How to Download Files to Your Computer With an FTP Program

Series Summary

Computers are complex machines built upon very simple principles. They perform arithmetical operations millions of times over to transform digital information moving at lightning speed into usable human data. A personal computer's job is to help a user create, manipulate, deliver, receive, or delete media content. This is a simple, sterile definition that sounds uninteresting on the surface. Nevertheless, these fundamental functions mimic human ability in some surprising ways. Therefore, the computer is increasingly becoming an engine of the imagination, a platform for the digital life. In this free video series on general computer tips, software developer Dave Andrews discusses several topics related to navigating and operating systems on a PC. Andrews begins by explaining how to download files with an FTP program, create an Excel formula, make a budge in Excel and how to create a tent-fold greeting card in a word-processing program. He then discusses how to merge workbooks in Excel, create a simple timeline, free up memory space, and create an input box in Excel. Watch these free videos and learn more general computer tips today.

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Dave Andrews. Today, I'm going to show you how to download files to your computer, using an FTP program. The FTP program we're going to use is built into Windows Explorer. Let's open up our FTP program, simply by clicking on the Start button, and just clicking on Computer. If this is Windows XP, click My Computer. Now, up here in the address bar, let's click inside of there, and delete everything. Now, let's type in the address of our FTP server. Now, this part right here, is probably the part that was given to you, by the person who told you what your FTP information was. You have to add on to the beginning, ftp://, before the address, to tell the computer you're connecting to an FTP site. It will then prompt you for your user name and password. I'm going to type in my credentials now. Now that I've put in my credentials and clicked to log on, it connects to the FTP site, and gives me a listing of the files that are on there. What I'm going to do, is download some files. Let's say I'm going to grab my resume document, right here. To download the file, just click on it, to select it, and then right click, and just like you would normally, dealing with files in Windows, select Copy. Now, let's minimize this. Right click on your desktop or the folder that you want to download files to, and just say Paste. There's my downloaded file from an FTP site. My name is Dave Andrews, and I've just showed you how to download a file, from an FTP site."