This is a short video tutorial on how to FTP your files from your local computer to your webhost. You’ve got your new webhost account and you’ve used Fantastico to install Wordpress for the first time but you have no idea how to move files from your computer to your webhost. You may have been told about Cute FTP or WS FTP, but neither are free or as easy as they could be. The solution is FireFTP. FireFTP is a free FTP client for Firefox which allows you to transfer files, Wordpress themes, plugins, images or any other files from your laptop or desktop machine to your webhost server account.
When you first install your wordpress blog using Fantastico, from within cpanel, a default theme is put in place. Once you’ve found another theme you want to use to spice up how your blog looks, you will have to first download the theme, and then transfer those files to your webhost to be used. This is called transferring the files and it’s done through a process of FTPing.
FTP simply stands for File Transfer Protocol and it’s just a fancy name for a method of moving files across the internet.
FireFTP is an easy method to do so because it’s an add-on for Firefox and opens within a tab of your browser allowing access to your local files and your remote files.
Local files are those stored on your own computer and remote files are those stored on your webhost server.
Install And Use FireFTP
Your first order of business is to install FireFTP into your firefox browser. If you have not yet made the switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox, now is the time to do so. Fire fox is much more robust, more secure and easily configurable web browser. Even the US govt warn about the dangers of using Internet Explorer. Switch to Firefox now and you wont ever look back.
Firstly:
Secondly:
Install FireFTP
Third:
Watch this 4m30s video on using FireFTP
I completely understand the confusion about how to ftp, what it means and how to do it when you first begin blogging. Most of us take it for granted as a way to move files across the internet to our webhosts, but for the person new to blogging, I’d like to make ftping as easy to understand as possible. I’ve used both CuteFTP and WS FTP, the latter for years and I’m not only much more happy with FireFTP, I now recommend it as the free ftp client of choice.
Read the entire post: How To FTP Your Files To Your Webhost
from Rob
@ Blog Building Basics
- If you are planning on having a website, then you need a webhost. Just because you have a domain name doesn't automatically mean that your site will be up on the web and visible to the rest of the world.
- Where do you store your themes, plugins and files on your web host and how should you store your files on your own client computer? When you install your wordpress blog using either fantastico or by doing it yourself, the file and folder structure is very specific, you can’t really change it, nor do you want to. There is no room for changing the built in structure, leaving you simply having to understand it so you can FTP your files to the proper places.
It’s actually quite easy and there’s really only two places you ever need to be aware
- What is web hosting and why the hell do I need it anyway? Great question that deserves a decent answer. One of the first things I taught to my students was this concept of where their website was physically located. In order to view a website or a blog, it has to have a home. The files, images and content have to be on a server somewhere in the world so that when your domain name is typed in, it displays what you want it to display.
Your Wordpress blog has a home on a web server.
- When you first create a blog with Wordpress, I highly suggest that the first thing you do after customizing your Wordpress Dashboard Options is to install these 3 Plugins.
A plugin is like a utility for your blog that does something.
There are programmers all over the world who build these plugins to do little jobs for them and then they share them. Most of them are given away free of charge, so feel free to experiment with them if you like.
When I first create a blog for myself or clients, these are the first three I
- Choosing a host for your web site can be easy, you need to find a place to store your files.
