Smart Nouveau Computer Tips #6 - February, 2003

By Jeff Sheets

Basic Tip - Folders, and Copying and Moving Files

The files contained on your hard drive, live there on a Directory (Folder) Structure that is similar to branches of a tree. This structure uses the drive letter (C for example) as the ROOT of the drive (or trunk if we use the tree analogy). Each folder forms a branch with other folders within each forming more branches. There are a number of other drives on your computer. Find the icon on your desktop named My Computer and double-click on it. The window at lower left should appear:

Explorer view

If this window appears differently find out how to tweak your windows, Now, back to the Drive view in My Computer. Find the item marked Local disk (C:) and double click on it. You will get a new window marked C:\. This is a view of the files on your C drive:

Advanced Tip - Uploading Files to a Web Page

Uploading a file to your web server is a lot like copying files between drives. First open a file window on the files you want to send, then open Internet Explorer and type in your complete URL with FTP instead of HTTP at the beginning, and hit the Enter key.

A password dialog box should appear. Fill in your user name and password as it was given to you. If you are at a fairly secure computer, you may want to check Save Password. Click Login.

Internet Explorer will login and present the folder on the server computer as a file window. Resize this window as you like. Now drag and drop all files you wish to upload, either individually or as a group. Replace all older files with newer. You have just updated your web page with more current files.

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