VBOK Issue #14 - FTP ______________________________________________________________________ Apologies to everyone. I had to take a slight hiatus from the newsletter as well as my web site due to a heavy class load for this last college term. I have also sent a survey concerning the VBOK newsletter to you following this newsletter. Please take the time to fill it out, as it will help me to provide more of what you want. Thank you. Leif Just in case you didn't know, I have redesigned my web site to support this newsletter. There are HTML versions of the newsletters (some with screen shots!!) as well as other nuggets of info. It's at: TOC 1. FTP (Part 1 of 5) 2. Software Review 3. Cool Sites 4. Tips, Tricks, Do's and Don't Do's ** New Section** 5. Nickel Knowledge If the columns in the below articles appear misaligned, it's because you are using a non-fixed width font. If you would like to see them nice and straight, change your E-mail font to Times New Roman. ______________________________________________________________________ 1. FTP - File Transfer Protocol ------ This is part 1 of 5, in following newsletters I will discuss the remaining items each in it's own newsletter for telnet, gopher, usenet news, and IRC. What is ftp? Well, first off it stands for File Transfer Protocol. It's a protocol that allows you to transfer files between computers over a network or the internet. If you were to reduce it to it's most basic form, I suppose you could say it's the no frills version of "surfing". There is no Java, graphics, music, buttons or any other types of eye-candy. So, why do people use it? Well, there are a good number of reasons, the first being it's fast (due to the fact that you don't have to wait for all those bandwidth busting graphics and applets to download.) and secondly, when you see a file listed, you can be assured that it is actually there and not a dead link. So how do you use this ftp thing? Well, there are quite a few ways to skin this cat, but I'll stick with the nice and easy way. There are many programs that act as a front end interface, and their purpose is to take care of all the cryptic UNIX commands while you just do the normal dragging and dropping that you are used to in the Explorer interface of Win95. I was going to list a whole bunch of these "front end" programs, but it would be easier to send you here, where you can see descriptions and such on them. My favorite (I haven't even begun to scratch the surface on trying them all yet, so this is a biased opinion!) is CuteFTP. You can download this one at the above URL too. As I said above, these are "front end" programs that take care of all the behind the scenes stuff. Now, if you do ftp transfers for maintaining a web site, then you will still have to know just a little UNIX. Maybe not the commands, but some of the knowledge of how it functions (such as access levels for owner/group/public in reference to each of these peoples ability to read/write/execute files and directories on the server.) Now, you don't have to use one of these programs, because there are limited versions built into IE4, NN4, and even Win95. Most likely you've used the ones built into IE and NN and not even known it. Unless you're paying attention to the URL, it's pretty transparent to you as an end user. If you've ever seen a screen that looks kind of like a DOS "DIR" command, then that is the FTP portion of the browser. Now, the one built into Win95, in my experience, is pretty slow. You can use this one by opening any folder and in the address bar, typing ftp://someplace.domain provided you have IE4 installed with the desktop enhancements. Your best bet is to download one of the programs from the URL I told you about.. A vast majority of the computers available to you via http (by browser), are available for ftp . When you log onto an ftp site, you will be asked for a login and password (from now on, I will refer to this as l:p). So what do you put here? I'm glad you asked. There are basically three versions of an ftp site. Closed, login list, and open. The closed systems you don't have to worry about, because you won't be able to access them. The login list type is one where everyone has an assigned l:p, and unless you are one of those people, then the only way to get in these is to hack it. If any of you are maintaining a web site, then you most likely will have an l:p for the server that host your web site. The last is an open type, and it allows anonymous users. By anonymous, the login is anonymous, and the password is generally your e-mail address. It's not really a password, they don't have your e-mail address stored in some big database to check it against, it's just a netiquitte (I'll be doing a newsletter on this sometime in the future) thing. Some server admin people like to track how many different users use their ftp site, and because e-mail addresses are pretty unique to a single person, it is a good way for them to do it. If you feel uncomfortable about putting your e-mail address as the password, then make one up (Nothing bad will happen, they won't deny you access, but it's not a nice thing to do to the admins who do like to track usage.) If you ever log onto an ftp site, and you don't know the l:p, then just try anonymous. Most likely it will work. Now some of you might be thinking, this must be a hackers dream right? Well, not really. Generally, if the person setting up an ftp site has any clue at all, the security is pretty good. Some other things you will see during an ftp session are certain directory names. Because a vast majority of the ftp servers out there are UNIX based, there are standard directories that are placed in the "root" directory. Root is in quotes, because you most likely will not really start out in the