From: fgd3@nifty.UUCP (Fabbian G. Dufoe, III)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.introduction
Subject: Re: BI-WEEKLY: FTP information + AMIGA FTP sites list
Distribution: comp
Date: 5 Nov 92 01:08:16 EST
Organization: Fabbian G. Dufoe, III

In article <1992Nov4.020004.27751@dxcern.cern.ch> fer@home.cern.ch (Fer F.de Jong) writes:
>[ If you don't want to see this posting everytime, use the KILL file
>  feature of your newsreader. ]

   Unfortunately that doesn't reduce connect time or storage space.  All the
kill file does is prevent the local newsreader from displaying the article.
If you had to pay for connect time you'd be less tolerant of electronic
"junk mail" flooding your system, I suspect.

   I've deleted quite a bit from the original article to reduce bandwidth.
The deletions are marked with ">...".

>What is FTP and how do I use it
>===============================

   Since you're posting this on Usenet it would be helpful if you would
explain the kind of network connection required for FTP access.  You can't
get it if your only connection to the outside world is through a uucp-style
mail and news feed, right?  What does the typical Usenet user need to do to
take advantage of FTP?  If Usenet users can't use FTP, why send your article
to them every two weeks?

>...
>The following lines show an example FTP session I had the other day,
>text between [ this ] are comments to explain parts.

   Even more helpful than the comments would be some way of distinguishing
between the text you typed and that supplied by (1) your local computer and
(2) the remote system.  Maybe you could do that by indenting text to
different levels or by tagging the source with comments enclosed in
brackets.

   How about explaining the meaning of the numbers at the beginning of the
lines?

>...
>drwxrwxrwx  24 root     archive      1024 Oct 10 10:06 incoming
>[The above directory is ment to put all files in you want to
> put on the remote machine.]

   Is that true for any system to which you connect or should users look for
a "README" file somewhere to learn the rules of the remote system to which
they are connected?

>-rw-r--r--   1 20007    archive     72255 Oct 10 10:05 ls-lR.Z
>[This file is the compressed output of the ls -lR . command, you
> can retrieve this file to be able to check local what is available
> on the remote FTP site.]

   Be sure to check the size of ls-lR.Z before you download it.  Those files
tend to be pretty big for some of the major archives.  Also keep in mind
that ls-lR.Z may not be quite current.

>...
>The most interesting commands available in the ftp program are:
>bin, get, mget, put, mput, bye, dir,ls, cd and lcd.
>Check your manual pages to learn their meaning.

   Why not just list their meaning.  If someone doesn't know how to use FTP
he probably doesn't care if the commands are "interesting", he wants to know
what they do.  If he has manual pages to look at he certainly doesn't need
your article.  It's not necessary to document the commands fully, just give
a synopsis of what they do.  Here's a first cut to get you started.

   bin:  Set the system in 8-bit mode for transmitting binary files.
   get:  Retrieve a file from the remote system.
   mget: ?
   put:  Upload a file to the remote system.
   mput: ?
   bye:  Close the connection and quit the ftp program.
   dir:  Display a listing of the files in the current directory on the
         remote system.
   ls:   Display a listing of the files in the current directory on the
         remote system.  (What's the difference between "dir" and "ls"?)
   cd:   Change directory.
   lcd:  ?

>...
>Sites that offer anonymous FTP access that carry AMIGA related files
>====================================================================

   This is far from a complete list.

>There are different AMIGA related areas that are mentioned seperately
>in this list, being;
>   F  Fish Disks
>   B  USENET binary distributions
>   S  USENET source distributions
>   U  USENET articles archive ( FAQ's / moderated groups )
>   M  Miscellanious ( programs / datafiles / patches / demos / etc )
>   N  Not AMIGA specific but interesting ( mods / samples / GIF / etc )
>
>
>All lines that directly follow another line indicate that this site is
>a 'mirror' of the above machine. All 'mirror' sites carry the same
>information, everytime something is added on one site it will
>'automagically' appear on all other sites as well.

   Do you mean groups of single-spaced sites are mirrors?  A blank line
starts a new group?

>...
>[ machine.name (max.ftp-ers) ip.number.of.site area rootdirectory ]
>
>ux1.cso.uiuc.edu   128.174.5.59  F pub/amiga/fish
>wuarchive.wustl.edu   128.252.135.4 F systems/amiga/fish
>
>wuarchive.wustl.edu   128.252.135.4 M systems/amiga

   What happened to "max.ftp-ers"?  It would be a lot easier to read if the
column headings matched the contents of the columns.  It would also help if
you would use blank spaces instead of tabs for formatting.  Strange things
can happen to tab characters as they travel over the network and get
imported into various programs.

>...

--Fabbian G. Dufoe, III
   350 Ling-A-Mor Terrace South   | GEnie:    F.DUFOE3
   St. Petersburg, Florida  33705 | internet: fgd3%nifty@tct.com
   813-823-2350                   | uucp:     ...tct!deep6!nifty!fgd3

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.introduction