The other day, a colleague here at Techie Buzz asked for my recommendations on programs to blog using a Mac.  I told him about my favorites, and tried to provide a good reason why. Then, another contributor asked if there was a way to integrate the FTP system into the file system, like you can do in Windows  and Linux.

At first, I was dumbfounded. I had never thought of that as an option on OS X. However, it turns out that you can do it, and its possibly the most seamless way to use FTP on a Mac. The only caveat I see to this is that you can’t use it to upload files via FTP. For that, I highly recommend Cyberduck, which is now my personal choice for FTP.  Let’s take a look at how you set it up.

1. Open a Finder window. You can do that by clicking the ‘Finder’ icon on your dock, or by using the keyboard shortcut Command-Space and typing ‘Finder.’

2. Click the ‘Go’ menu, and then click connect to server. This will open a dialog box like this one, where you can choose to add a new server to the list. You can also use the keyboard shortcut of Command-K to access this window.

3. Fill in your server’s details.  Be sure to use complete addresses. For example, if it is an FTP server, use the whole address like ‘ftp://files.server.com’. If you have a username or password set up, you will be asked to provide those credentials.

Those are all the step you need to take. If you entered everything correctly, you should see a new drive in your finder side bar under ‘Shared.’ That’s the file server you just connected. It will work like any other file server connection, and its housed in your Finder window.

If you have any trouble getting this tip to work, or if you have any questions or suggestions, let us know in the comments section below. We love hearing from you.

With smart phones being an essential part of our lives now, it is critical to be able to transfer data between your phone and your computer. If you have an Android phone, there are many apps, paid and free, that let you transfer files between your computer and your phone, but nothing beats the simplicity and functionality of FTP. One of the best apps to use FTP on your Android phone is SwiFTP.

Once installed on your smart phone, SwiFTP allows you to access your Android device from anywhere and any system using the FTP connection. After the installation, you need to provide a username and password which will later be used to access the device via FTP.  The app also requires you to specify some basic FTP and phone settings and once completed, your Android phone can be accessed from a computer using any popular FTP client.

The app is open-source so you can completely tweak it or contribute to it by accessing the code. If your particular FTP client doesn’t work, you can send a request for support and it will be fixed. If your Android device is behind a firewall, SwiFTP will still work by routing the traffic through some proxy servers. Overall, SwiFTP provides a really simple solution to transfer music, documents and all sorts of files between your Android device and any other system using a secure FTP connection.

Download SwiFTP by searching the Android Marketplace or here.

If you already have a web server up and running, installing a FTP server along with it has many advantages. Using a FTP server, you can transfer files to and from your web server very easily.

We will show you, how you can install a FTP server in Windows 7. The FTP server installed in this way, will work perfectly fine with Windows IIS server.

Here are the steps you need to follow:

1. Click and goto Start> Control Panel> Programs. Then click on Turn Windows features on or off.
2. Now you will get a list of many features. Each feature can be installed or uninstalled. You have to locate the option for Internet Information Services (IIS), and select FTP server. Click on Ok and wait for the installation to complete; it will take a considerable amount of time.
3. Now your FTP server will be installed. If you need to check that your FTP server is working properly or not, you can do so using a FTP client like Filezilla. To check, open your FTP client and try connecting to the server with following details:
   Hostname: localhost
   Port no: 21

If you have repeated the steps mentioned above correctly, you will have an easy and working FTP server installed in Windows 7.

For more useful How-To articles, keep checking Techie-Buzz regularly.

Image Credits

FileZilla, one of the most popular Ftp clients, has launched the latest version (3.3.0) which has some new features. These features were much desired and will surely be of great help for webmasters.

New Features in FileZilla 3.3.0

Tabbed browsing Support: Glad they have added this feature. The latest version of FileZilla has added tabbed browsing, so you can connect to multiple servers in the same window. The earlier versions required you to use two separate windows to login to two ftp accounts.

This would be a real time saver, as you can now browse different directories of your website easily. On a new tab, you can connect to the same server or connect to a different server. The tabs acts just like browser tabs:

• Double click in open tab area to open a new tab
• Middle click closes the current tab.
• Ctrl + T opens a new tab.

Bookmark important locations of your directories: Another much sought after improvement. You can bookmark an important location of your website so that you won’t have to manually navigate to the folder the next time you connect to the ftp server.

The bookmarks are arranged under the Bookmarks option in the menu bar.

Upgrading from a previous version

The newer version will preserve user settings if you are upgrading from a previous version. Download the latest version of Filezilla.

Techie-Buzz Verdict

Lots of improvements in the newer version, but I would like to see Back upoptions added in the next release. The ability to back up and restore ftp settings is much needed.

Techie Buzz Rating: 3/5 (Good)

If you find yourself stuck in a situation where you cannot or don’t want to install an FTP client on the computer, a web based FTP client is the best solution for you. Web based FTP clients offer almost all the features that a standard FTP client does, in addition to being light-weight and hassle-free.

One of the most popular and feature-rich web based FTP clients available online is Net2FTP. It provides you with a simple interface to connect to your FTP server and upload/download files. You can also upload/download files in a zip format, and unzip files on the server. Some other great features that Net2FTP offers are:

• Install software on your server (requires PHP).
• Copy, move or delete files and directories.
• Plain text editors and HTML editors to edit files online.
• Filter files using filename, size and modification time.
• Copy files from one FTP server to another FTP server.
• Renaming, Chmod and tons of administrative features.

Tiny USB Office is definitely one application everyone who owns a flash drive should have. The utility packs quite a punch with the number of utilities they pack in a meager 2.5 megabytes.

With Tiny USB Office you can create PDF files, spreadsheets, flowcharts, word files and even transfer files using FTP. If you decide to send out a quick email you can do it too along with chatting with your MSN buddies. And if you are paranoid about security you can easily use the include data encryption software to protect your files.

Tiny USB Office is comes from the same folks who also created Floppy Office, a useful collection of softwares you could once carry in the now outdated 1.4MB Floppy drives.

Tiny USB Office comes bundled in with the following softwares:

• Database Creation – with CSVed
• Data Encryption – with DScrypt
• Email Client Software – with NPopUK
• File Compression – with 100 Zipper
• File Sharing – with HFS
• File Transfer – with FTP Wanderer
• Flowchart Creation – with EVE Vector Editor
• MSN Messenger Client – with PixaMSN
• Tree-Style Outliner Software – with Mempad
• PDF Creation – with PDF Producer
• Password Recovery – with XPass
• Secure Deletion – with DSdel
• Spreadsheet Creation – with Spread32
• Text Editing – with TedNotepad
• Word Processing – with Kpad
• Program Launching – with Qsel

We would definitely recommend this utility to everyone since it is only 2.5MB and would barely take up any space on your flash drive.

Tiny USB Office Home | Download Tiny USB Office