Uploading Your Page

So you've read our collection of web design articles up to this point. You've Registered a Domain Name, you've Chosen a Web Host, and you've made Your First HTML Page. And now what? How do you get the webpage you have just programmed up on the web so that all of your friends and colleagues can see it? For that matter, how do you get anything up on the web so that the world can see it? ... Time to learn about Uploading Your Page

What is this "upload" you speak of?

We're all familiar with downloading, we do it everyday. We download music, photos, and other assorted files. In fact, whenever we visit a website, we first download it's webpage so that we can display it and traverse it on our computer. When something is downloaded it is received. Therefore, when we upload something, it must be sent or "given"...Let's back up here for a second.

A website exists through a special program on a computer. This special program is often referred to as a server. When people request the website through an internet browser, the browser downloads the webpage file and then displays it through the browser. So in the likely event that a company is hosting your website somewhere, you have to upload or "give" your webpage files to them/your server.

How we upload

Some hosting companies allow you to upload your webpage files through some sort of interface on the web. Most of the times however, you'll upload your files through a FTP utility. FTP, (file transfer protocol), provides rules to allow for the exchange of files. For our demonstration, we will use a program called WS_FTP. You can download it for free from ipswitch.com. Once you download and install the program, it will behave like most other FTP programs. That’s to say, while we are covering WS_FTP in this article, you should be able to apply everything you learn to any FTP program you choose.

Using WS_FTP

When you first start the program, you will have to tell it who you are, and where you want to connect to. This information should have been provided by your host and it will obviously differ for everyone. For our purposes, let's say we were connecting to our site at www.lsoexample.com. We would enter that as our "Host Name/Address" and we would enter our username and password in the "User ID" and "Password" fields. From here we hit "Connect/Go" or "OK" to connect with our server. Once connected, we can finally transfer information between our computer and our server. When a connection has been made, you will notice the main window essentially divided in two where the left side relates to your computer and the right side relates to their computer/your server. To conclude this example, let's transfer a file, index.html to our server.

First we maneuver to our file on our computer. Once that is done, we do the same on the right side, maneuvering to where we want the file to end up. Now again, your host should have given you directions on what folder your files should go in to appear on the web. If not look for the old standby, a folder named "httpdocs". Now we want to click on the index.html file on the left side to tell the program that is the file we would like to transfer. Now notice the two arrows in the middle of the sides. We want to click the arrow that’s pointing to the right side, which will transfer our file from the left side to the right, or from our computer, to our server.

And poof! We're all done! If you transferred an index.html file correctly, it should appear now when loading your webpage from a web browser. Now that you are a master of uploading your files, nothing can stop you from building the website of your dreams.

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