This is a publication to help get you (and keep you) up to date with current trends and software used on the Internet. In our last issue we discussed basic applications and several key issues as related to the Internet and common usage of things like browsers and other standard client software. Our current issue is about file transfer software. This publication will be E-mailed every other Wednesday to help you stay abreast the ever changing Web scape and perhaps to even help you better understand what goes into the constant updates and various navigational paradigms used on qru.com and our contingent sites.

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Top Issue:

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How did this get here?
File Transfer Protocol is an agreed upon standard for transferring files to and from a server over the Internet. Originally, invented to simplify and standardize this procedure the premise behind it is rather simple; A direct connection between the client machine and server is established. This connection is not stateless like The Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), but rather is constantly kept alive through Pinging the server, or the server drops a connection after an amount of time specified by its administration.

There are two types of FTP connection, secure and insecure. A secure connection as the name implies requires a logon and password. An insecure connection will use a user's E-mail address as the logon. Often you will be able to access an FTP server over the internet in this fashion if retrieving programs from a company or drivers from a manufacturer. You will know it is a an FTP server if the location url begins with FTP:// as opposed to the usual HTTP:// prefix.

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Top Picks

FTP Explorer 1.0 Far less complicated than almost any other FTP Client out there, the FTP Explorer allows you to drag-and-drop to and from the server just like a Windows '95 Explorer. Simple, polite install, gives you many useful FTP servers to choose from to start with. This is one of the few FTP client that attempts to resume failed downloads. A must have for the basic FTP user on a Windows '95 machine!

Ws_FTP 4.12 Washington State File Transfer Protocol is by far one of the better FTP Clients out there. With easy to understand interface just about anyone can do basic file upload and download with a few mouse click. All you have to do is point to the directory you want to download to and/or upload from press the appropriate arrow, and you file is transferred. A double click will allow viewing of files both local and remote. Advanced UNIX features such as CHMODE are just a right click away. This is another FTP program that supports attempts to resume a dowmload. The "lite" edition of this software is free!

Serv-U 2.2 An FTP Server, this is one that we are trying out in the office- and we like it! With Serv-U you can offer FTP access off of a dynamic IP like the one most people get with their dial-up accounts. You can set user access levels individually or by group and run full logs. Serv-U has a 30 day trial and is only $25 to permanently register this simple and complete solution.

FTP vs. HTTP

FTP is a protocol for mass dissemination of files. One can download large files through an anonymous connection, originating from a dedicated FTP server which cuts the files into small chunks and distributes them among a finite amount of channels. These channels are called simultaneous connections, and are limited to whatever number the server can keep track of at once. FTP is best for allowing a file to travel directly to or from disk, because it assembles itself piece by piece. FTP can manage load by spreading a file over time based on available bandwidth. So FTP keeps a connection open for much longer than HTTP, but with less flexibility. Many Browsers provide an automatic listing of files and directories, so there is no proprietary formatting unless there is a preceding web page, with FTP links, which provide a facade for choosing the file to download. Otherwise one must traverse the directories by hand, narrowing down the topic of their search. With FTP, you have a direct connection to the data on the other end. This is why FTP limits the number of connections allowed, because it cannot fall back on the Web's altrenate routers and data paths.

HTTP allows for multiple users to download the same files, and is more subdivided. The information requested is HTTP can be flat HyperText pages, CGI (auto generated web pages), or image and sound data. This data is sent out along multiple routes, which then report back a response time. Based on the response time, the data chooses the faster route to arrive at your machine. This means that there are a myriad of connections (stop-off points) between you and the final page, a relay race to cross the finish line of your Internet Service Provider. HTTP has very limited capacity for uploading, although Netscape can support this feature. HTTP has no limit on simultaneous users, and thus is the optimal way to serve (allow download of) documents. When a browser hits a web page, the page is loaded into the server's memory and then sent out as a collection of pieces (packets), one per file. The multiple files then assemble themselves into a web page, in the end user's memory. This info is then saved to the browser's hard drive, if caching is turned on.