- Cute FTP
- Visiting an FTP Site with Netscape Navigator
- News Xpress
- Reading the Newsgroups with Microsoft Internet Explorer
- What's Next
This chapter shows you how to install two more very useful client applications to handle the File Transfer Protocol and the Network News Transfer Protocol. It also takes a look at how you can accomplish some of these tasks with your Web browser.
Let's face it, file transfer is second only to e-mail in importance to a Webmaster. Today's Web browsers allow you to download files from most sites without the need of an FTP client, but if you want to upload files, or if you want to have a powerful
FTP interface, you will definitely want to check out Cute FTP. There are many FTP client applications available that will run on Windows 95, some of them are even freeware. Of all the FTP client applications we've tried, (and we've tried a lot), we like
Cute FTP the best.
Here are the steps to install Cute FTP from the CD to your hard drive:
- Unzip Cute FTP from the CD into a directory on your hard disk and create a shortcut for cuteftp32.exe. If you're upgrading from a previous release, you'll want to keep your tree.dat file. All other files can be overwritten safely.
The file cuteftp.exe is a 16-bit version of Cute FTP for use with Windows 3.1 or 3.11. You can safely delete this file to save disk space.
- Copy the file ctl3dv2.dll into the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory and delete it from the CuteFTP directory.
- Start Cute FTP and bring up the Options dialog (File | Options menu). Fill out the Mail Address field with your own e-mail address.
That's all there is to it. You now have one of the best FTP client applications available to assist you with file transfers.
The first thing you will see when you run Cute FTP is the FTP Site Manager shown in Figure 7.1.
Figure 7.1. The Cute FTP Site Manager enables you to organize the addresses of your favorite FTP sites.
This dialog shows the predefined addresses of several anonymous FTP sites. You can easily add new sites to these folders or edit the information about existing sites. For now, let's try to visit the Microsoft site to download the latest version of
Internet Explorer.
- Select the Company home sites folder in the left side window and double-click the row for Microsoft in the right side window.
- Cute FTP will show you the login sequence in the top window, your local drive in the left window, and the remote directory structure in the right window. Double-click the folder for Softlib. See Figure 7.2.
Figure 7.2. Double-clicking the Microsoft Softlib folder takes you to that subdirectory of files on the Microsoft server.
- Then double-click the folder for MSLFILES. That will bring you to a directory with a long list of files you can download. It helps if you know the particular filename you are looking for. In this case, let's say we wanted to get MSIE20.EXE. Please
don't try to download this particular file because you already have it—it's on the CD! This hypothetical example illustrates how you could download a future version of Internet Explorer when one becomes available.
- Before you copy the file, you will want to navigate the left window pane to the local directory on your system where you would like to receive the file. For example, click the double dot icon at the top to move up one level in your directory structure.
In this example, we have positioned the local directory to c:\temp in the left window pane.
- Now you are ready to click the file and drag it from the right window pane to the left window pane. Then let go of the mouse button and the file transfer will begin. See Figure 7.3.
Figure 7.3. Dragging the file from the right window to the left window will initiate the download.
Cute FTP will keep you notified of the file transfer progress in the status bar.
Now that you've seen how easy it is to download a file from a remote system, you already know how to upload a file to a remote system. Basically, it is just a matter of dragging a file
from your local drive (the window on the left) to the remote drive (the window pane on the right).
One other trick you might like to know about Cute FTP is how to set the default directories on the local and remote systems when a connection is established. Then you won't have to waste any time navigating the directory structures in either window
pane. This trick requires that we edit the profile of the FTP site. Let's say we want to edit the Microsoft site.
- In the FTP Site Manager, select Microsoft. Then choose the Edit site button. This will open the dialog shown in Figure 7.4.
Figure 7.4. Editing the site information for Microsoft.
- For the Initial Remote Directory, type in the server path that you would like to be placed in when the connection opens. For example, /softlib/mslfiles. Note that FTP originated in the UNIX world, which uses forward slashes for directory separators.
- For the Initial Local Directory, type in the preferred path on your drive. For example, c:\temp. Then choose the OK button to save the edited profile.
You can leave the userid and password blank for anonymous FTP sites. Isn't that convenient?
Now let's see how we could download that same file again, but this time let's try it with the FTP feature built into Netscape Navigator.
- 1. Fire up Navigator, type this URL into the Location edit box at the top of the screen: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/. Press Enter. See Figure 7.5.
Figure 7.5. Visiting the Microsoft FTP site with Navigator.
