Now we come to the fun part, the FTP client. FTP stands for file transfer protocol. FTP is used to upload files from your computer to the web page server, and to download files from the server to your computer. Most free web hosts don't allow you to use FTP. They only allow FTP on their paid accounts. But, I found a free one, http://wtcsites.com. They use banner advertising on their free accounts. My favorite FTP client is Leechftp. It is freeware, and you can download it by clicking the zip file link below.

LeechFTP

By Jan Debis

Price: Freeware

Download: lftp13.zip

It is a zip file, so it will have to be unzipped, or expanded. If you need an expander utility, you can find a free one here. Just download it to your desktop, and click on it. It will install itself. If you need help, just contact me via the Help Page.

After you expand or unzip LeechFTP, and install it. You will find it it in your [Start] menu under [programs]. Open LeechFTP. Click on the yellow book in the top taskbar. This is the bookmark interface, where your bookmarks will be stored. Right click on the left side, or click on edit, and click on add folder. Name the folder. Right click on the right side, or click on edit again. Click on add bookmark. This is where you setup, and edit your bookmarks. In the Host or URL field enter the url of your website. If you have your own domain, enter it here. For example, for my FTP server, I enter williambryan.com. If you have signed up for a web page on http://wtcsites.com, enter wtcsites.com in the Host or URL field. In the Username field, enter your username for your web hosting account. In the Password field enter the password for your web hosting account. Let's assume you signed up for a free web hosting account with wtcsites.com. You chose "sweetmeat" or your username, and "fishsmell" for your password. You would enter the following information:

Host or URL - wtcsites.com
Username - sweetmeat
Password - fishsmell

Just leave the remote directory field blank. This is the directory you will be logging into on the server. It will automatically log into the right directory by default. Now click on the "Advanced Settings" tab. Click on the small block on the right to navigate to the directory you saved the sample web page in. I suggested the My Documents directory, when we were saving the .html and .jpg files. Open it so that it appears in the Local Directory field. Now we are ready to log on to the web page FTP server. Click OK. You can rename the icon at this time by clicking on edit at the top, and then rename. Now double click on your new bookmark icon. This should connect you to the server. If you see the right window of you FTP turn from gray to white, you are logged in. If not, go back. and review the procedure. If you need help, just contact me at the Help Page. You should see the index.html file you made, and the bookpic.jpg in the middle window. Hilite and right click both files, and click upload files. This will move them to the right, which is online. You will need to click "refresh needed" at the top of the right window, and click the two green arrows above that to refresh the files on the right side, so they will be visible. The page you made is now online. If you are using http://wtcsites.com,

http://username.wtcsites.com

Now, you want to change the content of the page to your content. Click on your index.html file in the middle window of your FTP, right click, and click edit. Just look at the code and replace the text with your text. You can change the filename for the pic to any pic filename you upload to the server. It will display that pic on the page. You might need to edit the width and height for the new pic to display it properly on the page. You will probably need to review the tutorial to indentify the different parts of the code. When you are through editing your web page, just close and save, right click, and click upload files. It will replace the one on the right. Now go view your web page again. You should see the changes. [Please Note: It is a good practice to make little changes at a time. If you make a mistake, you can debug it easier. Be careful not to change or delete any syntax, such as, quotation marks, or the page won't display properly. Also, remember Netscape is not very forgiving, if you omit code.]