root directory (When I refer to root, I mean the directory structure, not the user level.) ftp servers generally have a directory set aside for ftp users to start out in. It could be /usr/ftp or usr/ftp/anonymous or whatever. In any event, it will be transparent to you, and it will appear that you are in the root directory. Now some of the common directories you will see are: bin dev etc incoming or uploads outgoing or downloads pub You may see more or less depending on how the admin person set it up. Generally, the only directory you will be using is the /pub directory. You can go check out the others, if you are allowed in, you will see what is in there, if not, then it'll tell you that the directory isn't available to you. You won't get kicked off just for trying, so see where you can go. Now, if you are systematically trying to hack into directories, then you will probably get kicked off, but most of you wouldn't do that right??!!? :) So, what is stored in these directories? Well, under /pub you will most likely find software (shareware of course, unless you're logged onto a warez (Pronounced like you were saying "WHERE'S Leif?") site, but of course these sites are illegal (because they contain copyrighted software, which people have made available for public download.) So, what kind of shareware? Well, let's say you are logged onto ftp.microsoft.com They would have a majority of their Windows programs available (those that are free or in beta (beta is a name given to software that has not been publicly released yet because it is still in testing, but has been made available for people to download so that you can in effect test it for them and provide feedback on your experiences with the software. There is another name used called alpha, which is software that has usually not been completed yet, but some sections do work and are made available for people who like to crash their machines ;) You usually won't find this type of software on any big commercial sites, but from private programmers tinkering around with some ideas.) Sorry, huge tangent. So back to what we were talking about. There are a good number of sites that offer nothing more than a huge repository of shareware/freeware files. You will usually find these on .edu domain servers. A little later on in this article, I will list some of good ftp sites for you to test your newfound knowledge on. Some things to look for or keep in mind: - Whether the site can resume broken downloads. This means if you get interrupted during a download and your ftp program supports resumes, it will start back up where you left off rather than starting all over again. - There are two ways to transfer files. Binary and ASCII. Generally your ftp program will automatically determine which one to use, but sometimes you may wish to set it yourself. Binary transfers are files like .exe .com .wav, and ASCII transfers are for text. - Using a "front end" ftp program, you will most likely see two panes. One pane (usually the left or top one)is files on your computer, while the other pane is files located on the computer you are connected to. ftp.winsite.com ftp.microsoft.com oak.oakland.edu ftp.idsoftware.com Well, happy ftping... ______________________________________________________________________ 2. Software Review ------ Lunabar 98 by clySmic Software Astronomy;Win 95/98/NT4;Shareware Homepage: Download Software: This program sits on your taskbar ready for you to click on it, so that it can provide you with an amazing amount of information regarding the moon, sun, daylight, darkness and even some interesting quotes. - Y2K Compliant - Displays sunrise/sunset - Selectable fonts - Supports international timezones - Can be used in both northern and southern hemispheres ------ Bubble Puzzle `97 by Conmeg Spielart Games;Win95/98/NT4;Freeware Homepage: Download Software: You may have seen a similar arcade game (especially here in Japan), where you shoot bubbles from a gun where they stick to either the ceiling or other bubbles. If you get three or more bubbles of the same color touching, they fall (removed from screen) along with any bubbles attached below it. It's sort of like a reverse Tetris. It uses DirectX 5.0, and the graphics are very well done. I got to level 26 in a fairly short amount of time, but this level is tough. ______________________________________________________________________ 3. Cool Sites ------ The Mining Company VOTE!!! for your e-mail client of choice. Want to see who has the most popular e-mail client software??? Make your voice heard. Click on "Who is winning the e-mail war" at the above link to see. Click on "Vote now!" at the above link to show your loyalty. The VBOK newsletter/mailing list is done completely in The Bat! e-mail client. ------ Ryan's Optical Illusion Collection If you like optical illusions, here is a pretty good collection of them for you to view on-line. ------ Windows 98 Easter Egg If you remember the Win95 Easter Egg, it was a lot of work. Go to this web site to get the lowdown on the Win98 Easter Egg with a much easier way to invoke it. ______________________________________________________________________ 4. Tips, Tricks, Do's and Don't Do's ------ For those of you who still use DOS, you know that it was always frustrating in that it was not multitasking, so you had to wait for a process to finish before starting the next. Well, no longer. Here is a batch file I wrote that allows you to run DOS processes in the background while you continue on. *Note: You may only use this to run programs, not internal commands like dir, copy etc. start /m command There are four switches to the start command: /m minimized (Start the program in a minimized window) /max maximized (Start the program in a maximized window) /r restored (Start the program in the same dimension window) /w wait (Don't return to this window until the background program is complete. This one defeats the purpose though.) So you could put: start /m format a:/v/s or start /m c:\commanche\commanche.exe Basically it sets up another virtual machine. Just like opening another DOS session and running the program there. It saves you some mouse clicks. Now you can create a batch file to make it even easier like this: bm.bat (for Background Minimized) *** start /m 1 2 3 4 5 *** Just cut out everything between the "***" and save it in a file called bm.bat ------ **If you are not technically/mechanically inclined, please skip this next tip. Here's something you can do to make your life a lot easier. Make a directory somewhere called "My Computer". Now, under this directory put all/some of the following directories (If you don't have any SCSI devices, then don't put a SCSI directory. Same goes for any hardware listed below that you don't have.) Motherboard Graphics Card CD-ROM Drive Hard Drive Monitor Printer Joystick Sound Card Modem Tape Drive Floppy Drive SCSI Controller IDE Controller Scanner Mouse Drawing Tablet So what are we doing here? Well, I started doing this around 2 years ago to keep all pertinent information as well as updates/drivers in a nice, easy, and organized fashion. After shutting down your machine and turning off the power (Be ESD safe. Static Electricity can destroy your hardware, so if you don't know how to properly ground yourself, please find someone who can either do it for you or teach you.) ** Note: I will *NOT* be responsible for any damage that your machine sustains in the implementation of this tip, so unless you know what you are doing, please don't do this. Open your case and write down all the model/part numbers for everything you can find. While you're at it, you might as well write down all of the serial numbers you come across. Armed with all of this information, get on the internet and go to the manufacturer of whatever it is that you are looking for and find their pages dealing with the model of whatever it is you're looking for. If they have .PDF documents, (Portable Document Format, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader to read these (I believe version 3.0 is the latest version, and it's free.) To get it, go to: So, go ahead and download the PDFs on your hardware, and any other information they have available for it. Also, download their latest drivers. Make sure you save all of this information in their respective directories that you created above. Some more information to look for: If the hardware has jumper settings that they have displayed on a webpage, save that web page and the pictures in it (right click on a picture, select Save Picture As, and put it in the same directory as the HTML page.) Now, all you have to do later on is double click the HTML file you saved, and unless they put their pictures in a different directory on their server, you should see the page pretty much as they had it. If they did save them in a different directory, the code in the HTML will specify that directory, and you can either change it or make the directory structure the same. (IE 5.0 fixes this problem by grabbing all of the pictures when you save a webpage and sticking them in a directory automatically.) If they have pictures of your hardware, save those too. It might come in handy later. ** Note: Just remember HTML pages and most likely the pictures it contains are Copyrighted, so do not redistribute, post or give away these pictures to anyone else. They are for your own personal use, and nobody else. I'm not even sure that this is legal, but just keep the stuff to yourself and you won't have any problems. While you are at the webpage dealing with your hardware, go ahead and start a new favorites/bookmark folder called My Computer. Under here, put the same sub-folders as you created for your hard drive. Bookmark the page into it's respective folder, and now you have a quick way to get back to the webpage dealing with your hardware to check for updates/patches/drivers. One thing you might want to do in addition, is to back up to the top level of the web site. i.e. the page dealing with your hardware is: now back it up to : Now bookmark this page too. This is so if they webmaster moves your driver page to another location etc. You can at least get back to the manufacturer's web site. Once you have gotten all of the files you think are worth getting for each piece of hardware you own. Install the new drivers you've downloaded (unless you already have the latest version installed.) **Note: Please make sure that you've downloaded the correct drivers. Nothing will make your day go downhill faster than not being able to boot back up due to incorrect driver installations. Now that you've got this system started, go out about once a month and check for new and updated information/drivers. ______________________________________________________________________ 5. Nickel Knowledge ------ - To make a candle burn longer and drip less, give it a coat of clear varnish. - The sea snake is the most venomous in the world. - West of the international date line, a hurricane is called a typhoon. Well, that concludes this issue. Have fun. Leif Gregory Copyright (c) 1998 by Leif Gregory. All rights reserved. You may share this copy of the VBOK newsletter with others as long as it is reprinted/resent in it's entirety to include this copyright notice. If you've received this edition of the VBOK newsletter from a friend or colleague and wish to start receiving your own copies, then click the below link and send the generated e-mail message. Virtual Book Of Knowledge (VBOK) VBOK Editor VBOK Homepage Unsubscribe Back-Edition Titles