- Double-click the folder for Softlib and then double-click the folder for MSLFILES.
We could have saved the time of scrolling through the directories in step 2 if we had initially entered a complete URL. For example:
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/
- When you click the file you want to download, Netscape will prompt you with the 32-bit Save As common dialog. All you have to do is pick the destination directory on your local drive and the file transfer will proceed.
That's really all there is to FTP. Pretty simple, right? Whether you use your Web browser or Cute FTP, you will find that knowing how to copy Internet files with FTP is a very handy process to be familiar with. Now let's talk about another important
client application—a newsreader.
As a Webmaster you will find Usenet newsgroups a valuable resource for keeping up to date on the latest Web development techniques. They are also key to helping you troubleshoot problems with hardware or software. News Xpress is a freeware Usenet
newsreader that allows you to easily organize the newsgroups you want to subscribe to.
Here are the steps to install News Xpress from the CD to your hard drive.
- Unzip News Xpress from the CD into a directory on your hard disk and create a shortcut for nx.exe.
- If you just installed Cute FTP, you can delete ctl3dv2.dll from the News Xpress subdirectory; otherwise, you will need to copy it into the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory and delete it from the News Xpress directory.
You now have one of the best Usenet News client applications available to help keep you up-to-date.
Let's talk about using News Xpress to subscribe to a handy newsgroup. Suppose we would like to read articles about World Wide Web servers for Windows. That sounds like something that could be of interest at this stage in our lives. Here are the steps of
a simple getting-started session.
- From the main menu, choose Config | Setup. This will open the dialog shown in Figure 7.6.
Figure 7.6. The News Xpress Setup dialog.
- Here you will enter the information that is supplied by your ISP. The most important field is the name of the NNTP Server. The other fields can probably be left empty until you are ready to post articles or send e-mail replies. (By the way, please
don't fill out your dialog with the same data shown in the screen shot.) Choose OK when you are ready to connect.
- From the main menu, choose File | Connect. This should connect you to the NNTP server at your ISP. This could take a moment.
- From the main menu, choose View | All Groups. It may take a while to download all the group names; after all, there are more than 16,000 out there. Eventually, your window will appear as in Figure 7.7.
Figure 7.7. Displaying all newsgroups and choosing ones to subscribe to is straightforward with News Xpress.
- We can save you some time by telling you that there are several good newsgroups underneath the comp.* hierarchy. Scroll down to comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows and double-click it to subscribe and download the article headers.
- Then you can scroll through the articles and double-click ones that you would like to read.
There are so many newsgroups that it can be very overwhelming to find a good one that has information you are looking for. Fortunately, there is a Web page that will help you search for the name of a newsgroup that matches a keyword you supply. Check
out http://www.tile.net/tile/listserv/index.html.
Just for variety, try the same thing in Internet Explorer. You might be surprised to know how much functionality has been packed into Web browsers lately. You can read the newsgroups very conveniently, and send e-mail too, without having to leave the
comfort of the browser.
Here are the typical steps to configure Internet Explorer to read the articles in the same newsgroup we selected above.
- Execute Internet Explorer and choose View | Options from the main menu. This will open the dialog shown in Figure 7.8.
Figure 7.8. Configuring Internet Explorer to located the NNTP server.
- Check the box at the top and enter the address of your News server. You can leave your name and e-mail address blank for now, unless you plan on posting articles. Choose OK.
- You can either type in the complete path of the newsgroup to which you wish to subscribe or you can scroll down the list until you find one of interest. Let's say you type news:comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows into the Address text field at the
top. Press Enter after typing in the address. Note that you need to precede the name with news:, otherwise, the browser will assume HTTP. See Figure 7.9.
Figure 7.9. Reading articles in a selected newsgroup is easy with Internet Explorer.
- Now you can scroll through the articles and look for headers of interest. All it takes is a single-click to open an article.
Here's a tip when you are trying to quickly scan for interesting how-to articles: Search for articles with Re: in the title. What often happens is that a question for help is posted by someone who is having trouble
with some aspect of their computer. The good information (the answer) is usually in the reply, and the reply usually includes a copy of the original question. Of course, if you know the answer to the original question, please share your philanthropy with
the rest of us and post a reply yourself.
We show you how to install a server application in the next chapter. You will have two Web servers to work with and evaluate before you decide which Web server will host your home page on a permanent basis. And remember, there are many other Windows Web
servers besides the two on the CD.
