File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

SiteCam includes powerful file transfer capabilities that let you have images and movies automatically uploaded to a remote FTP site. SiteCam maintains all the file ordering and will automatically create archive mode subfolders. SiteCam will mirror what it saves to your local hard drive on the FTP server that you specify.

If you are behind a firewall or need some advanced features of an FTP client, you should use AppleScript to FTP your images and movies.

This feature is recommended for people who want to FTP images and/or movies to a remote server automatically. If you are using a dial-up connection to the internet, this is the recommended method of getting images to the web. If your SiteCam has a direct (high-speed) internet connection, we recommend that you run a Web server on your machine and serve images directly using the SiteCam plug-in with a WebSTAR compatible server.

Note: You should already be familiar with using FTP to send files to your directory on your ISP's server site. You should know how to use an FTP client such as Fetch, or Anarchie. If not, please contact your ISP for information about using FTP before continuing!

Note: Test your FTP settings while connected to the internet. After you know things are working, you can set up the PPP configuration by selecting "Take Picture Now" in the Document menu.

To transfer a file using FTP, you must know the host name (which points to your ISP's web/ftp server), your user name, and password. The directory parameter can be blank or you can set the directory to send images/movies to a particular directory of the user's root directory.

Note: The directory parameter specifies the destination directory--it is not to be used as the file's name.

If you check Rename files, all images are sent to the remote server using a temporary file name. When the file is finished transferring, which might take 15 seconds or more, the existing file is deleted and the temp file is renamed to replace the old file. This operation usually doesn't take more than a few seconds--which means that the time that the file is unavailable to the web server is minimized. This box should be checked for normal operation.

When a file is transferred, the status of the transfer is specified in the "SiteCam Display" window as the last entry. If all goes well, you will get a message that says "Sending Complete" followed by a line that shows the number of good, bad, and skipped file transfers. A file transfer that ends in error will show up as bad. If a file is still being transferred when a new file is to be uploaded, that second attempt will be skipped, and the third attempt will kill the first attempt.

Cool feature: If you set SiteCam to archive images, SiteCam will automatically create sub folders for you. This lets you keep lots of images/movies on the remote server with a manageable number of files per directory.

To test FTP, select "Take Picture Now" in the Document menu.

Remember that to start automatically uploading images, you must select "Start Periodic Transfers" in the Document menu.

Debugging Your File Transfers

FTP file transfers can be tricky. A small typo can create big headaches.

The "Bad" count keeps going up.

The "Good" count is going up, but I can't find my images.

Use Fetch or Anarchie to double check the results by downloading files that you have uploaded. Use a date/time stamp with "seconds" so that you can know which file is which.

If you are using normal transfer mode with images set to something other than 1, you will get multiple files--with an index from 01 to nn. Just remember that image01.xxx is the most recent.

You should be able to set the directory to blank and verify that images are going to the root level of your accounts ftp server. Verify the results using an FTP client. If you need the images placed in a particular directory, just type it in to the "dir" field and try it again. If that doesn't work, try with or without a preceding forward slash.

When all else fails...

If you are behind a firewall, SiteCam will not work. Some FTP servers are simply incompatible with SiteCam. In these cases, you'll need to use AppleScript and an existing FTP client (which we assume you've gotten to work by now!)