By Erik Small -

WS_FTP has many useful basic features built into the product. Here’s a full list:
- Connect your PC to a remote FTP site
- Browse files and folders on both the FTP site and your PC
- Copy and move files between your PC and an FTP site
- Copy files from one FTP site to another (Professional version)
- Save and organize connection parameters for your favorite FTP sites
- Resume interrupted file transfers
- Automatically retry failed transfers
- Transfer a single file in multiple parts (Professional Version)
- Make a secure connection (with SSL or SSH) so that all data is encrypted as it is transferred (Professional version)
- Append a file to another file on the other system (Professional version)
- Track and save the folder paths you visit for quick access another time
- Perform multiple file transfers using the WS_FTP Transfer Manager
- Schedule large files for download at a later, non-peak time with the WS_FTP Scheduler Utility (Professional version)
- Find files and folders meeting certain criteria using the WS_FTP Find Utility (Professional version)
- Synchronize directory structures between your PC and an FTP site using the WS_FTP Synchronize Utility (Professional version)
- Synchronize two remote sites (Professional version)
- Integrate WS_FTP with your browser for faster downloading of files from the Web
- Browse remote and local sites with thumbnail view
- Auto-connect to remote sites on application start-up
- Display local and remote image files as thumbnails

By Erik Small -

Are you managing or editing other web sites with different FTP programs? WS_FTP has an easy feature which allows you to import other sites.
Here’s a quick tutorial with screenshots on what this looks like within the WS_FTP navigation:
http://www.ftpplanet.com/tutorial/import_sites/index.htm

By Hugh Garber -

I’m always think its interesting to hear what software people use themselves and recommend to others. Here’s a great list of personal software tools by indie filmmaker Angelo Bell.
Many of the usual suspects are listed such as FrontPage, Photoshop, Roxio…. As well as a few new ones that I’ll check out. Angelo also lists WS_FTP as his Windows file transfer software.
“WS_FTP – WS_FTP – while my main personal computers are Macs I was brought up in a PC environment. WS_FTP is a simple FTP solution for Windows PC’s. It totally gets the job done.”
Angelo – Not sure if you’ll see this blog post or not, but if you do, I want to wish you luck with The Broken Hearts Club. Looks like a great movie…. I’m looking forward to watching it when it’s released!

By Hugh Garber -

Impressive news coming from Ipswitch File Transfer today. The MOVEit brand of Managed File Transfer solutions has received Federal Certification with the U.S. Army’s Certificate of Networthiness.
“…the United States Army’s Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM) has approved a Certificate of Networthiness (CoN) for the Ipswitch MOVEit Central and MOVEit DMZ secure managed file transfer software products (versions 5.0 and 5.2). This is in addition to the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 validation the MOVEit products have previously received, and the Department of Defense Common Access Card (CAC) single sign-on (SSO) authentication support that MOVEit DMZ provides.
Data security is absolutely crucial to our armed forces. CoN certification, FIPS 140-2 validation and CAC SSO support are just a few of the reasons why MOVEit Central and MOVEit DMZ are especially well suited for protecting sensitive government data,” said Gary Shottes, president Ipswitch File Transfer division.”
Nice to see that the developer of WS_FTP Professional, my favorite secure file transfer client, is also providing solutions deemed secure enough for the US Government. Something about that is comforting to me as a customer of Ipswitch software!

By Erik Small -

Need to connect to an FTP site that requires a Login and Password?
Check out our brief tutorial on how to quickly upload and download files using WS_FTP:
http://www.ftpplanet.com/tutorial/ws_ftppro.asp

By Hugh Garber -

I stumbled across this nice summary of common communication protocols on the Network Tutorials website.
It’s a good refresher read for those of you in the know…. And it’s a good overview for those of you who want to know.
A few protocols of interest to me from this article are: HTTP, POP3, SMTP, IMAP and of course FTP. Definitely taught me a few things…. Too bad that SSH (my recommended protocol for encrypted secure file transfer) is only listed as “other”, but overall a good quick cheat sheet of communication protocols.

By Hugh Garber -

Virtualization is a hot topic in IT circles these days…. and its benefits are far reaching. Real tangible benefits include increasing efficiencies and reliability while at the same time cutting costs, both of physical hardware as well as its ongoing maintenance.
The reaches of virtualization are far and wide and certainly go way beyond secure file transfer. That being said, here’s a great article written by Sandra Kay Miller from Processor magazine about some benefits of an organizations file transfer solution being deployed in a virtualized environment. Here are a couple of quotes from her interview with Ipswitch’s Kevin Gillis to ponder:
“…Implementing load balancing within the file transfer infrastructure delivers better performance and uptime. For times when servers are experiencing increased traffic, it can automatically be spread across multiple virtual servers.”
“If one server goes down, I want to spawn another server on the spot in real time from a hot or cold backup. That’s a perfect situation for virtualization…. It’s pretty impressive to have an image spawn itself on the spot based upon predetermined rules, such as a server isn’t responsive for 30 seconds. It will increase speed, efficiency, and overall agility of your IT infrastructure.”
Interesting topic indeed and one that I believe we will hear lots more about in the coming months.

By Erik Small -

Our parent company Ipswitch, Inc. just launched a new website for it’s File Transfer product line. The new site includes the new MOVEit products on the Enterprise File Transfer front, and also includes the WS_FTP product family for file transfer client and server programs.
Check it out!
New website URL:
http://www.IpswitchFT.com

By Hugh Garber -

Found this little tidbit about the WS_FTP Professional secure file transfer client on the Legalalan blog:
“Ipswitch WS_FTP Professional is the leading FTP client program with millions of users worldwide. You can easily and securely transfer files between your home and office, and to and from customers, clients, or vendors. Its features include security (SSL, SSH, and PGP) and advanced file management–everything you would expect from an FTP client.
Ipswitch WS_FTP Professional 2007 features increased security and transfer options that provide up to 256-bit encryption, HTTP and HTTPS transfers, and WS_FTP’s new compression mode. Additional information about the changes in this version can be found here.“