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UPLOADING FILES TO YOUR BLOG |
When uploading files, always remember that they can be transferred as ASCII files or binary files. Your FTP program probably provides a radio button for each selection. The difference is important. If just one component file of your blog program is uploaded in the wrong way, it will foul up your blog at somepoint; usually sooner than later. Many are the cases of installed blog programs that seem absolutely broken: They simply don’t work at all, and the hiddenproblem is that a binary file was uploaded in ASCII, or an ASCII file as binary. Unaccountably, online installation manuals are often murky on this point, failing to clarify exactly which files need to be uploaded in each mode. Some FTP programs can discern how a file should be uploaded — in ASCII or binary mode.
This automatic setting is valuable, and takes the pressure off of you, who would otherwise have to constantly keep the setting in mind while
uploading many dozens of files. In those FTP programs that offer this automatic feature, the Auto setting must be manually enabled. Remember that ifyou close the FTP program and reopen it, you have to reset the Auto feature if it defaults to the unselected state. If your FTP program has the Auto feature,use it! A final note about the ASCII/binary uploading issue. If your FTP program does not offer an Auto selection, or if you prefer making the correct uploads manually, or if you don’t trust your FTP program because it once insulted your sister, or if for some other reason beyond my imagination you must make the ASCII/binary distinction yourself, then Table 8-1 covers most file types in blog programs. When deciding whether to upload a file as ASCII or binary, note thefile extension (the part after the dot, such as .cgi in filename.cgi) and then look at this table.
After uploading your program files, you must complete an obscure but crucial task that trips up people. That task is setting the permissionlevel of the uploaded files. The permission level determines what the file is allowed to do, and for whom, on Unix servers. Three functions are involved here: read,write, and execute. And three levels of access are available: owner, group, and other. You are the owner. Groups are defined by a server command that you will probably never need to know. Other refers to any visitor to your blog. The intersection of these three types of users and the three functions.
That means other people cannot, for example, alter your pages or configuration files (only a hacker would be able to get into your
server space in the first place). However, the pages of your blog can be seen (Read) by everyone, and the scripts on those pages (such as leaving a comment or searching the archive) can be set in motion by any visitor (that’s the Execute function). The particular setting makes the blog fully functional for all users and reserves executive control of its files for you.
It is absolutely unimportant for you to know any of the other matrix numbers when dealing with Movable Type or WordPress.Most FTP programs make it pretty easy to make chmod changes.