The letters FTP stand for File Transfer Protocol, and that's exactly what FTP allows you to do - transfer files from place to place. In fact, FTP is by far most efficient (the fastest) way to copy large files across internet.

Today many people use a sophisticated FTP client to get files to and from their web sites. This has several advantages over method commonly used by amateurs on free web sites. Many newbies who don't know any better use gadgets provided by their free host to edit their sites. The problems with this are many and varied.

First, gadgets are not very impressive as editors. Most users who want to create a web site of any size and complexity will find themselves constrained horribly by these tools. Probably only good thing about these editing tools is they give people a nice, easy way to start creating web sites without a huge learning curve. But take my word for it, you will outgrow them soon enough.

In addition, a major problem is editing is generally done directly on host site. This means you do not have a back up of your site on your own hard drive. If your host decides to close your account, goes bankrupt or just plain is unavailable, you lose your site. If you ever want to have a frustrating experience, just try and call your host and ask them to restore your site from one of their backups!

Other people use products such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage, which include site updating capabilities. These are often very convenient until they don't work or perform unexpected actions. For example, I spent several days trying to figure out why my CGI routines were not working, until I realized that FrontPage was uploading files incorrectly. From that moment forward, I used an FTP package to upload my files.

Most of modern FTP clients are very simple to use. You just launch program, enter some basic information (such as site address, account name and password) and connect. Once connected, you can usually just drag and drop files from your own hard drive to site.

Precisely why is it a good idea to use an FTP client over, say, FrontPage (or Dreamweaver) or direct editing on a hosts web site?

Microsoft has changed their policy on retiring certifications.

If you will remember, over a year ago Microsoft had announced that Windows NT 4.0 certifications were being retired on December 31st, 2001. This meant that everyone who had slaved for months or even years to pass their exams had to rush to take new exams for newest operating system (Windows 2000).

Needless to say, this announcement caused quite a stir in much of computer industry. There were hundreds of thousands of MCSE's, and all of them were effected by this decision. What made it even worse was fact that most of us were not even upgrading to Windows 2000 anytime in near future. Thus, we had to get certified yet we didn't really need to get certified to do our jobs.

There were quite a few annoucements. The two regarding MCSE's state exactly what I had suggested in a previous article "Microsoft's ^@&^#&@ W2K MCSE Policy", so I was very happy indeed.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Microsoft/W2KMCSEcertification.htm

...on Windows NT 4.0, which designates related certification as based on Windows NT 4.0. This designation applies to following certifications: MCP, MCSE, MCSE+I, MCP+I, and MCP+Site Building. Thus, this MCSE would formally be called "MCSE on Windows NT 4.0."

...on Microsoft Windows 2000, which designates related certification as based on Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, or Windows Server .NET. This designation applies to following certifications: MCP, MCSE, MCSA, and MCDBA (except for latter, it's called "MCDBA on SQL Server 2000" instead). Here, this MCSE would formally be called "MCSE on Microsoft Windows 2000."

The bottom line is simple. Those of us who have MCSE certification do not need to worry about losing it at end of year. It also makes things much easier for me as an employer - now I will be able to look at a certification and get a little more information. Instead of just finding out someone is an expert on Microsoft operating systems, I will now find out exactly which operating system.