have unlimited access via FTP 24 hours a day. As such, you can create and maintain your web pages on your own computer and upload files to your web site at your leisure.

Online services which offer an Internet gateway, such as AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy may have a built-in FTP interface. If you have a PPP Internet account, you need an FTP program. Visit http://www.wsftp.com/ to download the newest version of WS_FTP for the PC, one of the most popular FTP programs on the web.

For the Macintosh, a program called "Fetch" is used, and for Microsoft Windows systems a program called "WS_FTP" is used. You can also connect to your account via Telnet.