[Coco] Re: ftp.maltedmedia

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 09:29 AM 11/17/03 -0500, Nathan Woods wrote:
>Dennis Bathory-Kitsz writes: 
>
>most web servers servers have had an option to provide file 
>indexes since the NCSA httpd days.

Without the default file, yes. But with different roots, I keep 'em off my
web server. For me, that's a good thing.

>Perhaps most download sites are FTP now, but don't expect that to be the 
>case in a few years.  Many companies are now phasing out FTP sites in favor 
>of using HTTP more and more for a number of reasons, including 
>maintainability (why maintain two sites when you can just use one site), 
>security (there is no "ftps") and and ease of use.  HTTP is more proxy 
>friendly, for example.

There are proxies that don't do FTP why? Unless somebody on this list has a
problem, I can tell you with absolute certainty that not one person invited
to use my FTP site (which is how all my clients & colleagues receive large
documents from me) has ever encountered a problem like this.

As for security, FTP lets me easily quarantine any incoming material to one
single directory with the file access set as unreadable; I dump out the
porn probes each night, move the material to a parallel directory on the
same root, and I'm done. I have no HTTP uploads allowed anywhere, and don't
plan to, so it's one task set for me. (By companies phasing out FTP, does
that mean Microsoft?)

FTP is transparent to the end user unless they have some defective or
stupid proxy/firewall, which I've yet to experience with my clients and
colleagues. FTP gives the same 'visual' results in browsers, and it's far
easier to manage from my end. All miscellaneous file groups are put in user
directories on the FTP site; it's a work habit that lets me see them easily
and delete them when the interested party has downloaded what they need.
For example, I put up large photos for publication (you'd be amazed at how
many requests I get for the various castle photos at http://bathory.org/
-- two of them appeared last year in the Weekly World News, worst tabloid
on earth! And hey, if the WWN can figure out how to use FTP...), travel
journals, articles for editing, manuals, email compilations such as the
CoCo list, etc. Nothing is ever confused (by me!) with being part of a
website -- FTP means I'm exchanging files, and HTTP means I'm serving web
pages and linked media.

These are just my work habits, my time management issues. Even discussing
this begins to impinge on that self-protection I'd hope to build in! Yes,
everybody has buckets of suggestions for everything -- and believe me I get
tons of them on my kalvos.org site! But I've already had to deal with
nearly 700 administrative emails just to get this list functioning, and
don't care to start worrying about who is mucking around in any open web
directories. (Story minute: A non-member posts to this list. I sign on to
the list admin site, pass the message through, and go back to my work. Then
another comes in. Same guy. Back to the site, pass through. A few minutes
later, another. Back to the site, and while I'm there I subscribe him,
figuring he hasn't figured out how to do it for some reason. He immediately
unsubscribes but then sends more messages to the list -- which are now
refused from his address. No accounting for jerks who are time leeches!)

Dennis