Uploading Web Pages for School
by
Brett Bumeter
Over ten years ago, I took a class in college that taught me how to make web pages. The process was pretty easy, but the way they taught us how to upload files via ftp back then was super tedious and over complicated.
Uploading files to a server is easy! But they made it seem very hard to upload the simple little files to an ftp server.
Today, I received a call out of the blue from a friend of my wife’s. Her friend is a teacher like my wife, and she was taking a class for school and had to upload a file to a school server via ftp.
I was surprised to see that more than 10 years later, schools are still providing the same convoluted processes for file uploads. Its something like, go to internet explorer or Netscape and click here, right click there, type in your id and password, and type in your ftp address, spin around backward, right click again, now drag and drop things from Windows explorer into the browser window and hope that voodoo happens.
The thing is, for most people it makes no sense to drag and drop files into a browser window. We just are not trained to use a browser for that type of thing (unless you take one of these convoluted tutorials and remember the 30 step process!)
There is a much much easier way to get files onto an ftp server. Simply download the free open source software from FileZilla. Install it on your machine, type in your username, password and ftp address in the input boxes and then let Filezilla automatically login and take care of things for you. You will then be able to see the files on your computer and the files on your ftp server at the same time. You can upload, download, delete, or whatever all from one screen.
If you are a student and confused by some silly process, do yourself a favor and get this program. Its free, trust worthy and easy. Don’t waste hours trying to figure out how to push a car uphill with a screw driver.
Just get this program and get back to work so that you can finish your project before you pull all of your hair out.
Earlier I tried to put together a video tutorial of this stuff using the crazy process that the school had recommended for my wife’s friend, replete with closed captioning and voice overs and lots of stuff. The truth was I do this for a living and their instructions were hard for me to follow (plus full of holes).
That’s when I called my wife’s friend up and said, just do it the easy way, upload your school files with FileZilla!
